—A Reservoir Run Dry—
At half past ten, we arrived at the construction site for the reservoir.
The perimeter was enclosed by rattling sheets of blue corrugated metal that groaned and shivered in the night wind.
Stepping inside, the vast, hundred-acre basin lay before us, a dark scar in the landscape.
Michael was right—the embankments, the inlet, and the outlet were all complete. All that remained was the final excavation to deepen the basin. Heavy machinery—excavators and dump trucks—sat idle like sleeping beasts.
I crouched and scooped up a handful of earth. It was bone-dry, powdery. A deep unease settled in my gut. This was once the bed of an old reservoir.
How could the soil show no trace of ever having been saturated?
The strangeness of it made me turn to Michael. "When you first broke ground, Uncle Michael, was the earth damp? Did it get drier the deeper you dug?"
"Exactly," he said, his voice laced with the same confusion I felt. "I've worked on reservoir retrofits before. You're supposed to hit groundwater the deeper you dig. This place... it's completely backwards. "
I fell silent, turning the puzzle over in my mind.
"Rhan?" Michael pressed, anxiety edging his words. "Do you see the problem?"
"Not yet," I admitted, shaking my head. "Let's get some food first. I'll take a proper look later."
After a quick meal, I asked Michael to find us a place to rest. He'd wanted to put us up at a hotel in town, but I declined, requesting the workers' quarters instead. It would be more convenient for what I needed to do.
He led us to a two-story house in the nearby village.
"We didn't build a site dorm," he explained. "Just rented this place, closest to the reservoir. The crew stays here. Sometimes I do, too."
I found a room on the second floor. Exhausted from the previous sleepless night, I was out not long after I lay down.
I was pulled from sleep by the slow, mournful strains of a funeral dirge. For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. But no—the music was real. Someone was holding a vigil.
The window was dark. Michael wasn't in his room. Jasper and Clara were gone, too. My calls to their phones went unanswered, so I went out to investigate.
The dirge led me past rows of single-story homes to a house with a makeshift mourning tent set up outside. I spotted Jasper and Clara immediately. They rose quickly as I approached.
"What are you two doing here?" I asked.
"We ran into the landlord when we stepped out—the owner of the house we're staying in," Clara explained, a faint blush on her cheeks. "He insisted we join them for supper. We hadn't eaten, so..."
Jasper chimed in, his tone cheerful. "Yeah, you were conked out, boss, so we didn't wake you. Seriously, this guy's hospitality is next level. Make yourself at home!"
I didn't need to guess whose idea this was. I shot him a look, but before I could speak, a man wearing a black armband emerged. He was around thirty, with a kind, weathered face etched by sun and hard work.
"Jasper, this must be the Mr. Arcturus you mentioned?" the man asked, managing a polite, if sorrowful, smile.
"That's him," Jasper said. "Rhan, this is Fraser, our landlord."
I gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.
"Please, Mr. Arcturus," Fraser said, his smile genuine but tired. "Come inside. Eat with us."
"I really shouldn't impose..."
I began, but Fraser was already gently pulling me by the arm.
"No imposition at all! A skilled man like you honoring our table is a blessing for my family." His sincerity was disarming.
True to his word, Fraser was a gracious host. He seated me by the hearth, served a hearty stew, and we talked. I learned the vigil was for his mother.
---
—An Old Man's Warning—
I was nearly finished eating when an old man with a long-stemmed pipe approached.
"Not from around here, son?"
"No. We're from the south."
"The south... that's a long way." He took a thoughtful drag from his pipe. "Here about the trouble at the reservoir site?"
"We are. Just to look into it."
The old man responded with a low, dry chuckle.
"Something funny?" I asked.
"Just wondering," he said, his eyes sharp. "How long you been at this spirit-work?"
"Five or six years," I answered. My training under Grandpa wasn't exactly just about chasing ghosts, but it was close enough for this conversation.
