Scene 1: Breakfast, Blood, and a Mysterious Floorboard
?? Full Scene – Final Draft for Publication
Rachel did not wake up to the sound of birds chirping.
She woke up to the unmistakable cadence of squirrel chanting.
Outside the cabin, their high-pitched voices rhythmically chittered in what sounded like ancient squirrel-Latin: “Tibi sacrificium, tibi sacrificium.”
She sat up, rubbed one eye, and muttered, “If they’re building a shrine again, I swear I’m salting their nuts.”
The rest of the gang was still unconscious. Jessie was draped shirtless across a hammock like some woodland centerfold. Todd was tangled in his blanket, glowing faintly from a poorly-timed magical rash. Zara had slept curled on top of a stack of enchanted crystals like a benevolent goth gargoyle. Doug hovered midair, dream-whimpering in Latin.
Rachel got up, grabbed her boots, dagger-combed her hair, and stomped toward the main lodge in search of caffeine, answers, and possibly squirrelicide.
But before she even made it to the door, she stopped.
There it was—beneath the rhythm of her footsteps—another step.
She froze. Shifted her weight back.
Creak.
She glanced around. No one else in sight.
Creak-creak.
She knelt, ran her fingers over the lodge’s floorboards, and hissed when one of them throbbed under her palm like it had a pulse.
“Well that’s normal,” she muttered.
A half-inch gap revealed the edge of something hidden. She wedged her dagger between two planks and pried—expecting maybe a lost sock or Doug’s secret ghost diary.
Instead?
Wax.
Sealing wax. Pale red, molded into a rune that looked suspiciously like a closed eye with lashes made of thorns.
Rachel snorted. “You’re not that subtle.”
She jabbed her dagger into the rune and whispered, “Permission denied.”
The wax cracked. The air shifted. And the floor groaned as the plank popped loose, revealing a trapdoor with iron hinges and a handle shaped like a snake biting its tail.
“Well,” she said, rolling her shoulders. “Guess I’m skipping breakfast.”
She pulled the door open.
Cold air blasted up. It smelled like iron, wet paper, and the particular brand of regret that came from opening cursed things before coffee.
Stone stairs wound downward, illuminated only by the faint red glow of glowing glyphs painted along the wall—glyphs that pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
Rachel took one step, then another. She unsheathed her smaller dagger (the one specifically for “emergency prophecy nonsense”) and held it close.
Ten steps down, she paused.
Because the walls were humming.
Not singing.
Humming.
Low, bassy, like a haunted tuning fork vibrating just beneath the threshold of rational thought.
And beneath that? A whisper.
Not words.
Just… breath.
Rachel exhaled sharply. “Cool. So we’re doing eldritch air-conditioning now.”
She followed the humming down to a stone landing. A narrow hallway stretched ahead, lined with candles that hadn’t melted, but seemed to be inhaling smoke instead of exhaling it.
And at the far end? A door.
It wasn’t like the trapdoor above.
This one was made of dark, dark wood—not stained, not painted. It grew like that. Runic vines twisted around the handle, forming a sigil she didn’t recognize. It had no hinges. No seams.
She walked toward it. The air got heavier with every step.
And then—
“Todd,” she whispered to herself. “I’m gonna need bait.”
Scene 2: “Todd Licks Something. Immediately Regrets It.”
“So… this is fine.”
Todd said it like a question. Because it was.
Because when Rachel shoved him down a trapdoor at 7:03 in the morning with no shoes, no coffee, and only mild residual possession in his aura, it was never actually fine.
She’d dragged him straight from his bunk—where he’d been having a perfectly pleasant dream about eating a croissant that didn’t bleed—to this glowing stone hallway that reeked of old parchment and what he was 99% sure was emotional trauma.
“Explain to me again why I’m awake before noon?” he asked, stumbling behind her as the corridor flickered with cursed candlelight and the faint scent of regret-scented incense.
Rachel turned, still perfectly composed, her dagger swinging lazily from her fingers like an impatient metronome. “Because you glow when things go wrong, and I need a canary for the haunted coalmine.”
Todd raised a finger. “I’d like to formally object to being classified as a magical parakeet.”
