Chapter 2: “There’s a Headless Counselor in the Woods”
Scene 1: “This Morning’s Headcount Was... Off”
Todd woke up with pine needles in his mouth and the unmistakable feeling that someone—possibly the universe—was whispering “Run faster this time” directly into his dreams.
He opened his eyes. Doug was hovering at eye level, tail gently wafting back and forth, eyes glowing faintly like haunted nightlights.
“Morning,” Todd croaked. “Did I sleepwalk into a shrub again?”
Doug blinked. “Technically, the shrub walked into you.”
“Helpful.”
He rolled out of bed, coughed out a twig, and checked his hoodie pocket for a granola bar he’d stashed the night before. It was gone. Replaced by a single peanut and a note written in scratchy squirrel script:
We know.
Todd shoved the peanut into his mouth and told himself it definitely wasn’t a threat.
By the time he stumbled into the mess hall, the rest of the gang was already seated around a table that looked like it had seen one too many exorcisms and not enough Clorox wipes.
Jessie was mid-bite into a pancake that still looked emotionally raw.
“This has the texture of betrayal,” he mumbled, chewing anyway.
Rachel sat beside him, dissecting a hard-boiled egg with surgical precision. She hadn’t looked up once. Probably because she was staring directly through the wall at the woods outside.
Zara sipped something herbal and aggressively purple. “Doug says the ley lines are tense.”
“I’m tense,” Todd grumbled, grabbing a juice box and immediately dropping it. A squirrel was clinging to the ceiling beam above him, twitching, and dragging its tiny paw through a pile of dead leaves to spell out:
H E L P M E
Todd froze. “Okay. Okay, no. I am not decoding ceiling squirrel morse today. I need breakfast and a non-cryptic morning.”
Rachel finally looked up. “You’re the one with Echo aura now. You glow like cursed bait.”
Chip—cheerfully undead or just very over-caffeinated—stepped up to the front of the mess hall, his name tag freshly laminated and glinting like a warning.
“Good morning, Camp Dreadmoor!” he chirped, too loudly. “Just a heads-up: Counselor Brenna has taken a spontaneous spiritual leave! Please direct all cabin-related questions to Counselor Chip, Counselor Chip, or—if you must—our intern, Kevin.”
Kevin stood in the back corner, clutching a mesh garlic pouch and a walkie-talkie that was gently oozing mist.
Rachel leaned closer to Todd and muttered, “More like beheaded PTO.”
Todd blinked. “I’m sorry—what?”
Jessie didn’t look up. “I smelled decapitation in the woods last night.”
“You smelled what?”
“Sharp. Metallic. Hint of eucalyptus.”
“That’s... a very specific talent,” Zara noted without blinking.
Chip continued, unbothered. “Also, please don’t approach the lake today. The water’s going through a transitional mood cycle.”
Todd raised a hand. “Is that code for murder algae?”
Chip’s eye twitched. “It’s code for trust the process, Todd.”
Doug floated under the table, dropped a bone, and whimpered once.
Zara leaned over, frowning. “He says we’re being watched.”
“By who?”
Doug made a small cough and ghost-hacked up a pine cone. It rolled toward Todd’s foot. He picked it up—hesitated—and shook it.
It whispered: She’s learning you.
Todd stood. “Okay. This breakfast is cursed. The squirrels are screaming. Counselor Brenna has apparently joined the Headless Productivity Club, and Chip just told us not to emotionally disturb the lake. I vote we panic now and investigate while screaming.”
Rachel stood too, dragging her chair like a war omen. “Agreed.”
Jessie wiped syrup off his abs with a napkin and smiled. “Finally. Adventure.”
Zara drained her tea and tucked a ward stone into her sock. “If we find Brenna’s head, dibs on questioning it.”
Todd sighed, picked up his juice box, and whispered to it like a prayer.
“Please just let today be only medium cursed.”
The juice box exploded.
Scene 2: “The Cabin With No Number”
Doug took a sharp left into a patch of forest that, by all visual accounts, shouldn’t exist.
The trees were too close together, the shadows didn’t line up with the sun, and the temperature dropped twelve degrees like the pines had voted for fall early and never told the rest of the ecosystem.
Todd ducked under a low branch, swatting away moss that felt too sentient, and muttered, “I’m just saying—if this path wasn’t here yesterday, it’s probably a trap.”
Rachel didn’t bother looking back. “That’s why we brought you.”
Jessie grinned. “You’re a great trap sponge.”
“Thank you for that emotional support,” Todd said, tripping over a root that whispered idiot as he faceplanted into a pile of enchanted ferns.
Doug barked once—sharp and impatient—and hovered mid-air like an ectoplasmic GPS. His tail pointed toward something hidden behind the trees.
The cabin.
