You can now support Shaper Of Worlds on Patreon.
Urban Horrors: Bones In The Lake
There is an artificial lake in a big city. The lake is surrounded by a park—free growing grass around walkways, some trees, some bushes shielding the place from surrounding streets. A few swings and children's slides, some benches and tables. Nothing fancy but pleasant nonetheless. The lake itself has two small islands and some bridges going over corners, flocks of ducks and geese often roam around, and always a few people sit around throwing feeding birds with bread.
And yet, this place has a dark secret, both metaphorically and literally.
There are no beaches, the banks are steep, and there are warning signs reminding that swimming is forbidden here—the lake was never made suitable for it. The water is dark, most people looking at it are surprised by the feeling how deep it must be, though the impression fades away quickly forgotten. The lake never freezes, at least not completely. Always a few sulky people keep around spending their time by the water, though they are often spread far and wide, rarely acknowledging others.
One would have to be particularly keen observer, not easily swayed by distractions and misdirection, to notice those bland, gruff regulars are too bland, too indistinct, hard to recall and describe afterwards.
This hadn't caught anyone's attention, yet, but people are going missing. People no one will be looking for—homeless, junkies, drunks, runaway kids from far away. Such people slip through cracks in large cities every day after all. Here, though, here, they end in the lake—offerings from the regulars to the lake itself, sunk in the inky depths. Over the years so many deaths turned the lake into an abyss, no bottom, only darkness dwelling below, closer and closer to the surface with passing decades.
Is that an old god? An alien presence? A twisted genius loci? No one knows, not even the cultists that feed it. The thing is, spirits of the dead offerings are nowhere to be find for those who could seek them... Will that strangeness finally lead someone in the know to the lake?
The Past
Before the lake was made, before the city spread its ever-expanding bulk around this land, there was a rural community here. It was surrounding a small pond, feed by a stream or a spring, and in less enlightened times, it was customary to throw offerings into its waters. With time, though, the city grew and absorbed the village, the people moved away, the land was repurposed, the pond and the stream and spring landscaped into something else, and then into the lake again.
Many years later, some of the descendants of those who lived in the village returned. At first it was one or two... Then more of them came to live nearby, and more... And they started making sacrifices to the lake, to the depths—at first trinkets, then animals, then people. Not that many, a few each year, but it was enough, the link was made, the offering accepted. They sought more of their kinfolk and brought them to live in the surrounding city. Those who refused to return were left alone, those who would not keep the secret joined the sacrifices...
The Now
The cultists, if they can be called that, are but a handful of people, but each of them makes a few sacrifices each year and the numbers add. No one is suspecting anything amiss, at least not among law enforcement, city officials, or social workers. The cultists avoid targeting those who are living nearby, avoid connecting disappearances to the lake—which has no record of any drownings, not even suspected drownings. In fact, some of the cultists take care to keep local children away from water to avoid attracting undue attention.
The Cultists
Why do they do that? They probably could not really say themselves. As they make their sacrifices and their connection to the abyss at the bottom of the lake grows, they become less distinct, more vague, their lives become more and more distant, slowly dissolving in the shadows—while it might sound horrific it is anything but that—the lake slowly takes away mundane concerns, hardships of modern life, disappointments, failures, and regrets. The cultists are left with a sense of calm serenity. They might be dismissing their humanity in the process, but it feels right.
The Future
Is the force in the lake growing? Is the abyss deepening? Is its power a scam, a fake sense of tranquility holding humans-turned-monsters in its sway, but powerless to offer them anything but a narcotic bliss as they kill for it?
Or is that something more? A growing new deity? A sleeping old one? A gate elsewhere?
Can the cult be stopped? Or will the lake attract new servants if the old ones are rid of? And how could that even be done? With violence? Feeding the cultists to the lake itself?
What would happen if the lake itself was disturbed—if someone had the connections to have it drained, filled up, reshaped? Would that solve the problem... Or uncover whatever the darkness in the depths really is and doom the city?