Rachel kept walking. “Objection noted. Overruled.”
They arrived at a low chamber where the air was so dense with supernatural weirdness it practically hummed the X-Files theme. Shelves lined the room, covered in scrolls, jars, half-melted candles, and one deeply unnerving porcelain doll that appeared to be whispering "you again?"
In the center of the room, sitting neatly atop a stone pedestal, was a scroll tied in faded black string.
Rachel pointed at it. “Don’t touch anything.”
Todd nodded solemnly, then immediately walked straight up to the pedestal. “What do you think it says?”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It could be a breakfast menu,” he mused, fingers twitching.
“Don’t—”
“It might be a spell to summon waffles.”
Rachel lunged too late.
Todd licked the scroll.
It was instinct. It was impulse. It was the unholy marriage of curiosity and poor decision-making.
The scroll shivered.
A high-pitched screech filled the chamber, like someone had stabbed a mime in the soul.
Rachel stared at him, deadpan. “You licked a cursed scroll.”
Todd’s tongue buzzed. “In my defense, it didn’t say not to.”
The string dissolved into black smoke, and the scroll unfurled on its own, revealing a cascade of ink that shimmered like oil slicks and smelled vaguely of raspberry vengeance.
Words ignited across the page in ancient ink:
“This contract binds thee, willingly or dumbly, to the legacy of the Echoed Pact.”
There was a pause.
Then:
“Congratulations. You are now legally cursed.”
Todd blinked. “...Rachel?”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You signed a blood contract with your tongue.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You licked it, Todd.”
“I was checking for magical flavor profiles!”
Rachel threw her hands up. “Who does that?! Who walks into a cursed corridor and decides the best course of action is TASTING DOCUMENTS?!”
Todd glanced down at the scroll, which now glowed faintly red where his spit had made contact. The ink rearranged itself in elegant loops and curls, sealing itself into a circle around his name.
He took a slow, shaky breath.
“Okay,” he said. “So I’ve licked worse. This is manageable.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Define ‘manageable.’”
Before he could respond, the scroll flared—and Todd’s tattoo lit up beneath his T-shirt, pulsating in rhythm with the glowing contract. His aura flickered like a strobe light at a haunted rave.
Todd froze. “My armpit just hummed the alphabet.”
Rachel yanked the scroll off the pedestal, held it up to the light, and muttered, “This thing is linked to the camp’s original summoning deal. It’s binding.”
Todd squinted. “Binding like... double-knot binding, or ‘sacrifice your soul to eldritch horrors’ binding?”
Rachel stared at him. “Yes.”
Doug, their ghost dog, phased through the wall behind them and sniffed the scroll once before growling softly and retreating.
“Doug says it smells like bad decisions and performance anxiety,” Todd translated. “Which honestly? Could’ve just been me.”
Rachel rolled the scroll tight and shoved it into her jacket. “Come on. We’re not done. There’s more down here. And you’re already cursed, so we might as well use you as a magical flashlight.”
Todd groaned. “You say that like it’s a perk.”
Rachel smirked. “It is. For me.”
Todd followed her deeper into the corridor, licking his lips and instantly regretting it—because now his mouth tasted like ink, guilt, and eternal consequences.
He looked over his shoulder, just in case the whispering doll tried to follow.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Maybe licking the scroll was dumb. But in my defense… curiosity didn’t kill the cat. It just bound it into an ancient magical blood pact.”
From behind him, Rachel sighed. “Todd?”
“Yeah?”
“If I find one more cursed object in your mouth, I’m binding it shut myself.”
Scene 3: “The Door That Hates Everyone”
The corridor narrowed into a corridor-with-commitment.
It was the kind of hallway that felt like it hadn’t been dusted since the Nixon administration. The candles flickered not from wind but from vibe, and Todd was 87% sure the last torch had whispered, “turn back, snack pack.”
But they didn’t. Because Rachel had That Look in her eye—equal parts murder and mystery kink—and Todd, already halfway contract-bound and existentially glowing, had stopped trusting his own instincts around 2009.
They turned a corner—and there it was.
The door.
