What Lies Beneath

The air inside the cottage was colder than the summer night outside. Ewan shivered as soon as he stepped in, droplets of lake water still clinging to his skin. The faint smell of damp stone always hung in this place, no matter how often the windows were opened.

His guardian sat waiting at the low table, posture straight, eyes sharper than the lamplight flickering at his side. Ewan froze. He knew that look. It was disappointment.

“You’re late,” the guardian said. The voice was calm, but each word carried weight. “And you’re weaker than you should be.”

“I’m not,” Ewan muttered, trying to pass by. He grabbed a towel from the back of a chair and scrubbed his hair dry, avoiding the other’s gaze.

“You have been feeding.”

Ewan’s hands stilled. His chest tightened as if invisible strings had pulled taut.

The guardian rose to his feet, expression unreadable, though the set of his jaw betrayed strain. “I should have noticed sooner. You’re not pale or frail. Your eyes aren’t dull.”

Ewan’s heart kicked in panic. He hadn't felt the hunger in sometime now. “That’s… good, isn’t it?”

“It is.” The words cracked like ice. “When we deny what we are, we wither,” He stepped closer, searching Ewan’s face. “You look more alive than I’ve ever seen you.”

Ewan forced himself not to flinch. Because of Rory, he thought. He hadn’t needed to drain dreams because Rory’s presence filled him in ways he couldn’t explain. Every laugh, every careless grin, every moment in the sun beside him, it had been enough. It was wrong, but it was also the only time he had felt right.

The guardian’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Who sustains you, Ewan?”

He bit his lip. He couldn’t answer.

“I see.” The guardian’s gaze narrowed. “So it’s the boy. The one you’ve grown close to.”

Ewan’s throat burned. He hated how easily the truth had been dragged out of him.

“That explains why the townspeople are no longer wary of you.” The guardian’s tone turned grave. “Your hunger made them uneasy before. Predators can sense predators. Now, with your craving dulled, you pass among them more easily. You almost seem… human.”

The word cut like a blade.

Ewan dropped the towel and turned away, fists trembling. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to live here, like them?”

“It was an experiment, a mission, what I want doesn't come into it,” the guardian replied, cool and even. “To see if one of us could be raised among humans, hidden, safe. But you’ve let yourself be discovered once already.”

Ewan spun, eyes widening. “What?”

“You think I didn’t notice? Someone saw you feeding, didn’t they?” The guardian’s voice was low, certain. “That’s why you stopped. That’s why you cling to the boy instead of your nature.”

Ewan’s stomach dropped. His body remembered the moment, the slip, the accident, the one time he had leaned too close into someone’s dream and left them hollow-eyed in the morning. He had seen the suspicion in their gaze. He had never forgiven himself.

The guardian stepped closer, shadows shifting with him. “It is too soon. The world is not ready for us. You’ll return beneath the lake with me.”

The words rang with finality.

Ewan staggered back as if struck. “No. You can’t…”

“It’s decided,” the guardian said. “You’ll sleep again, until more years have passed. Until it’s safer. We will work on the information we have gathered so far..”

The air seemed to vanish from the room. Ewan gripped the edge of the table to steady himself, his knuckles white. All he could think was of Rory, of his laugh scattering across the water, of the heat in his hand when he pulled Ewan to shore, of the kiss that still lingered even though he had tried to erase it.

If he left now, Rory would never know why. He would think it was something he had done, that Ewan had recoiled because of him. That the kiss was wrong and unwanted. That there was no feeling in return.

The thought ripped something inside him open.

“I won’t go,” Ewan whispered. His voice shook, but the fire in it surprised even him.

The guardian’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Then I’ll make one.” Ewan’s breath came fast, sharp. “If I have to disappear, if I have to go under forever, then he deserves to know. Who I am. What I am. How I…” His voice cracked, trembling against the truth he had never dared to speak aloud. “...how I feel.”

Silence pressed heavy between them. The guardian’s face remained unreadable as if carved from stone.

“Do you think he’d love you if he saw your true form? Our kind weren’t made to live in the daylight. We feed on what they dream. You’ll regret it,” the guardian said at last.

“Maybe,” Ewan said, his voice breaking but resolute. “But not as much as I’d regret saying nothing.”

He turned away, toward the window where the lake glimmered faintly under the moon. The water seemed to pulse with the weight of centuries, calling him back. But for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to answer.

This time, he would choose Rory.

No matter what it cost.

****