The Keeper of the Dry Fountain

My grandmother always told me that if you want to see what the world is truly made of, you have to believe it can hurt you. I took that to heart, and it’s why I’ve seen things others haven’t. I’ve seen the flicker of a match in a room where no one stood, felt cold fingertips on the back of my neck in the middle of July, heard my name called from the bottom of a well that had been sealed for decades. They come to me because I open the door. I never close it all the way.

This story is about the summer of 2015, the hottest one I can remember. The asphalt in our town square shimmered like a mirage, and the air tasted like copper. My friends and I—Danny, Marcus, and Lila—used to spend those endless afternoons at the Old Recreation Complex, a sprawling relic from the 1970s. It sat on the edge of a residential neighborhood, but its grounds stretched deep into a tangle of overgrown trees and abandoned pathways, as if the complex had swallowed part of the woods. Two buildings stood there: the main hall, which still hosted bingo nights for the elderly and summer camps for kids, and the Annex, a smaller, boarded-up structure that had been closed since the 1990s. We never went into the Annex. We just liked the shade of its porch and the way the wind made the loose shutters knock like an impatient visitor.

One day, our usual spot near the dry fountain in front of the Annex felt different. The air was thicker, and the knocking of the shutters was faster, as if something inside wanted to be let out. Marcus dared us to go closer. ‘Just to the window,’ he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. ‘I heard a noise inside. Like a dog scratching.’ Lila rolled her eyes, but her hands were trembling. I felt a pull, that familiar itch under my skin, and I knew this wasn’t just our bored imagination. I said, ‘I’ll go.’ I stepped up to the boarded window, and through a gap in the plywood, I saw a pair of glinting eyes. They were too low to be a person’s, too large to be an animal’s. I stumbled back, and Danny laughed, saying it was just a trick of the light. But I knew better. I had opened the door.

That night, I dreamed of the fountain. In the dream, it was flowing with black water, and from the basin climbed a figure made of mud and leaves, its face a smooth, featureless mask. It reached for me, and I woke with a scream caught in my throat. The next day, we went back. The real fountain had a crack in its basin, running like a vein. I saw a single, dry leaf floating in the dust at its bottom, though no tree grew within twenty feet. I told my friends about the dream, but they laughed. ‘It’s just the heat,’ Lila said. But then we heard it—a low, rasping breath from behind the Annex’s door. We all froze. The door, which had been padlocked for years, was slightly ajar.

We should have run. Instead, we pushed it open. Inside, the air was cool and damp, a stark contrast to the oven outside. Cobwebs hung like funeral veils, and the floor was covered in a layer of dust that rose in ghastly plumes with each step. In the center of the main room, there was a dry fountain—identical to the one outside, but smaller and made of cracked ceramic. A figure stood beside it, motionless. It was tall and thin, with skin like bark, and it wore a tattered suit that looked from another century. Its face was a void, a hollow where features should have been, and from that void came the rasping breath we had heard.

My friends screamed and ran. I stayed. I couldn’t move, not because I was frozen in fear, but because I felt a strange recognition. The figure tilted its head, and a voice, like grinding stones, came from nowhere and everywhere. ‘You see me. You believe. You are welcome.’ I wanted to run, but my legs were rooted. The figure took a step closer, and I saw that its hands were missing, only blackened stumps at the ends of its arms. ‘I have been waiting for someone who would believe,’ it said. ‘The fountain has been dry for so long. But you can bring the water back.’ It gestured to a porcelain jug at its feet. ‘Fill it with your belief. And the fountain will run red.’

My friends were outside, shouting my name. I snapped out of it and ran. We didn’t speak much after that, and we agreed to never go back. But I couldn’t shake the images. That night, I lay awake, and I felt a cold draft seep through the window. A leaf drifted in and landed on my pillow—the same dry leaf from the fountain. I picked it up, and it crumbled to dust, leaving a dark stain on my sheets. I saw the shape of the figure in my doorway, watching. It didn’t move, but I heard the voice again, softer this time. ‘You believe. So I can follow.’

A week later, my friends started to change. Lila said she saw a man in the corner of her room at night, his face missing. Marcus found scratches on his arms that he couldn’t explain. Danny stopped talking to us entirely; he just stared at walls, muttering about a dry fountain. I knew it was my fault. I had opened the door, and now it was open for all of them. I went back to the Annex alone, determined to close it. The door was open, as if waiting. Inside, the fountain was no longer dry. It was overflowing with black, oily water that reflected a sky that wasn’t there. The figure stood by it, and this time, it had a face—mine. It smiled with my mouth and said, ‘You filled it. Thank you.’

I ran out of there, and I didn’t stop until I was home. But that night, I saw him in every mirror, in every dark window. He was me, and I was him. I’ve spent the last two years trying to forget, but the world has changed. It’s colder now, even in summer. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see the dry fountain, and I know it’s only a matter of time before I start to whisper its name.