The Eleventh Hour Drowner

The village of Blackmere has always lived in the shadow of the river. It slithered through the land like a living thing, its dark waters swallowing the moonlight, refusing to reflect anything but emptiness. Fishermen whispered of something moving beneath the surface, something that churned and watched but never rose in daylight.

Blackmere was primitive, a village forgotten by time. Wooden cottages leaned against each other, their thatched roofs sagging under years of storm and sorrow. The people worked the land, fished the river, and feared the night. They feared it.

Every house had a story. Every family had a loss.

At first, the disappearances seemed like tragedies. A child wandering too far from home. A drunk staggering down the riverbank. A fisherman whose boat drifted back empty. But as the bodies began to surface—or rather, the husks that remained of them—the village could no longer deny the truth.

Their blood was gone. Their skin was drained, stretched thin over brittle bones. Their eyes, left wide open, held nothing but terror.

The elders spoke of the Drowner—a demon born from the river itself. It had no name beyond what it did, no purpose beyond its hunger. It did not seek vengeance. It did not make bargains. It did not punish sinners or reward the righteous. It simply took.

And it always took at the eleventh hour.

No one knew why, but when the village's crude clocks struck eleven, the river seemed to wake. The air grew damp, thick with the scent of rot. The wind carried whispers, a wet, gurgling voice that slid through the cracks of doors and shutters. And if you looked outside—God forbid you looked outside—you would see its eyes.

They were hollow yet endless, like pits filled with blackened water. They did not glow. They did not blink. They only consumed.

It rose from the river as if the water rejected it, its body shifting like liquid but shaped like a man—if a man could have limbs too long, fingers like reeds, and a mouth that stretched open far beyond what was natural. When it breathed, it hissed, its lungs never quite full, as if they were punctured, leaking with every inhale.

And when it moved, the world fell silent.

The dogs never barked. The insects never chirped. The wind never howled.

Because everything knew better than to make a sound.

The people of Blackmere learned, too. When the sky darkened and the river stilled, they locked their doors. They shut their windows. They whispered prayers to a God that never answered.

But some still disobeyed. Some still thought themselves brave. Some still lingered outside when the clock struck eleven.

And those were the ones who never saw the dawn.

The Last Warning

The last tale told of the Miller's son. He had been strong, bold, unwilling to believe in old wives' tales. He laughed when they warned him. He mocked the fear in their eyes. He said he would prove them wrong.

And so, when the clock struck eleven, he stood by the river.

The next morning, they found him.

Or rather, they found what was left of him.

His skin was white as death, his veins emptied of blood. His limbs bent in ways no human limbs should. And his eyes, his eyes were missing—only black, gaping sockets remained, filled with stagnant water.

After that, no one in Blackmere questioned the Eleventh Hour.

The housewives told their children the tale, whispered it into their ears before bed.

"Never be out when the clock strikes eleven, child. Never near the river. Never in the dark. Because the Drowner does not choose. It does not think. It only takes."

And so, when the sun fell and the winds died, the village fell silent.

Because no one knew what the Eleventh Hour meant to the demon.

But they knew what it meant to them.

It meant death.