The waves were not the end. Those who thought the great nighttime surges of Lake Sinnissippi would fade into rumor have now been met by fresh signs that the story is only beginning. Fishermen who cast their lines this week along the south shore pulled up creatures that seemed to have come from a dream half-remembered, or a nightmare best forgotten. Their eyes, too large, stared at nothing. Their scales were translucent as if the lake had scrubbed them of color, and their fins stretched like fabric caught on the wind. They moved slowly, as though confused about which way water ought to flow. Some gasped and died within minutes, others clung on for hours, but none of them looked at all like fish from this world.

Those who know the lake best say they’ve never seen anything like it. Darma Kirchoff, who has fished Lake Sinnissippi for twenty years, muttered that her catch “looked like it forgot how to be a fish.” She refused to cook it. She refused even to throw it back. She buried it under gravel as though it might spread if left too close to the water. By the following night, more and more anglers whispered about similar catches. And then word spread of a fish kill near the inlet where one of the waves struck hardest. The shoreline glittered with bodies.

Then, the rain returned. This time it carried a metallic tang that clung to skin and rooftops. A few residents, curious or cautious, left glass jars outside to capture the drops. When the jars were brought to the Washington Laboratory the next day, scientists found what no one wanted to hear. Cesium-137. Iodine-131. Words that belong to fallout clouds and accident zones, not to a Midwestern lake town. The quantities were small, barely above the thresholds that trigger alarms, but enough to prove that something had slipped into the air and drifted down again with the storm.

It would be tempting to laugh it off, to say the rain only smelled odd because people were primed for strangeness after the waves. But the readings tell another story. They speak of invisible particles falling quietly on rooftops and lawns, soaking into soil, sliding down drains into Lake Sinnissippi itself. The mayor’s office, brief as ever, assured the public that no danger had been confirmed. Cooperation with federal partners is ongoing. Nothing to fear, they said, even as armored vehicles were seen rolling away from the HSL base the same night the water rose against the moonlight.

The question is not whether Lake Sinnissippi has secrets. It always has. The question is whether this time it wants to keep them. The Chorus will keep listening, as the voices of the water rise and fall, as jars of rain are lifted to the light, as the strange fish continue to surface. If you have seen them, if you have tasted the metallic drops, if you have glimpsed the shadows moving along the base fence after midnight, write to us. The song grows louder with each voice added, and it is only together that Cinniapolis can learn what its lake is trying to say.