It stood tall, flush with the stone wall, no visible hinges, and absolutely drenched in main-character energy. Carved from what looked like obsidian and tree trauma, it was etched with interlocking runes, thorny sigils, and a phrase in Latin that translated (according to Rachel) to:
“Entry requires purpose. Or audacity.”
Todd blinked. “That… feels targeted.”
The handle was a metal loop embedded in a raised rune shaped like a screaming mouth. Every time Todd got closer, the rune made a noise. A wet noise.
He reached for the handle.
The door hissed.
“Did—did it just insult my hand?” Todd asked.
Rachel crossed her arms. “It said ‘weak grip and desperation.’”
Todd stepped back. “Okay rude.”
He tried again.
It hissed louder.
The runes briefly flickered with teal light and a voice whispered in the back of his mind: “Not worthy.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “It’s being dramatic.”
“It’s being a door,” Todd said. “How does it have this much attitude?!”
He tried a third time. The hissing turned into guttural spitting and the faint sound of a tiny bell ringing disapproval.
Todd backed up. “I think it just unfollowed me on social media.”
Rachel sighed. “Let me try.”
She stepped forward. The runes pulsed. The air grew colder. She raised a hand—and the door growled.
Todd jumped.
“That was a growl! Doors don’t growl!”
“This one does.”
“Why?”
“Because magic doesn’t believe in OSHA standards.”
Todd groaned, running a hand through his hair. “We’re going to die down here. The obituary will say ‘Camp Dreadmoor victims—licked scrolls, antagonized furniture, failed to open one (1) emo portal.’”
Suddenly, above them, a vent creaked.
A shadow dropped through the ceiling and landed in a perfect crouch. Shirtless. Glowing slightly. Eyes bright.
Jessie.
“Hey,” he said. “Heard the door was being a jerk.”
Rachel didn’t blink. “We’ve been insulted twice and rejected once. Todd’s feelings are involved.”
Todd muttered, “It knew about my 7th-grade diary. I didn’t even know about my 7th-grade diary.”
Jessie smiled, stepping up to the door.
It shuddered.
He raised a single hand, casually extended his pinky—his pinky, like some mythic tea drinker—and pressed it to the snarling rune.
The rune paused.
Blinking.
There was a low hum, a distant chime, and then the door purred.
PURRED.
It slid open like it had been personally waiting for Jessie this whole cursed eternity.
Todd gawked. “What the absolute—how?!”
Jessie shrugged. “I moisturize?”
Rachel glared at the door like it had betrayed her.
“You’re telling me this bitch of a threshold opens for Captain Musclewolf because he gave it a gentle boop?”
Jessie nodded. “I have soft pinky pads.”
The interior beyond the door was worse.
It wasn’t just dusty—it was emotionally dusty. A half-abandoned office stretched out in a crescent shape, papers scattered across antique desks, glowing ink quivering like it was sentient and slightly overstimulated. The air was thick with spell residue and unfiled trauma.
Todd stepped in cautiously. The floor creaked like it was groaning about his life choices.
On the back wall, a grid of old staff photos lined the stone, each one framed in a ring of obsidian. Todd leaned in.
The counselors looked… normal. Sort of. A little too cheerful. Except one.
One photo had no face. Just a swirl of ash.
Underneath it: “PLACEHOLDER ACTIVE.”
Rachel scanned the others. “All these counselors are marked.”
Jessie poked a frame. “They look like yearbook photos for cursed LinkedIn.”
Todd stared at the wall—until something caught his eye.
A glowing rectangle. A school ID. His school ID.
And next to it, in pulsing gold: “Observed. Potential Pending.”
He went very, very still.
“Guys?” he said.
Rachel turned.
“Why am I on the spooky wall of doom?”
Rachel read the sigil below his ID.
“It’s a watching rune.”
Todd swallowed. “Watching like, security camera? Or watching like… prophecy stalker?”
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Jessie squinted. “It smells like cinnamon and foreshadowing.”
Rachel stepped closer, dagger drawn, and tapped the frame.
It sparked.
The wall rearranged itself. Lines of ink rippled out from Todd’s name, linking him to another scroll still sealed on the desk nearby.
