The Lights Beyond Stillwater
In the quiet town of Stillwater, two teenagers vanish after a night under strange lights. Years later, the mystery lingers beneath the lake’s surface — waiting for anyone who dares to remember.
Everyone in Stillwater saw the lights that night—bright, pulsing orbs that hovered low over the lake like they were searching for something. By morning, two people had vanished, and no one talked about it again.
I was seventeen when it happened. We had driven out to the ridge for a late bonfire, the way teenagers do when they think the night belongs to them. Around midnight, the sky cracked open with a low, humming sound, and the lake below lit up in a sickly green glow.
At first, we thought it was some kind of prank—drones, maybe, or a military exercise. But then the ground beneath us seemed to breathe, rising and falling like the earth itself was unsettled. Phones died all at once. Radios sputtered into static. The air smelled like burning metal.
Carter and Jenna had wandered down the trail toward the water, laughing and shouting into the darkness. When the lights shifted and a beam pierced through the trees, everything went silent—no wind, no insects, not even the crackle of our dying fire.
We called for them until our voices broke, but they were gone. No footprints, no broken branches, no sign they had ever been there at all. Just a soft, lingering vibration in the earth under our feet, like the aftermath of a deep bell tolling.
The police wrote it off as runaway teenagers. Parents nodded grimly and locked their doors. Within weeks, the town acted like Carter and Jenna had never existed.
But some nights—especially when the mist rolls in heavy from the lake—you can still see the lights flickering under the surface, deep and slow, like something waiting.
And if you listen closely, you might hear footsteps on the trail behind you, even when you're sure you're alone.
I was seventeen when it happened. We had driven out to the ridge for a late bonfire, the way teenagers do when they think the night belongs to them. Around midnight, the sky cracked open with a low, humming sound, and the lake below lit up in a sickly green glow.
At first, we thought it was some kind of prank—drones, maybe, or a military exercise. But then the ground beneath us seemed to breathe, rising and falling like the earth itself was unsettled. Phones died all at once. Radios sputtered into static. The air smelled like burning metal.
Carter and Jenna had wandered down the trail toward the water, laughing and shouting into the darkness. When the lights shifted and a beam pierced through the trees, everything went silent—no wind, no insects, not even the crackle of our dying fire.
We called for them until our voices broke, but they were gone. No footprints, no broken branches, no sign they had ever been there at all. Just a soft, lingering vibration in the earth under our feet, like the aftermath of a deep bell tolling.
The police wrote it off as runaway teenagers. Parents nodded grimly and locked their doors. Within weeks, the town acted like Carter and Jenna had never existed.
But some nights—especially when the mist rolls in heavy from the lake—you can still see the lights flickering under the surface, deep and slow, like something waiting.
And if you listen closely, you might hear footsteps on the trail behind you, even when you're sure you're alone.
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