Or more accurately, Cabin Zero.
It sat crooked in the clearing like someone had summoned it from a blueprint and then got distracted mid-incantation. Ivy curled up its spine like bad tattoos. The wood was warped, the shutters hung crooked, and the door stood open just far enough to whisper I dare you.
Zara froze. “That’s not on any of the maps.”
“That’s because it’s clearly haunted by the aesthetic of 1976,” Todd said.
Jessie sniffed the air. “Smells like mold. And secrets.”
Doug let out a low growl. Not his usual playful “I hate squirrels” whine. This was full-body ghost anxiety.
“I know that noise,” Rachel said grimly. “That’s the same sound he made when we found the haunted vending machine at prom.”
Todd reached for the doorknob.
Rachel grabbed his wrist. “We go in together, Scooby.”
They stepped inside.
The air inside the cabin was thick with mildew and regret. Cobwebs hung like veils. Dust floated in lazy spirals, disturbed by Doug’s passage as he zipped straight through a wall and barked from the other side.
“Found something,” Jessie said, kneeling by an open trunk. Inside: camp counselor uniforms folded with military precision—and several nametags, all labeled BRENNA. Some with hearts over the I. Some with… no I.
Rachel picked up a clipboard and frowned. “Missing the headshot.”
Todd raised a brow. “You mean—like the ID photo?”
She tilted the board toward him. “No. Like, literally. The top half is burned off. The rest is blank.”
There was a staff photo hanging crooked on the wall, tacked between two cursed motivational posters. Everyone smiled awkwardly in front of the lake… except for one figure near the edge. Their face was blacked out. Not blurred. Smeared. As if memory had tried to erase them and rage-failed halfway through.
“Why would a photo be ash-scribbled?” Todd asked.
Zara stepped closer. “Because someone removed them from reality.”
“Again?” Todd groaned. “Why is my life so aggressively genre-specific?”
Jessie poked at a dusty cot. “Maybe this was her original cabin. Before she—”
Schlorp.
Todd jumped. “What was that?!”
He turned around and realized, belatedly, he’d sat down on a warped camp cot… and directly onto a half-melted whistle.
It screamed.
Not a normal whistle sound.
An actual, full-throated scream—like someone being told their brunch reservation was canceled and then immediately possessed by woodland rage.
Todd threw it. It hit the wall and bounced.
“Okay,” he panted, “officially done touching things in abandoned buildings.”
Doug floated through the far wall, barking rapidly and spinning in midair like a canine Roomba trying to signal an emotional collapse.
Rachel pocketed the melted whistle.
Jessie touched the floorboards. “This place is layered with runes. Most of them say Stay Out.”
Todd was already halfway out the door. “I say we listen to the signage.”
Zara turned slowly. Her gaze fixed on the staff photo, still flickering like a half-loaded jpeg.
“There’s something behind this,” she said.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Of course there is.”
She pulled the frame off the wall. Behind it, scratched into the wood in what looked suspiciously like fingernail gouges, were the words:
SHE’S NOT GONE. SHE’S DIFFERENT NOW.
Todd exhaled slowly. “Cool. Just gonna go ahead and pencil in a panic attack at 4:30.”
Doug floated closer and licked his hand. Comforting. Chilly.
Rachel brushed her fingers along the scratch marks and muttered, “Whatever happened to Counselor Brenna didn’t kill her.”
Jessie nodded. “But it changed her.”
Todd looked back at the photo—at the blank, smeared space where a face should be—and whispered, “Or erased her.”
Zara tucked a rune-stamped page into her satchel. “We need to find out what changed her. Before it comes for us.”
Doug barked once. Loud. Final.
The wall groaned.
The air tasted like rosemary and lightning.
And outside, in the fog, something very tall and very quiet walked past the window… leaving no footprints behind.
Scene 3: “A Very Casual Severed Arm”
Todd was standing on a hill behind the arts and crafts shed, phone held high above his head like a defiant sacrifice to the cursed reception gods. The Wi-Fi was dead. The walkie-talkie Zara lent him was hissing in Latin. And every attempt to open a map app just launched a digital Ouija board.
He took two careful steps toward the only patch of sun-dappled clearing that didn’t feel like it would whisper secrets into his pancreas.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Just one bar. I need to Google ‘signs you’re in a magical copy of your own summer camp run by undead PowerPoint slides.’”
Doug hovered beside him, growling at birds that weren’t there.
A stick cracked to Todd’s left. He spun so hard he dropped his phone and nearly screamed—but caught it mid-fall like a panicked ninja with terrible core strength.
Then he tripped.
Face. Meet moss. Again.
When he looked up, blinking through pine needles and frustration, he saw what he thought was a very pale, very long tree root.
Then he saw the fingers.
“OH NOPE.”