"Five or six years?" He clucked his tongue. "A young man like you... there are better ways to make a living. Why wade into these muddy waters? Plenty have come to look at that reservoir. None fixed it. The ones who thought they could... well, they didn't fare well. Take an old man's advice. Turn back. That place is touched."
"Touched? How so?" This was exactly the kind of local detail I'd been hoping for.
He was quiet for a moment. "You know about the big snake they dug up?"
"I heard. The snake, and about the worker who died."
He gave a slow nod. "If you know that, I'll spare you the retelling. Let me tell you about the other strangeness."
Settling on the bench opposite me, he laid his pipe aside and began, his voice dropping to a storyteller's rumble.
"About a year back, the reservoir was full. I fished there myself. Then one night, we had a storm. Terrible thunder and lightning. After that... the water just started to vanish. Like a plug was pulled from the bottom. Drained bone-dry in less than a month."
It wasn't impossible—ground collapse, a hidden fissure opening up. Rare, but not unheard of. He leaned forward.
"Here's the strange part. When the water was gone... there wasn't a single fish left. No minnows, no tadpoles, nothing. We used to pull them out by the dozen. Where did they all go? You tell me."
I nodded slowly. That was strange.
"And that night of the storm," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "Some folks saw something fall from the sky. Right into the water."
"Something?" I prompted.
"Aye. A great big something. Don't know what. Some folks swore it was a dragon. A black one, they said. Came down in the storm and drank the reservoir dry." He shrugged, picking up his pipe again. "Truth or tale, I couldn't say."
It sounded like superstitious filler, but I pressed on. "Are there any older stories? Legends about that place?"
"Legends?" He lit his pipe, the smoke wreathing his lined face. "What kind of legends?"
"Any. Anything connected to the reservoir."
He took a long pull, squinting through the haze. "Can't say I rightly know any. But they're there, I'd wager." I could tell he'd reached the end of his useful knowledge. We made idle conversation for a while longer before I excused myself.
---
—Midnight Assembly—
After the meal, I sent Jasper to escort Clara back to the house. I was heading to the reservoir alone.
They'd offered to come, but I refused. A brief check was one thing, but I intended to stay until midnight, to observe the moment when the balance of residual and living energy—a time when veils are thin and hidden things sometimes stir.
The construction site was a pool of absolute darkness. The weak beam from my phone flashlight was my only guide. From around eight-thirty, I spent over an hour meticulously circling the silent excavators, feeling the ground, reading the air. I found nothing. No peculiar energy, no flaw in the local environment. Nothing.
It made no sense. The place had drawn calamity to itself—fatal accidents, colossal serpents—yet now it felt eerily dead, as if the land itself were holding its breath.
The minutes bled away, pulling me toward the witching hour. As the clock approached midnight, a new chill cut through the air—sharper than the night cold, carrying a metallic tang. I held my breath.
A new sound reached me. A skittering, scraping, multitude of tiny claws on packed earth.
Something was coming.
I swung my light around. The beam caught dozens—no, hundreds—of tiny pinpricks of reflected light, blinking into existence one after another in the dark. Rats.
They swarmed the edges of the site, materializing from the shadows. But these were no ordinary vermin. Many were grotesquely large. The biggest were the size of small cats, easily five or six pounds, their fur an unnatural, brassy gold.
They ignored my light completely. No panic, no scattering. They moved with a chilling, unified purpose, flowing past me like a furry, silent river, all heading in the same direction.
Curiosity overpowering caution, I followed. The swarm traveled several hundred meters before halting as one. They arranged themselves, not chaotically, but in a rough semi-circle on a patch of bare, newly-turned earth at the northwestern edge of the basin.
I swept my light around. It was an unremarkable spot. No equipment, just the same excavated soil as everywhere else. I hadn't given it a second glance during the day.
Even now, I could sense nothing unusual about the place itself, but the deliberate gathering of the rats piqued my curiosity.
I stayed where I was, forcing myself to remain still, waiting to see what ritual—or hunger—had drawn them here.