Todd backed up. “No. Nope. I licked one scroll today. That is my limit.”
Rachel ignored him and walked toward the desk. “Then good news—you’re not reading this one. We are.”
Jessie leaned over Todd’s shoulder. “Dude. You’re on a magic spreadsheet. That’s like... top-tier importance.”
Todd whimpered. “I don’t want to be important. I want to be unexceptional. Obscure. Forgettably mortal!”
Rachel tore the scroll free and grinned.
“Tough luck, glowing boy. Looks like you’ve been drafted into supernatural relevance.”
Scene 4: “The Pact and the Placeholders”
There are exactly three things Todd is not emotionally equipped to deal with before 10 a.m.:
- Runes that judge him.
- Scrolls that scream.
- Ancient mystical contracts that consider him a valid down payment.
All three were currently present.
The scroll Rachel had pried from the desk glowed faintly with a kind of ominous resignation, like it knew it had too many clauses and no one was going to read the terms of service—but it was legally binding anyway. The kind of document written by someone who really enjoyed blood oaths and loopholes.
Todd stared at it like it might bite.
Zara entered the room carrying a candle in one hand, a small tin of cursed lemon squares in the other, and a familiar “what did you idiots touch this time” expression.
“Okay,” she said brightly. “I brought snacks. And this candle repels minor hexes and annoying emotions.”
Todd immediately stepped closer to the candle. “Please hold that near me at all times.”
Rachel unrolled the scroll and Zara sighed.
“You couldn’t wait five minutes? I was going to do a protective circle. And maybe a calming tea.”
“We tried calming,” Rachel said. “Todd licked something again.”
Zara gave him a look.
“I regret everything,” Todd mumbled.
Jessie, shirtless per usual, was inspecting a drawer full of glowing thumbtacks.
“This desk smells like tax fraud and lavender.”
Rachel ignored them and began reading the scroll aloud in a tone that suggested she was barely resisting the urge to set it on fire mid-sentence.
“The Echo Pact, established summer solstice, 1989. A compact agreement between Camp Dreadmoor and the Custodians of the Convergence.”
“One summer of safe passage and peaceful retreat shall be offered to all attendees… in exchange for magical potential willingly given or ritually harvested from the Chosen.”
Todd blinked. “Wait, what do they mean ritually harvested?”
Rachel looked up. “They mean they extract your magical juice like supernatural Capri Sun.”
Jessie flexed. “I’m immune to that. I only drink protein smoothies.”
Todd groaned. “Why am I always the juice box?”
Zara knelt beside them and traced one of the glowing runes on the scroll’s border. Her eyes glinted.
“There’s more. Listen—if no potential is offered voluntarily, the camp selects one camper to take it from. One of us.”
The room went quiet. The kind of quiet you only hear when someone realizes they are very probably the unpaid intern of an ancient magical scheme.
Rachel continued reading:
“Each year, the pact must be renewed. One offering per season. Should the offering be interrupted or denied, the Echo stirs.”
Todd raised a trembling hand. “Define stirs.”
Jessie shrugged. “Probably not brunch.”
Zara added, “There’s a clause here that says: If Echo awakens, all placeholders will collapse and the Chosen’s essence shall bind anew.”
Todd took a step back. “Nope. I am not being ‘bound anew.’ That sounds like ghost marriage. Or taxes.”
Rachel looked him dead in the eye. “This entire camp exists to feed something, Todd. You are the something-flavored offering.”
“Why me?!”
Jessie helpfully said, “Your tattoo glows. And your blood smells like vanilla and unresolved trauma.”
Rachel nodded. “Also, you’re tagged in their creepy wall spreadsheet.”
Todd sat down. “So what, I’m just... magical beef jerky?!”
Zara frowned at the scroll. “It gets worse.”
“How.”
She flipped the page.
There were diagrams.
Specifically: diagrams of Todd’s arm. His shoulder. His glowing tattoo, annotated with footnotes in ancient glyphs, and several uncomfortably detailed arrows pointing to internal organs labeled “Potential Source Zones.”
Jessie peered over her shoulder. “That one looks like it’s aiming for your spleen.”
Todd whimpered. “I like my spleen.”