Todd scrambled back, heart doing jazzercise in his chest. Doug let out a low, glitched bark—somewhere between alarm and disappointment.
It was an arm.
Just an arm.
Lying there.
Detached, but chill about it.
A friendship bracelet hung loosely around the wrist—braided red and black with tiny silver beads that spelled out:
B R E N N A ??
Todd gagged. Then immediately felt guilty about gagging. “I’m sorry, it’s not you—it’s me. And the whole… severed limb vibe.”
He leaned in—because of course he did, this was Todd—and noted the camp’s official tattoo near the shoulder. A cheery little sun with a smiling face. Except… this one was frowning.
And maybe leaking something that looked like glitter and trauma.
Jessie jogged up behind him, sniffed once, and frowned. “Left-handed.”
“What?”
Jessie poked the arm with a stick like a suspicious hot dog. “At least it’s the left. That’s less aggressive.”
“That’s your takeaway?!”
Zara arrived seconds later, holding up a charm like a dowsing rod. “Something powerful was here.”
“Was?” Todd echoed. “The arm’s still here.”
Rachel crouched next to him, completely unbothered. “No blood. That’s not good.”
“I think it’s very good,” Todd countered, still backing away. “No blood means no mess. Maybe someone just misplaced it.”
Rachel picked up the bracelet. “No. This was a message.”
Doug circled the arm, sniffed it, then made a sound like a fax machine having a nervous breakdown.
Todd whimpered. “Do you think Brenna’s still alive?”
Jessie shrugged. “Depends what you mean by alive. Like… medically? Or like, still pays taxes?”
Rachel ran her fingers over the tattoo. “She was staff. And staff are disappearing. This isn’t a monster.”
“It’s a system,” Zara murmured. “One designed to rewrite or remove people who notice too much.”
Todd blinked. “So… what? This is like some kind of supernatural HR department?”
“Exactly,” Rachel said. “And Brenna got terminated.”
Doug gagged.
“Literally,” Rachel clarified.
Zara’s charm pulsed dark red. “The magic’s fading. We need to move.”
Todd stood, knees creaking like haunted rocking chairs. “Are we not gonna… I don’t know, bury the arm?”
Rachel tilted her head. “Burying’s for closure. This is for evidence.”
Jessie nodded. “We’ll put it in your backpack.”
“Absolutely not—!”
Ten minutes later, Todd was marching behind the others, muttering furiously and carrying a cursed arm wrapped in a towel from the lost-and-found box.
Doug floated beside him, tail flicking.
“I am one juice box away from snapping,” Todd warned.
The arm twitched.
He screamed.
Rachel didn’t even look back. “Probably residual nerve magic. It’ll calm down. You won’t.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Todd looked at the bracelet again—those little silver letters spelling Brenna’s name, still glinting in the sun like passive-aggressive Morse code.
“Cool,” he muttered. “Absolutely cool. I am now the unofficial Arm Bearer of Dreadmoor. That is not a title I want on my resume.”
From deeper in the woods, something howled—not wolf, not wind. Something in-between.
Zara shivered. “That wasn’t random.”
Jessie’s eyes flashed gold. “No. That was an invitation.”
Doug howled back.
Todd clutched the severed arm like a baby and whispered, “I am so tired of weird invitations.”
Scene 4: “Detective Work and Flammable Flashlights”
Rachel slammed a popsicle stick onto the splintering lodge table with the same intensity one might reserve for staking a vampire or swiping on an aggressively bad dating profile.
“We start with motive,” she said.
Todd, perched on the edge of a beanbag chair that smelled like betrayal and mothballs, blinked. “Are you building a murder board out of arts and crafts supplies?”
Rachel didn’t respond. She just lined up another row of popsicle sticks and started pinning string between them using tacks she had definitely stolen from Chip’s desk.
Zara stood nearby, holding a slightly hissing crystal ball wrapped in a crocheted cozy. “To be fair,” she said, “they’re blessed sticks. I ran a purifying sigil on them during yoga.”
Jessie—shirtless and inexplicably holding a clipboard—added helpfully, “We’re calling it the Hex Wall of Regret.”
Todd raised his hand like a reluctant student. “Two questions. One: Why is my face on the center stick? And two: Why does it have red yarn around it like I’m the killer on a procedural crime show?”
Rachel glanced at him. “Statistically speaking, you’re the anomaly.”
“I’m also the snack guy!”
“Exactly,” she said darkly.
Doug floated over and dropped a ghostly post-it onto the board. It read: EVIL? Y/N
Todd sighed. “Wow. Even the undead are gaslighting me now.”
Jessie waved the clipboard. “Let’s refocus. We’ve got the severed arm, the missing counselors, the haunted welcome basket, and now that weird jar you found under your bed labeled Night Screams.”
