Whispers Beneath the Crimson Lake

 

It began with a letter — yellowed at the edges and sealed with wax, slipped beneath the creaky door of Evelyn’s antique bookstore in Northern Maine. The handwriting was elegant, old-fashioned. It read:

Dearest Evelyn Gray,
I believe you hold a map in your possession — one that belonged to your late grandfather. If so, meet me at the Crimson Lake Inn at dusk this Friday. There is something beneath the water. Something that must never wake.
Yours in urgency,
L.

Evelyn hadn’t touched the old map in years. She’d found it in a false drawer of her grandfather’s desk, drawn in faded ink with strange symbols along its borders — and an "X" at the center of Crimson Lake, which, despite its name, was no more than a black pit surrounded by thick woods and whispered legends.

She should’ve burned it. But instead, Evelyn packed a satchel, tucked the map inside a leather case, and set off to the lake.

The inn was crooked and forgotten, much like the town itself. And sitting in the lounge, where time seemed to hang in thick cobwebs and peeling wallpaper, was a man with storm-grey eyes and a scar that ran from temple to jaw.

“You came,” he said, standing up.

“And you are?” she asked, heart already beating faster than she’d like.

“Lorien,” he said. “I was your grandfather’s companion once. And I think we may be the last ones alive who know what he tried to bury.”

Evelyn narrowed her eyes. “You said something beneath the lake. What is it?”

Lorien looked out the fogged window, toward the shadowed lake that glistened like oil in the moonlight.

“A god,” he whispered. “Or the memory of one. And it dreams in hunger.”

They rowed at dawn.

Mist clung to the water like a veil, hiding everything but the soft sound of paddles cutting through the stillness. Evelyn unfolded the map. The "X" pulsed in her mind like a heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“No one should,” Lorien replied. “But if we don’t ensure it stays buried, it’ll rise. It always tries, once every seventy-seven years. And your bloodline, Evelyn... your family were its keepers.”

As they reached the center of the lake, the water darkened further, as if it swallowed the light. Lorien threw a rusted anchor down. A chain of bones was wrapped around it.

Then they dove.

The descent was a blur of pressure and shadows. They wore archaic diving suits from Lorien’s pack, enchanted with glyphs she didn’t understand.

At the bottom was a stone altar, cracked and ancient. Around it, stone figures with hollow eyes and open mouths — screaming in eternal silence.

Evelyn felt something stir behind her eyes. A voice. A song.

Evelyn…

She staggered back, clutching her head. Lorien pulled her away just as the altar began to glow with a sickly crimson light.

“We’re too late!” he yelled, bubbles rising. “It’s waking!”

But then Evelyn did something strange — she reached out to the altar.

And it responded to her touch like a lover’s sigh.

They surfaced, gasping. The sky had turned a bruised violet. Time had shifted. It was no longer morning.

“You touched it,” Lorien said, terrified. “Why?”

Evelyn blinked, dazed. “It was calling to me. It sounded like... my grandfather.”

Lorien’s face hardened. “That wasn’t him. It mimics. It lures.”

But Evelyn was already hearing it again, inside her mind.

You are mine, Evelyn Gray. As your mother was. And hers before. You are my anchor to the waking world.

The trees around them bent, unnatural. And in the distance, something began crawling from the lake — a figure shaped like a man but made of shadow and dripping grief.

They ran to the chapel ruins on the lake’s north edge — a place her grandfather once sealed with holy iron.

Inside, Lorien drew salt circles, chanted in a forgotten tongue.

Evelyn stood at the doorway, watching the figure approach. She should’ve been horrified.

But she wasn’t.

She felt… drawn to it.

It stopped just outside the threshold. The creature knelt.

“You have returned,” it said in a voice of many — men, women, children — all layered. “Come with me, Evelyn. I am the hollow, and I am your love.”

Evelyn’s heart ached. Her memories twisted. She saw visions of herself in past lives, walking with this being, in different eras — always drawn to it, always doomed.

“It’s not real,” Lorien said behind her. “It’s a parasite. A god of longing and illusion. That’s how it binds its chosen — with love.”

“But what if that love is real?” Evelyn whispered.

Lorien tried to bind the entity with silver chains from his satchel. But Evelyn stopped him.

“I need to know,” she said. “I need to remember.”

“Evelyn, don’t—!”

But she stepped over the threshold.

The creature embraced her, and in that moment, she saw it — the truth.

It had loved her. Across centuries, it had taken mortal forms to find her. And when her ancestors betrayed it, binding it beneath the lake, it wept.

It was a god of love once, before sorrow corrupted it.

“I never meant to be a monster,” it whispered. “Only to be loved.”

Evelyn kissed its forehead.

And she chose.

Lorien screamed, drawing a blade of starlight. But Evelyn raised her hand.

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t deserve to be caged again.”

The entity — whose name was lost to time — looked at her with ancient, broken eyes.

“I can’t stay here,” it said. “Not in this form. Not in this world.”

“Then take me with you,” Evelyn said softly.

Lorien stepped back in horror. “Evelyn, don’t! You’ll vanish. You’ll die!”

She smiled at him sadly. “I’d rather die loving something true than live half-awake.”

The entity opened a gate — a rift of stars and water. Evelyn turned one last time, tears streaming down.

“Thank you for protecting me, Lorien.”

Then she was gone.

The lake was calm again. Lorien stayed at the inn for another year, alone. Some nights, he saw a woman walking on the water’s surface. Other times, he dreamed of Evelyn — not as she was, but radiant, in a world beyond, holding the hand of a shadow turned to light.

He never told another soul what happened.

Only that love can be a haunting thing.

Especially when it’s real.