Rachel tapped a line at the bottom. “There’s a note here. ‘Halfblood contingency clause active. Special properties include latent energy, memory resonance, and contract catalysis.’”
“I don't even know what most of those words mean,” Todd said.
Zara looked up. “It means you weren’t just born weird, Todd. You were predicted. You’re… a magical wildcard. A wild Todd.”
Jessie gave him a thumbs-up. “You’re like… prophecy-adjacent.”
“I didn’t ask to be prophecy-adjacent!” Todd cried. “I wanted to come to summer camp, do a trust fall, roast a marshmallow, and maybe flirt with someone undead but emotionally available!”
Doug the ghost dog, who had silently appeared from beneath the desk, let out a mournful bark.
Rachel closed the scroll with a sharp snap. “We have a problem.”
“We had a problem,” Todd said. “Now we have a magical MLM targeting my organs.”
Zara tapped the scroll again. “There’s still more. If someone breaks the pact…”
The scroll briefly sparked violet at the word “breaks.”
“…it says something will wake up. Something tied to the original contract-holder.”
They all looked at each other.
Then, slowly, all eyes turned to the back wall, where a painted mural of a girl—hair wild, eyes wide, arms outstretched—seemed to shift slightly in the flickering light.
Todd whispered, “That’s Echo. Isn’t it.”
Rachel nodded. “And she didn’t vanish. She transformed.”
Jessie crossed his arms. “Into what?”
Zara’s eyes darkened. “Into the failsafe.”
Doug growled softly. His voice—low, unearthly—echoed in all of their minds:
“She wakes when the pact cracks. And she remembers.”
Todd swallowed hard. “Remembers… what?”
Doug turned to face him. His eyes glowed.
“You.”
Scene 5: “What Is Todd, Actually?”
Todd had officially entered what he called his “existential crisis with footnotes” era.
The scroll from the last scene still glowed ominously in Rachel’s hands, like it knew too much and was dying to spill the tea—preferably in blood. The room hadn’t stopped smelling like dusty magic and bad decisions. And Todd? He was still sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle of accidentally spilled lemon bar crumbs and existential dread.
“Okay,” Todd said, pointing at the cursed diagrams. “What is that?”
Rachel didn’t answer right away. Instead, she unrolled a second scroll labeled Halfblood Contingency Protocol: Subtype 3B – ‘Ignis Echo Potential’ and let it hover above the table, which was never a good sign.
Zara leaned over with a thoughtful hum and took a deep inhale. “This scroll smells like elderberry ink, holy salt, and someone lying about their GPA.”
Jessie looked up from a box of enchanted thumbtacks he’d been chewing on like gum. “What does ‘Subtype 3B’ mean? Is that like... rare? Like werewolf lactose intolerance?”
Todd raised a hand. “Do I want to know what I am?”
Doug the ghost dog let out a low, warbly whimper that translated roughly to: You’re gonna find out anyway. Might as well get comfy.
Rachel pointed to a series of rapidly updating notes along the margin of the scroll, written in a script that somehow blinked back when you stared at it too long.
“It means you’re not just some random halfblood. You’re a specific flavor of chaos.”
Todd’s hand dropped. “Oh. Cool. That clears it up.”
Zara flicked her fingers and translated aloud, because of course she reads twitchy magical Latin like it’s an audiobook.
“Subject exhibits echo resonance, latent ignition potential, blood-reactive glyph anchoring, and… aura fluctuation under lunar proximity.”
Todd blinked. “What’s ‘echo resonance’?”
Rachel muttered, “Basically, you’re a magical feedback loop in sneakers.”
Zara added, “You reflect back ambient energy. Think of yourself like a magical echo chamber that occasionally sets off minor explosions.”
“Accidentally,” Rachel said.
“Hopefully,” Zara corrected.
“...Do you think that’s why my shampoo bottle caught fire last week?” Todd asked, half-joking. Mostly.
Jessie nodded. “Also might explain the glitter incident in health class. You didn’t just sneeze.”
Rachel flipped to the last page of the scroll, which included a sketched figure that looked alarmingly like Todd—complete with a glowing rune-tattoo on the arm, a shocked expression, and the phrase “Caution: Unstable if emotionally provoked.”