“That wasn’t a jar, it was a cursed emotional blender,” Todd grumbled. “I’m pretty sure it reversed my hair follicles.”
“It did,” Rachel said without looking up. “Your scalp glowed in Latin for thirty seconds.”
Zara stepped in, eyes narrowing as she peered into her crystal ball. “Okay, I’ve got a visual. But it’s hazy.”
Todd leaned in. “Is it a clue?”
“It’s you,” she said. “Wearing a feather boa. Doing jazz hands. There’s also… a headless figure in the background offering you a friendship bracelet.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I mean,” Todd said slowly, “do I look confident at least?”
“No,” she said. “You look like you’re about to trip into the void.”
“That tracks.”
Rachel muttered something in Latin and added a burnt marshmallow to the board under the label “Possible Cursed Object.”
Doug barked once, circled the table, and rearranged one of the popsicle sticks so it pointed directly at Todd’s juice box.
“What? No. That’s my juice—”
The box exploded again. A puff of strawberry-kiwi mist drifted into the air like fruity doom.
Jessie nodded solemnly. “That confirms it. The snacks are compromised.”
“Not the juice,” Todd whispered, staring at the fizzing puddle like a man betrayed by Capri Sun and destiny.
Rachel stabbed a pushpin directly through the exploded wrapper. “Evidence cataloged.”
Todd crossed his arms. “Can we at least agree I am not the villain here?”
Doug floated a piece of string across the room and pinned it from the ‘Cursed Jar’ stick to a new one labeled “Todd: Unstable Variable.”
Todd pointed at it. “Okay, that one’s fair, but rude.”
Jessie wandered over to the window and sniffed the air. “I’m picking up more strange scent trails in the woods.”
“Be more specific,” Zara said. “Strange like ‘rotting meat,’ or strange like ‘prophecy and regret’?”
Jessie shrugged. “Bit of both.”
Rachel stepped back to survey the now-full board. It was a chaotic masterpiece: popsicle sticks webbed with string, labels written in marker and blood-like ink, Doug’s post-it notes drifting like cursed leaves, and Todd’s face glaring back from multiple angles.
“We need answers,” she said. “Fast.”
Todd raised a hand again. “Or—and hear me out—we could pretend this isn’t our problem and go roast marshmallows until the next prophecy eats someone else.”
Doug hovered beside him. “They’re coming.”
Todd sighed. “That’s not a no, Doug.”
Zara clutched her crystal ball, which was now growling. “Guys… we’ve got movement.”
Everyone turned as the lodge lights flickered. The string on the murder board lifted, taut and pulsing like it was being plucked by invisible fingers.
Then every popsicle stick with a staff member’s name snapped in half—except one.
Chip.
The final string twisted toward the fireplace and landed, perfectly centered, on a lodge-issued counselor lanyard… now gently smoldering.
Jessie stepped forward. “So either Chip’s next, or he was never real in the first place.”
Rachel didn’t blink. “Both.”
Todd sat back down on his beanbag of despair. “I just wanted a relaxing summer vacation. Maybe get a tan. Meet someone who didn’t try to hex me.”
Doug floated by, silent and glowing, then whispered into his ear, “There’s no escape, Todd.”
Todd groaned. “Do you have to sound like my high school guidance counselor?”
Rachel rolled up the string and tucked it into her sleeve like a garrote. “Gear up, Scooby Gang. The forest isn’t done with us yet.”
Outside, something howled—low, drawn-out, and not entirely canine.
Todd whispered, “I miss algebra.”
Scene 5: “The Forest Says ‘No Thanks’”
The woods had that kind of quiet that only meant one thing: either something was watching… or everything was watching, and it had already filled out the incident report.
Todd stood just inside the tree line, clutching a flashlight that flickered in Morse code for bad idea. Behind him, Rachel adjusted her belt of warding knives like she was about to fight a sentient hedge maze, Zara murmured a stabilizing chant in Elvish, and Jessie was shirtless again. For “mobility.”
Doug floated overhead, nose twitching like a supernatural truffle pig trying to locate sarcasm.
“Okay,” Todd whispered, stepping over a gnarled root that looked too intentional, “everyone remember the buddy system. Which means someone has to hold my hand.”
No one moved.
“I’ll be my own buddy. That’s fine. Super healthy.”
They pushed forward.
The trail narrowed with every step, funnelling them into an overgrown corridor lined with trees that leaned in just a bit too much. Branches curled like they were eavesdropping. The air tasted like copper and unspoken judgment.
Then the trees started whispering.
“Out. Out. Out,” they breathed.
Soft at first. Like wind through dead leaves.
Then clearer.
“OUT. OUT. OUT.”
“Okay, that’s not ominous at all,” Todd said. “I’ve been kicked out of a Panda Express with less attitude.”
