The Silent Gospel of Drowned Saints : A Town That Fed Its People to the Water
In 1903, thirty-three souls baptized something in Lake Mourning. Now its gospel writes itself in human skin, pulps towns into parchment, and hungers for a final verse...
Season 1
THE BAPTISM LEDGER
The Night of 107 Souls
June 1903 wasn't the first baptism.
The church records burned in 1898 revealed:
Cycle every 23 years since 1781
Each revival more elaborate than the last
Reverend Hale's predecessors all ended up in the lake
The Search Party's Fate
Those who dove after the converts:
Returned with quartz teeth and hymns for blood
Their skin became translucent, showing riverbed maps beneath
All walked back into the lake by winter solstice
The Weighting Ritual
The stones chosen weren't random:
Carved with inverted crosses
Wrapped in pages from fake bibles
Blessed by Hale himself before sinking
Yet by dawn, every stone floated, their surfaces now bearing:
The names of future victims
Elara Voss' birthdate
A single command: "FEED THE WORD"
THE LINGUIST'S DAMNATION
Chapter 1: The Box of Drowned Tongues
The contract arrived with three artifacts:
A Wax Cylinder
Played Hale's last sermon backward: "They stand on the ceiling of heaven"
Left leeches in the listener's ears that spell prophecies
The 1903 Nickel
When flipped, shows different dates (1824, 1867, 1946)
Pressed against skin, burns hymn lyrics into flesh
The Pericardium Contract
Grows new clauses nightly
Clause 19: "The Translator shall become the Ink"
First Dive Discoveries
The lake's true depth: 66,666 feet (impossible for the region)
Faces in the silt that recite Elara's future
Her dive suit stitching reforms into musical notation
Chapter 2: The Choir of the Upside-Down Church
The Midnight Mass
At 11:47 PM, the lake becomes a mirror to another church:
Pews hang from the "ceiling" (actually another lake surface)
Hale's skeleton preaches inverted sermons
The 33 converts float upward into the anti-lake
The 187 Hidden Converts
Deeper than the original 33:
Their skin is parchment
Their veins form illuminated letters
They sing through gills that spell Elara's name
Elara's Transformation
Her tongue bifurcates into quill pens
Her teeth become movable type
Her tears write psalms on her cheeks
THE LIVING SCRIPTURE
Chapter 4: The Wells to Nowhere
The 33 marked wells:
Each exactly 66.6 feet deep
Contain copies of the Gospel written in:
Algae that rearranges itself
Spiders' webs that hum when touched
Root systems that bleed when cut
The Town's Complicity
Blackwater's families:
Paid in silver (melted from baptismal fonts)
Ate fish that tasted like their missing relatives
Dreamt collectively of the thing under the pulpit
Chapter 5: The Minnow Miracles
Elara's bodily changes escalate:
Sneezes release schools of fish with human eyes
Her hair grows lakeweed that writes prophecies
Her reflection ages independently, showing her as a future saint
The Third Baptism
A new group volunteers to drown:
Their skin already translucent
Their voices harmonize without mouths
They carry stones bearing Elara's face
THE GREAT SWALLOWING
The Lake's Revelation
When drained, it reveals:
A cathedral of fused corpses (all past translators)
Hale's true form: a living quill made of drowned flesh
The Gospel's author: a thing that writes with entire towns
Elara's Choice
Become the Ink: Her body dissolves to write the next chapter
Become the Pen: Her bones reshape into a tool for the Word
Become the Preacher: Her voice leads the next 107
As Elara chooses, the lake rises to meet the sky—and Blackwater isn't the first town to float
================================================
If your pulse still echoes the lake’s hunger... if your skin prickles at the thought of ink that writes itself... don’t turn the page just yet
Stay tuned...The Second Baptism begins this thursday.
Follow to witness:
The 107 new converts marching from deeper waters
The preacher who walks on the ceiling of heaven
The moment Elara learns: Blackwater was only practice
💬 Which fate would you choose?
Become the Ink? The Pen? Or the Preacher?
Comment below—the drowned are listening...
❤️ Leave a heartbeat | 🔔 Follow for the descent
📜 Remember: Some scriptures don’t save souls. They unspool them.
Sleep with your windows closed.
—The water is already rising
About the Creator
Tales That Breathe at Night
I write what lingers in the dark—true horrors veiled in fiction, fiction rooted in truth. Some tales are whispered in graveyards, others buried in silence. If it gave someone nightmares, I’ll write it. Some stories remember you, too.
Keep reading
More stories from Tales That Breathe at Night and writers in Horror and other communities.
One to See, One to Speak, One to Listen
Contains gore and horror some readers may find disturbing. Rated 14+ Author's Intro: This story is meant to revive the Gothic literature so famously crafted by one of my favourite writer's, Edgar Allen Poe, and as such, the language and style is deliberately antiquated. Thank you for reading my all time favourite work of horror - Les
By Call Me Les20 days ago in Horror
Stories Told At Twilight
A 300-word flash fiction regarding the above image: She never realized the pale blue of her eyes until now. Pressing the palm of her hands against the cold porcelain sink, she sank deeper into her own gaze. Her eyes were not only pale but striking.
By JB Inglanda day ago in Horror
Comments (1)
Quite a scary and wonderful story!!!