“Well that’s just rude,” Todd said.
“No, that’s accurate,” Rachel muttered, tracing a line under a bold heading: Halfblood Activation Sequence.
Beneath it: a small box marked Signs of Activation:
- Tattoo ignition
- Emotional volatility
- Involuntary levitation
- Uncontrollable honesty
- Spontaneous magical hair fluff
Rachel glanced at Todd’s arm. The tattoo was glowing faintly violet again, like it wanted to be noticed. His hair? Fully fluffed. His emotional stability? LOL.
“You’re... kinda lighting up like a prophecy,” she said slowly.
Todd buried his face in his hands. “I don’t want to light up like anything. I want to go back to pretending the weirdest part of me was the time I cried watching that sloth video.”
Doug circled closer and gave Todd a ghostly nudge. You’re not just weird, Todd. You’re echo-touched.
Zara’s eyes widened. “Echo-touched… Wait. That mural downstairs—Echo’s outstretched hand. The inscription wasn’t a warning. It was a call. She was trying to pass it on.”
Todd jerked his head up. “Pass what on?”
Jessie scratched his chest absently. “Probably the curse. Or the role. Or the magical identity crisis.”
“Whatever it is,” Rachel said, her voice sharp, “it tagged you. You're the new potential.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s potential!” Todd snapped. “I barely want to be awake!”
The scroll pulsed once, as if agreeing. Then crumpled into ash.
Everyone froze.
Doug growled low. It knows we’ve read too much.
Zara pulled a protective rune from her pocket and muttered something about “binding triggers” and “too late now.”
The lights flickered.
Rachel looked at Todd.
“Bottom line: you're half something ancient, you’ve been marked since birth, and now this entire camp’s enchantments are tuning themselves to you.”
Todd gave her a wide-eyed stare. “Like I’m a magical antenna?”
“More like an arc reactor with commitment issues,” Zara replied.
Jessie reached over and patted Todd on the back. “At least you’re special.”
“Special,” Todd echoed, voice flat. “That’s what people say right before they feed you to something.”
Doug whined. Rachel folded the last of the now-blank scroll. Zara leaned back on her elbows and sighed.
“So what now?” Todd asked. “We sit here and wait to get sacrificed in a backwoods magical timeshare?”
Rachel stood, eyes glinting. “No. We break the cycle.”
Todd’s expression brightened. “Oh! Great. Break it with what? Hope? Friendship? A literal stick?”
Rachel pulled a dagger from her boot. “This.”
“Oh,” Todd said faintly. “Cool. So stabbing our problems is the official plan again.”
Jessie grinned. “It’s always the plan.”
Zara blew out the protective candle.
Doug howled softly, just once.
Outside the door, a wind picked up—carrying the scent of pine, blood ink, and old contracts that hadn’t been closed properly.
Scene 6: “Rachel Bleeds. The Wall Responds.”
The silence in the secret counselor room was thick enough to cut with a cursed butter knife. Which, coincidentally, was probably buried under one of the many dusty scrolls, forgotten contracts, or faintly hissing tomes stacked around them like someone’s idea of cozy death decor.
Rachel stood in front of the sigil wall—the carved one pulsing faintly with rune-etched irritation—and cracked her knuckles.
“This wall is hiding something.”
Todd, curled dramatically on the floor and still recovering from the last round of “Guess Your Bloodline’s Apocalypse Rating,” mumbled, “Yeah, the will to live.”
Rachel ignored him. She stepped closer, eyes narrowed, tracing a symbol that looked like a cursed ampersand married a spiderweb. The surface shimmered.
Doug whined a low, ghostly note from his post near the exit. Jessie cracked his neck and muttered, “I vote we stab the wall and see what happens.”
Zara pulled out another snack bar and watched, like this was supernatural Netflix.
Rachel held her palm out, fingers splayed. “This isn’t opening with vibes or curiosity. It wants intent. It wants blood.”
Todd sat up straighter. “Okay, but like... symbolic blood? Emotional bleeding? I have a lot of trauma I can share—”
Before he could finish, Rachel pressed her palm to the sigil.
