Shallows beneath Black Jack's Mill Bridge

The churning water of the river carries the Doctor and Ace downstream, their lungs burning as they surface within the shadows of the bridge’s timber supports. The current’s relentless pull drags at their clothes, the cold biting through fabric as fallen leaves swirl around them. Air rushes past their ears, the distant roar of the falls ahead barely audible over the water’s hiss against stone. The far bank looms, thick with reeds and the skeletal remains of dead trees, their branches clawing at the surface like desperate fingers. They claw toward the shallows, hands slipping on slick mud, boots sinking into the riverbed’s silt as they haul themselves onto solid ground, gasping and shivering.