A low branch dipped toward him and brushed his shoulder like it was picking lint off his soul.
Jessie sniffed the air and muttered, “They’re not just trees.”
“You think?” Todd snapped as another branch poked his thigh with weird botanical judgment.
Zara reached for a rune crystal from her pouch. “The ley lines here are… snarled. The trees are reacting to our presence.”
Doug barked, tail rigid.
Todd felt a sharp tug at his ankle.
He looked down.
A root had wrapped around his sneaker. It twitched once and whispered—actually whispered—“Wrong bunk.”
He screamed like someone who’d just been told their prom date was a cursed mirror demon. Rachel spun toward him, blades already out.
“Root! Root! ROOT!” Todd yelped, kicking wildly.
Jessie lunged and snapped the vine with a flick of his claws. “That one was extra sassy.”
Todd collapsed backward into a fern with the grace of a dying gazelle. “This forest is a mean girl with bark.”
Rachel scowled, pulling him upright. “It doesn’t want us here.”
“I also don’t want us here,” Todd gasped. “But I’m not tying people down with sentient roots like a plant-based kink dungeon.”
They kept moving. Slower now.
Around them, the trees pulsed—not with light, but with something older. Memory, maybe. Grudges.
Jessie let out a low growl. The trees shuddered. One branch snapped clean off and hit the ground with a sound like regret.
Zara’s eyes widened. “Jessie. Do that again.”
He tilted his head. “What? Growl?”
He growled.
The trees flinched.
Rachel smirked. “They respond to alpha energy.”
Todd threw his arms up. “Fantastic. The trees are part of the patriarchy.”
Doug suddenly shot forward, barking. A trail of mushrooms began to glow along the ground ahead—soft purples and ghostly blues, pulsing in a line like fairy lights that wanted you to die in a whimsical way.
Todd squinted. “Is this… good?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “It’s directional. Not good. Never good.”
They followed the glow.
As they walked, Zara kept murmuring stabilizing spells under her breath. Every so often, the trees would echo her words back—but out of sync. Like a haunted voicemail of her own voice mocking her from a week ago.
The ground got squishier.
The moss began giggling.
Rachel hissed and unsheathed a blade. “I hate sentient moss.”
“I kinda like it,” Todd said. “It’s like walking on memory foam and menace.”
One of the trees exhaled. Actually exhaled—a gust of hot, sour wind that carried the distinct scent of someone else's trauma.
Jessie sniffed and gagged. “Smells like middle school gym locker room… and guilt.”
Zara pointed at the base of a crooked oak. A symbol had begun to etch itself into the bark—spiraling, ancient, and angry.
“It’s a gate,” she whispered.
Doug growled, then tilted sideways like a broken compass and zoomed into the fog.
Rachel gritted her teeth. “He’s found something.”
Jessie sniffed the air again. “Definitely something dead. Or undead. Or… HR.”
Todd groaned. “Please not another floating clipboard.”
But he followed anyway—because of course he did. Because if there was one thing he had learned since coming to Camp Dreadmoor, it was that staying still only got you cursed slower.
They broke through the last curtain of vines and came to a clearing—silent, perfectly round, and full of stillness that felt… edited. Like someone had deleted all the sound.
The mushroom trail ended here.
Doug hovered at the center, barking softly.
Todd stepped beside him, heart pounding. “Okay, trees. You made your point. We’re not welcome. Your moss is a bully and your roots have boundary issues. But we’re here now.”
The trees didn’t answer.
But the fog curled tighter.
A single pinecone dropped from above and hit Todd squarely on the head.
“OW.”
Rachel grinned. “It likes you.”
Todd rubbed his scalp. “Great. We’ve gone from haunted house to emotionally abusive forest and now we’re being pinecone-shamed.”
Then the whisper came again, just loud enough for all of them to hear:
“You’re late.”
They all froze.
Zara’s hand flew to her pouch. Rachel raised her blade.
Jessie growled low and primal.
Todd just whispered, “For what?”
A gust of wind blew through, sending leaves in a spiral—like confetti at a funeral.
Doug turned slowly, eyes glowing.
“For the transfer.”
Scene 6: “Found the Counselor. Found the Problem.”
Todd wasn’t a fan of silence.
Especially not the kind of silence where you could hear your own skin sweating and the wind seemed to hold its breath, like the world was waiting for something really stupid to happen.
Which, statistically speaking, meant Todd was about to do something.
Doug hovered at the center of the clearing like a very committed Roomba. His spectral nose twitched. Behind him, a clipboard floated three feet above the ground—spinning slowly, like a cursed office supply trying to hypnotize its prey.
And then the body emerged.
From the far side of the clearing, walking—not floating, walking—came Counselor Brenna.