The wall pulsed.
A thin, glowing line sliced across her skin, perfect and precise like the wall had a medical degree in passive-aggressive ritual bloodletting.
“OW—” she said, flinching only slightly. “Rude.”
The sigil drank.
The line on her palm opened wider, then vanished as quickly as it came, leaving behind only a smear of blood smeared into ancient stone.
The wall let out a long, low creak like a door in an old horror movie trailer—or a librarian stretching after ten decades of curse-enforced silence.
A split formed.
Stone slid apart like two whispering jaws, revealing… stairs.
Not nice stairs.
Definitely not OSHA-approved stairs.
These were ritual chamber stairs—cold, wet, lined with wall sconces already lit despite no visible fire, casting an unsettling glow somewhere between “twilight funeral” and “crypt rave.”
“Oh cool,” Todd said, “A literal descent into madness. Classic.”
Rachel turned to him with a raised brow. “Coming?”
Todd blinked. “You bled on a wall and opened a murder hallway. Do I look emotionally ready to follow that energy?”
Zara walked past him with an easy shrug. “I brought granola. We’re good.”
Jessie cracked his knuckles. “I hope there’s something to punch.”
Doug floated silently, his eyes glowing with faint green suspicion.
Together, they descended.
At the bottom, the room widened into a circular chamber carved from black stone veined with something that looked suspiciously like dried ink—or possibly coagulated secrets. The ceiling arched high above them, cracked but breathing, like the room itself noticed their presence and was just deciding how to feel about it.
A pool sat in the center, glowing faintly silver like moonlight had melted into soup. It gave off a subtle hum, like a lullaby made entirely of warnings.
Across the far wall was a mural.
But not a normal one.
No, this was interactive emotional damage.
The mural depicted a girl mid-transformation—hair tangled, mouth wide in a silent scream, fingers clawed out as if reaching through the stone itself. Her eyes were huge. Black. All pupil. They followed the group as they entered, tracking them like they owed her lunch money and their firstborn.
Todd took one step forward. The mural's eyes widened.
He froze.
“Uh, guys?” he whispered.
Rachel was already scanning the room like a blood-soaked museum docent. “This is her. Echo. The camper who vanished in the 80s.”
Jessie stepped beside the pool and sniffed. “This water smells like regret. And tangerines.”
Zara lit a torch and added softly, “This room remembers things.”
Doug growled low and circled the mural, sniffing, vibrating faintly. It’s her. And she’s not gone.
Todd, ever the beacon of bad decision-making, stepped closer to the mural and reached a hand out—just to see if it was painted or carved. You know, for science.
The mural flinched.
So did everyone else.
Todd jerked his hand back. “Okay, she’s either a memory or she’s still very aware she’s stuck on this wall.”
“I think it’s both,” Rachel murmured, touching her freshly healed palm. “She made a pact. And then became part of it.”
The book on the pedestal next to the pool hissed.
Not opened. Not moved.
Hissed.
Todd backed up three full steps. “I’d like to opt out of whatever genre this is turning into.”
Rachel walked over and flipped the book open like it didn’t just threaten to bite.
Inside: scrawled notes in furious cursive. Diagrams of the campgrounds. Contracts. Schedules of sacrifice windows.
And… names.
Dozens of them. Each crossed out.
Except one.
TODD AVERY.
Still glowing.
“Oh cool,” Todd croaked. “My name’s the only one in highlighter. That’s never a good sign.”
The wall behind the mural shuddered.
A whisper—not from the mural, but from the stone behind it—filtered through the air:
“You’re next.”
Zara muttered something in another language and slipped a ward rune into Todd’s pocket.
Jessie stepped between him and the mural, his shoulders tensing, already in protective werewolf big-brother mode.
Rachel stared at the wall, eyes narrowed. “This contract doesn’t just take energy. It absorbs identity. It rewrites you. That’s what happened to Echo.”
Doug let out a mournful sound, like a lullaby from a memory he didn’t know he had.
The mural blinked.
Rachel slowly shut the book, her voice quiet but razor-edged.
“We’re not just uncovering the mystery anymore. We’re part of it.”
