"The Truth Beneath the Surface"

Start writing...The small town of Elmridge had always been a quiet place, nestled between forested hills and a wide, mirror-like lake. People liked it that way—predictable, peaceful, and untouched by time. But beneath the calm waters and polite smiles, secrets ran deep, hidden like stones at the bottom of the lake.

Clara Jensen had grown up in Elmridge but left after high school, eager to escape its sleepy confines. She hadn’t planned on returning. But after her mother’s sudden death, Clara had no choice but to come back and sort through the estate. Her childhood home, creaky and dust-covered, felt like a time capsule sealed with grief and old memories.

Clara hadn’t even been back a day when she began to sense something was off. The townspeople were friendly, too friendly, like they were trying to distract her from something. Everyone kept saying how sorry they were about her mother, how tragic it was—“drowning in her own backyard, how awful.” But Clara knew her mother wasn’t a careless woman. She had been an experienced swimmer, and the lake behind the house wasn’t deep.

That night, Clara stood by the shore, the wind stirring her hair. The lake looked calm, but there was a strange smell in the air, metallic and sour. She knelt down, dipped her fingers in the water, and immediately recoiled. The water was too warm, unnaturally so, and tinged with a faint reddish sheen.

Curiosity turned into obsession. Clara began digging into the town’s records, looking through old newspaper articles and public reports. The further she searched, the more she uncovered—and none of it made sense. There had been a dozen drownings in the lake over the past twenty years, most written off as accidents. But there were patterns. All the victims had lived near the lake. All had died in early spring. And none of the bodies had been autopsied.

She brought her findings to Sheriff Dawes, an old friend of her mother’s. He dismissed her with a tight smile and a hand on her shoulder. “Some things are better left buried, Clara.”

That night, Clara broke into the town archive.

In the basement of the library, she found boxes of sealed reports and hand-written letters, hidden behind a false wall. Her mother’s name was on several documents—warnings sent to town council, environmental complaints, even photos of the lake glowing faintly at night.

And then she found a map. Beneath the lake was an old mine shaft, sealed off in the 1940s after a collapse. No one talked about it anymore. But the letters suggested something had been uncovered in that mine—something not entirely natural. One letter, written by her mother just a month before her death, simply said: “It’s still alive. The lake feeds it. We’re all feeding it.”

Clara didn’t sleep that night.

At dawn, she took her mother’s canoe out onto the lake. The fog hung low over the water, thick and unmoving. Halfway across, her paddle struck something solid. Heart racing, she looked down. A shape shifted beneath the surface—too large to be a rock, too smooth to be a tree trunk.

Suddenly, the canoe lurched. Something bumped it from beneath. Clara grabbed her phone to record, but the screen flickered, then died. The air turned cold. A low hum vibrated through the water.

She paddled back in a frenzy, leapt onto the dock, and sprinted into the house. She packed what she could, her mind racing. She had to leave, had to tell someone outside the town. But as she backed out of the driveway, a figure stepped into the road.

Sheriff Dawes. He raised a hand slowly, motioning for her to stop.

“You found it, didn’t you?” he said, voice low.

“What is it?” Clara demanded. “What’s under the lake?”

He didn’t answer. Just looked tired.

“It’s not a monster. Not in the way you think. It’s ancient. Older than the mine, older than this town. It doesn’t want to hurt us. But it needs us. We made a deal, years ago. Your mother tried to break it. And now… you have a choice.”

Clara stared at him, heart pounding. “What choice?”

He sighed. “Stay, and help keep the balance. Or leave, and let others suffer the consequences.”

She looked toward the lake. It was still now, calm as glass. But beneath that surface, something watched and waited.

She could leave. Run, tell the world. But would anyone believe her? Or would they just think she was grieving and delusional?

As the morning sun rose over Elmridge, Clara stood at the crossroads—between truth and silence, between safety and sacrifice.

And the lake, ever hungry, shimmered behind her, waiting for her answer.