Or… 80% of her.
Specifically, the bottom 80%.
Headless. Calm. Holding another clipboard.
“Oh hell no,” Todd whispered.
Rachel stepped forward, blade already out. “Stand back.”
“No problem,” Todd said, actively backing into Jessie’s chest. “I love standing back. Standing back is my love language.”
The body stopped just before the floating clipboard and extended one hand toward it like it was clocking in for a shift.
Zara’s voice came quiet, sharp: “She’s still following procedure.”
Jessie muttered, “Even decapitated, she’s more organized than Todd.”
Todd flinched. “Okay, low blow. I happen to thrive under chaos.”
Brenna’s arm moved. The clipboard responded, flipping itself open to reveal a checklist inked in shimmering silver. The last line on the list read:
TRANSFER COMPLETE – IDENTITY PENDING
The moment the words glowed, Todd’s left forearm pulsed.
He looked down.
“Oh great,” he muttered. “The tattoo’s doing a thing.”
A symbol beneath his skin flickered like a warning light on a magical dashboard. It looked like a postal code mixed with a curse word and was now pulsing to the beat of terrible decisions.
“Why is it always me?” Todd groaned.
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “You touched a jar labeled ‘Night Screams,’ Todd. You’re the magical equivalent of ‘click here to download virus.’”
Zara’s crystal ball hissed. “She’s not alive, but she’s not dead either. Her soul’s been removed. Erased. She’s operating on leftover magic. Like an auto-reply email with legs.”
Jessie circled the body, sniffing. “Smells like rosemary, fax toner, and… I think vanilla oatmilk?”
Todd blinked. “That’s terrifying.”
“Right? Who drinks oatmilk in this economy?”
The clipboard spun again, then gently lowered itself into Brenna’s hands.
The body tilted slightly, as if noticing them for the first time.
Then she pointed at Todd.
He yelped and jumped behind Zara, who immediately cast a warding sigil that flared for half a second before fizzling out like a wet sparkler.
Rachel didn’t flinch. “What do you want?”
The headless counselor didn’t answer. Instead, a voice whispered out of nowhere—low and mechanical, like an old answering machine possessed by passive aggression.
“You’re late.”
Doug growled.
Zara gasped.
Todd tried to hide behind Doug and hit the ectoplasm. “Ow! You’re incorporeal! Why are you so solid when it’s inconvenient?!”
The trees leaned closer around the clearing.
The air throbbed.
Brenna extended the clipboard toward Todd again.
Jessie stepped in front. “He’s not taking that.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Yet.”
Todd peeked over Jessie’s shoulder. “I mean, is it bad to take the clipboard? Could just be magical junk mail.”
“Or a binding contract,” Zara muttered.
Doug floated between them and barked once—short, sharp, final.
Then, as if accepting a grim fate, the clipboard dropped into the dirt.
And Counselor Brenna collapsed with it—limbs folding in unnatural geometry, body deflating like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Silence swallowed the clearing.
Rachel stepped forward, blade still up.
Zara crouched beside the crumpled form and scanned it. “No blood. No bruises. No trauma.”
Jessie sniffed again. “Smells… erased.”
Rachel nodded grimly. “Magical overwrite.”
Doug growled, circling the group.
Then he muttered: “One of you is next.”
Everyone turned slowly to look at Todd.
Todd raised his hands. “Okay, statistically, yes. But let’s not be rude about it.”
Zara stood up. “This isn’t just about missing counselors. This is a targeting system.”
Jessie’s golden eyes flashed. “And Todd’s been flagged.”
Todd gestured helplessly at his glowing tattoo. “Well yeah, but when did I get flagged? Was it the marshmallow curse? The juice box incident? That time I brushed my teeth with holy water by mistake?”
Doug floated to his side. “You were born flagged.”
Rachel crouched beside the clipboard. “Guys. Look.”
The checklist had changed.
New text shimmered to life:
NEXT TRANSFER: AVERY, TODD
STATUS: INITIATED
ESTIMATED TIME: UNKNOWN
PRE-EXISTING MAGIC: ACTIVE
Todd stared.
Then screamed.
“I knew this was about the jar!”
Rachel pocketed the clipboard. “We need to leave. Now.”
Jessie scooped up the half-melted whistle Todd had sat on earlier. It chirped once. Then exploded into glitter.
Todd, brushing sparkles off his pants, muttered, “Even the forest’s death traps have flair.”
As the group turned back toward camp, the trees whispered one more phrase—this time in unison.
“Orientation module resuming.”
Todd didn’t look back. He couldn’t.
His tattoo was still glowing.
And the clipboard? Still in Rachel’s hands.
Somewhere behind them, the clipboard smiled.
Scene 7: “Rachel Has Questions. The Woods Have Vibes”
Rachel was not the kind of girl who liked not knowing things.
