🌒 The Library Beneath the Lake 🌒
A surrealist tale of forgotten books, shifting identities, and the weight of remembering what never was.
Part I: The Town That Forgot It Had a Lake
No one remembered the lake until it reappeared.
For years, the land behind the bakery had been a dry basin—wild grasses and rusted shopping trolleys nestled under dragonfly wings. Children biked through it. Dogs chased imaginary ghosts across it. And everyone agreed:
“There’s never been a lake here.”
Until one morning, after a night of no rain, the basin was full.
Still water. Black as spilled ink.
And in its center, just barely visible beneath the surface: the outline of a building.
Part II: The Book and the Bell
Theo, who swept the floors at the town’s forgotten museum (a museum no one visited, and which occasionally rearranged its own exhibits), was the first to dive in.
He had found a book on his doorstep that morning—bound in velvet moss, smelling faintly of petrichor and burnt paper. It had one sentence:
“Come down before you forget again.”
Theo didn’t question it.
He simply took a bell from the museum’s sound exhibit, tied it around his wrist with twine, and walked into the lake until it swallowed him whole.
He didn’t drown.
Part III: The Library Without Time
Under the water, time became… elastic.
Theo blinked, and the lake turned into a library—vast, gothic, ceilingless. Shelves twisted upward into fog. Books floated between them like sleeping birds. The air smelled of damp parchment and thunder.
A woman was waiting at the first desk.
She had no face, only a quill resting where her mouth might be.
“What do you remember?” she asked, though her voice was more sensation than sound.
Theo hesitated.
“I’m not sure what I’ve forgotten.”
She handed him a key shaped like a treble clef and motioned toward a corridor labeled:
“FORGOTTEN FUTURES & UNWRITTEN PASTS”
He walked.
Part IV: Rooms That Read You Back
Each room in the library was a question.
In one, he watched his childhood rewritten—his mother speaking backwards, his house folding itself into a suitcase.
In another, he saw hundreds of versions of himself stacked like nesting dolls:
- A painter who only used shades of regret.
- A thief who stole people’s names and gave them new ones.
- A librarian who burned books just to remember how they felt.
In the room of silence, he saw a door marked simply:
“This Was Supposed To Be You.”
He didn’t go in.
But something inside knocked.
Part V: The Whisper and the Choice
Eventually, Theo found the central chamber.
The water dripped upward here.
Floating above the center: a book with his name on the spine.
Not his name exactly. But one he recognized from a dream.
He reached for it.
The faceless woman appeared again, holding out two objects:
- A candle made of ash.
- A stone shaped like an echo.
“One will help you remember.
One will let you forget with grace.”
Theo took neither.
Instead, he asked:
“Why was I brought here?”
And for the first time, her voice cracked:
“Because we lost the librarian.
And someone must keep the stories that don’t exist.”
Part VI: Above the Lake, Years Later
The town forgot Theo.
They told stories of a boy who disappeared into rain that never fell. Some said he ran away. Others blamed the museum. A few mentioned the lake, but no one could agree if it was ever really there.
Sometimes at night, people near the old basin hear the soft chime of a bell beneath the ground.
And if you’re very still—
and very quiet—
you might see the shadow of a building in the ripples of a puddle,
and hear books whispering in a language you’ve almost learned.
“Not all stories are remembered because they were told.
Some exist because someone chose to remember them anyway.”
Where memory sinks, stories rise—and the lake never truly dries.
Note:
Thank you for reading “The Library Beneath the Lake”! This is a story in a series created for avid readers and English learners who want to enjoy captivating tales while practicing their language skills. Stay tuned for more stories and language tips to enhance your journey!
Explore more short stories in English and Spanish by visiting the section:
Short Stories / Cuentos Cortos
When the world feels dull, your mind restless, or your heart heavy, let a story be your escape. Just one page, one sentence, one word—and suddenly, you’re somewhere new, where imagination breathes life into the ordinary and turns the simplest moments into magic.
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