Don’t Drink the Water

I was ten when I first asked my father why our town wasn’t on any map.

He just said, “Some places are better forgotten.”

Back then, it felt like one of those mysterious, grown-up things. Something I’d understand when I got older. But now I realize he wasn’t trying to keep a secret. He was trying to protect me.

Because Pine Hollow was never meant to be found.

We don’t have internet. Or phone towers. The only signal we ever get is from the old radio station that plays local weather and farm updates. No tourists. No deliveries. No road signs for fifty miles. Outsiders never come here. If they do, they don’t stay long.

People here keep to themselves. They wave politely. They smile. But they never tell you anything real. No one ever leaves. Or rather… no one ever comes back.

For years, I thought it was just small-town weirdness. Until last week.

Until my brother, Sean, came home from college.

He wasn’t supposed to. Not after what happened during spring break.

Sean had gone out hiking with two friends in the Pinewood Glades. They vanished for three days. When they found Sean, he was alone, dehydrated, and babbling about “skinwalkers in the lake” and “the mirror beneath the water.”

He never spoke again.

My parents shipped him off to a facility. Said it was for his own good. Said he wasn’t right anymore.

Then last Thursday, I found him standing in our kitchen.

Silent. Still. Soaking wet.

I didn’t tell anyone.

Not at first.

He just stared at me, water dripping from his hair, clothes clinging to his skin. I tried to ask where he’d come from, who let him out — but he didn’t speak. He didn’t blink.

Just walked past me, into the hallway, and locked himself in the bathroom.

That’s when I heard it.

The faucet.

Running. Pouring. Never stopping.

The next morning, he was gone again. No sign of him. But the sink was overflowing. The mirror was fogged. And scrawled across the steamed glass, in trembling finger-writing, were the words:

“DON’T DRINK THE WATER”

I told my dad. He went pale. Didn't speak for a full minute.

Then he opened the basement and pulled out a long, dust-covered wooden box. Inside: a hunting rifle, three canisters of iodine, and a rolled-up map that looked handmade.

No town names. No state lines. Just red ink marking lakes, rivers, and wells.

He pointed to the largest lake, circled twice in shaky pen: Pinewood Glade Reservoir.

“That place isn’t a lake anymore,” he said. “It’s a mouth.”

I didn’t understand.

But I followed him.

He drove us out to the edge of the glade — to where the forest opens into a massive, still body of water that reflects the sky too perfectly. There are no ripples. No birds. No bugs.

And the trees around it grow in twisted shapes, like they’re leaning away.

“Back in the '50s, they built the reservoir over an old mining site,” Dad explained. “Claimed it was clean. Good for the crops. Nobody knew what they were digging into back then.”

He paused. “Some kind of… hollow beneath it. Not dirt. Not rock. Just empty. Like a lung.”

They say water remembers.

But I think this water remakes.

Something happened to Sean. Something pulled him under and sent back a version of him made entirely wrong.

Now I see it clearly.

The reservoir isn’t a source.

It’s a filter.

It takes in people. Thoughts. Faces.

And gives something else in return.

That night, half the town showed up at our door. Not knocking — just standing. Quiet. Patient. Dozens of them. All staring with black-ringed eyes and skin that looked too thin.

One of them stepped forward — Mrs. Halley, who used to babysit me.

But she wasn’t blinking. Wasn’t breathing.

“We warned you,” she said, her voice like water gurgling through a clogged drain. “Now you’ve remembered.”

I slammed the door.

But they didn’t go away.

Now I sit in the attic with the rifle, the iodine, and one remaining jug of bottled water from out of town.

Everyone else drinks from the tap.

But I know better.

Sean came back once.

And last night, I saw him again — standing at the edge of the woods, mouth open like he was trying to scream.

But no sound came out.

Just water.