Which made her current mood somewhere between “stabby librarian” and “unpaid monster therapist with rage issues.” She stalked ahead of the group, fingers twitching near her belt of stakes like she was hoping the moss might try something.
“Okay,” she snapped, “let’s start with the basics. What the hell just happened?”
Jessie was still sniffing the air like he could track an answer on scent alone. Zara cradled her crystal orb like it owed her a refund. Doug floated backwards, watching Todd like he expected him to spontaneously combust into paperwork.
Todd, unfortunately, was Todd.
And Todd was glowing again.
“Can we maybe start with, like, I don’t know—‘hey Todd, are you okay?’” he asked, swatting at the rune flickering across his forearm like a magical rash.
“You’re not,” Rachel said flatly.
“I could be.”
Zara leaned closer and squinted at the symbol under his skin. “It’s… evolving. It’s not just a tracking mark anymore. It’s morphing into something more complex.”
“Like a magical rash?” Todd asked. “A rash that writes in cursive?”
Doug gave a low, skeptical woof.
Jessie slowed his pace beside them. “She wasn’t dead.”
Rachel snorted. “She was missing a head, Jessie.”
“Yeah, but… not dead-dead.”
Todd perked up. “So, like, zombie-adjacent?”
“More like… admin haunting,” Zara offered. “She was doing her job. That clipboard had energy. And not good LinkedIn energy. Like eldritch HR.”
Rachel turned to Todd. “And it pointed to you. Which means either you’re cursed—again—or you’re the key to this whole thing.”
“Why is it never ‘You’re the key to a tropical vacation’?” Todd groaned.
A root squelched under his foot. The moss giggled again.
Rachel spun. “Don’t. Even.”
The moss retreated.
Jessie looked back toward the clearing they’d left. “We should burn it.”
“No,” Zara said. “We should study it. That clipboard knew something. It was registering transfers. This is systematized magic. Someone—something—is orchestrating this.”
Todd’s stomach dropped. “Like… evil camp automation?”
Doug whined and scratched at the dirt.
He started circling again.
Todd stared. “What’s he doing?”
Zara tilted her head. “Ghost math?”
Doug’s glowing paws traced a figure eight in the dirt.
Rachel leaned closer. “That’s not just a loop. That’s an erasure pattern.”
Todd blinked. “Okay, see, why does that have a name?”
“Because it’s been used before,” Zara said, voice dropping. “In places where people didn’t just die. They were… rewritten. Forgotten. Replaced.”
Jessie’s jaw tightened. “So we’re not looking for who killed Counselor Brenna.”
Rachel stood. “We’re looking for what took her.”
Todd exhaled slowly, then looked at Doug. “And you think I’m next?”
Doug didn’t nod. He just floated forward and dropped a ghostly acorn into Todd’s palm.
It was warm.
Which was worse.
“Okay,” Todd said, “follow-up question: how do we not get me erased?”
Zara pulled a card from her pouch—tarot-shaped, edged in bone—and flicked it.
It spun midair, caught in an invisible gust, then slapped against her palm.
She frowned.
“What?” Rachel asked.
Zara turned the card around.
It showed a figure made of static, face blurred, holding a flickering clipboard.
Todd stared. “...Is that me?”
The figure wore Converse.
Rachel turned toward the woods. “This is bigger than camp pranks and cursed trail mix. We’re being evaluated. And some of us—” she glanced at Todd, “—are up for replacement.”
Todd rubbed his temples. “I knew I shouldn’t have come to summer anything.”
Jessie suddenly froze. “Wait. Do you hear that?”
Everyone paused.
The wind rustled.
The trees shifted.
And then—a soft clicking. Like keys being typed on a distant keyboard.
Doug’s fur bristled.
Zara whispered, “That’s… a formatting spell.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Something’s rewriting us now.”
Todd felt a shimmer across his skin.
His name.
It flickered in his mind.
Like someone was editing it.
He gasped. “Okay! Not to panic anyone—but I might be losing my narrative coherence!”
Jessie grabbed him by the collar. “Hold on. You’re still here. We’re still here.”
Zara began muttering an anchoring spell. Rachel knelt, drawing a binding rune in the dirt.
The trees moaned.
The wind howled.
Then—silence.
Zara finished the incantation.
Rachel slammed a stake into the middle of the rune.
The earth shuddered once.
And the clicking stopped.
Todd’s vision cleared.
His name… solid again.
Doug sighed and flopped to the ground like a ghost dog who just averted a cosmic bureaucratic nightmare.
Rachel stood. “Okay. So we’re not just dealing with ghosts, monsters, or curses.”
“We’re dealing with magic that can edit reality,” Zara said.
Jessie looked around. “And it wants Todd.”
Todd sighed. “Cool. So I’m basically a poorly proofread prophecy with a face.”
Rachel glanced toward the tree line. “Then we better make sure the ending isn’t written without you.”
And just like that, the forest shuddered again.
As if it had heard that.
And didn’t like it.
Scene 8: “They’re Not Counselors. They’re Placeholders”
By the time they stumbled back into the central clearing of Camp Dreadmoor, Todd had already mentally drafted his resignation letter from reality.
It opened with “Dear whoever’s in charge of this glitchy simulation,” and ended with “Please remove me from this narrative construct before my personality is reduced to fun-sized.”
Unfortunately, no one accepted magical resignation letters.
Especially not the man in khaki standing by the fire pit—Counselor Chip, still smiling, still unsettling, now slightly… wronger.
“You’re back!” Chip chirped with forced cheer so brittle it could be used to cut glass. “How was your nature walk?”
Todd stopped mid-step. “Okay, two things. One: we were almost erased by forest formatting magic. Two: your shirt is flickering.”
It was. His Camp Dreadmoor polo glitched for a full two seconds—transforming into a neon ‘80s aerobics tank top before blinking back.
Rachel stepped forward. “Where’s Counselor Lila?”
Chip’s grin twitched. “Lila is currently attending mandatory reset protocols.”
Zara narrowed her eyes. “You mean she vanished in a puff of mist that smelled like copier toner.”
Chip did not blink. “Our staff are always being refreshed. Dreadmoor believes in agile engagement cycles.”
Jessie walked a slow circle around Chip. “His scent’s changed.”
Todd tilted his head. “To what?”
Jessie sniffed once, frowned. “Scentless. He smells like… placeholder text.”
Chip’s smile stretched a little too wide. “Is there anything else I can help you with, campers?”
Todd nodded and waved his hand in front of Chip’s face like a kid trying to get a vending machine’s attention. “Yeah, hi. Can you define the term transfer complete and explain why I’m apparently next on the magic hit list?”
Chip blinked.
Paused.
Then repeated, “Welcome campers! We are not legally liable for screams!”
Rachel stepped back. “He’s looping.”
Zara’s crystal orb pulsed red. “That’s not a counselor. That’s a construct.”
Jessie’s jaw tightened. “A what-now?”
“A magically preloaded puppet,” Zara said. “An enchanted shell designed to simulate authority figures. Think magical NPCs, but with creepier khakis.”
Doug whimpered and floated closer to the center of the clearing. His ears twitched.
Todd rubbed his face. “So the real counselors? Gone?”
Rachel nodded grimly. “Replaced. One by one.”
“By… what?”
No one answered.
The wind did.
From the edges of the camp, movement flickered—three more “staff members” emerged from the tree line.
Todd stared.
There were now two Chips.
Both waved.
Then one of them short-circuited mid-wave and froze, hand mid-air like a taxidermy fail.
Rachel growled. “It’s duplicating them.”
Jessie stepped between the group and the newcomers. “This isn’t just a summer gig gone wrong. This is population replacement.”
Todd took a step back, then another. “Okay, deep breath. We’re still alive. We’re probably not entirely formatted. Maybe it’s like a summer internship for dark gods. You know, resume-building!”
Doug barked sharply.
And then—another counselor appeared.
This one was tall, genderless, vaguely shiny. Its nametag read:
“HELLO [NAME], WELCOME TO DREADMOOR”
Todd screamed.
Rachel hissed. “We need to blow this wide open.”
Zara’s fingers danced over a summoning sigil. “I’ll try to summon a truthbinding. Maybe we can pierce the spell’s perimeter.”
Jessie’s claws extended. “If they touch him, they’re getting shredded.”
Doug hovered directly in front of Todd, growling low and steady.
Todd blinked at the duplicate Chips, the twitching counselors, the name-tagged mannequin leading orientation with a permanent half-wave.
“Oh god,” he whispered.
He looked at Rachel.
Then at Zara.
Then down at his own glowing arm, now pulsing to the beat of some bureaucratic eldritch nightmare.
“This isn’t a camp.”
Jessie snarled. “Nope.”
“It’s a selection system,” Rachel said flatly.
“They’re not here to help us,” Zara added.
“They’re here to replace us.”
A scream echoed from the lake.
A flash of light sparked near the mess hall.
One of the “counselors” disappeared mid-step, leaving only a lanyard behind.
A faint puff of toner-smelling mist floated through the air.
Todd stared at the ghostly name tag.
It said:
“Welcome, Camper. Orientation Module Loading…”
Doug howled at the rising full moon.
And somewhere—deep in the forest—something answered.
Not with a howl.
But with a sound like keys clicking across an invisible keyboard.
As if the next line was already being written.
And Todd? He was still glowing.