Todd nodded faintly, reaching up to scratch at the tattoo on his arm that was definitely glowing brighter.
“Cool cool cool,” he muttered. “I love being haunted by 1980s pact-girls and cursed wall art. So much.”
Scene 7: “Echo’s Message (In Screams)”
The pool began to bubble.
Not a cozy, hot-spring bubble. Not a “yay, our mysterious summer cult spa is working” kind of bubble.
No, this was a “there’s something in here that wants out” boil.
And whatever it was? It was sentient.
Todd stood just close enough to regret it. “Guys? The pool’s percolating like guilt in a pressure cooker. I’m gonna back up a little and scream from over there.”
Zara, crouched beside the glowing edge with a warding rune in hand, said flatly, “It’s memory mist. The pool stores magical echoes. Echo used it. Probably became it. So if it’s reacting to you, Todd, it’s because it recognizes your deeply fumbled aura.”
“Thanks,” Todd muttered. “Love being known.”
Doug barked—short, sharp, urgent. His spectral fur bristled, his tail straight as a divining rod.
Rachel unsheathed a dagger from somewhere inside her combat boots. “If anything leaps out, we kill it. Or hug it. Or scream and then kill it.”
Jessie cracked his knuckles. “I vote for dramatic violence.”
The pool churned once. Then, without warning, it went completely still.
Then blazed silver-white with a sound like a scream trying not to be heard.
The surface split—just for a second—and she stepped through.
Not physically.
Not in any way that made biological sense.
But Echo appeared—glimmering like a projection across water, a ghost layered over smoke, a memory running on grief and magical bootleg.
She looked about sixteen. Her camp uniform was pristine except for the black veins of magic threading through the fabric. Her name tag read ECHO, but the letters flickered like bad reception. Her eyes were completely black. Not evil. Not hollow. Just… endless.
“I thought I was strong enough,” she whispered.
Then louder: “I thought they’d save me.”
Todd’s voice lodged in his throat like an overconfident gummy bear.
Rachel stepped forward. “Echo. If you can hear us—”
“I hear everything,” Echo said. “I am everything. This pact? This place? I didn’t survive it. I became the warranty.”
Todd’s knees wobbled. “Why do all our haunted messages sound like customer service complaints from hell?”
The pool brightened again. Echo’s figure moved—walking through phantom woods, clutching a contract just like the one Todd had licked earlier (which now seemed like a MUCH bigger mistake than even initially assessed).
“I thought if I followed the rules, I’d get stronger. I thought if I offered my magic, they’d let me go. But the camp doesn’t let go.”
Her voice cracked.
Zara whispered, “She’s stuck in a loop. The pact preserves the memory of her. Replays her last choices. Forces her to feel it again and again.”
Doug whined low. Echo turned to them like she heard it.
“No one ever reads the fine print,” she said, voice now echoing (pun completely intended) with growing rage. “They take. They smile. They offer crafts and canoe time and SAY you’re part of something—but they lie.”
Her eyes locked with Todd’s.
“You’re the next one.”
Todd, against every instinct in his cursed, twitchy soul, stepped toward the pool.
“Why me?”
Her voice dropped.
“Because you signed. Because your blood said yes. Because the camp remembers what it started.”
Then she reached out.
The pool shimmered.
And Todd, brilliant chaotic magical disaster that he was, reached back.
Zara hissed, “Todd, no!”
Doug barked. Jessie lunged. Rachel cursed in three languages, two of which Todd was mostly sure were real.
But his fingers brushed the surface of the pool—and touched hers.
And everything exploded.
For a moment, Todd wasn’t in the chamber anymore.
He was in the woods.
Except not. Not the woods he knew.
These were older. Wilder. Hungrier.
The trees breathed. The air pulsed. And standing in front of him was Echo—not the flickering version, but a full, snarling silhouette carved from moonlight and anger.
“You think this is about you,” she said. “It’s not. It’s about the deal. You’re just the next idiot in line.”
Todd stumbled back. “I didn’t know I signed a blood contract with my tongue!”
Echo tilted her head. “You think knowing would’ve changed it? The pact chooses. The camp feeds. And now... you’re the flavor.”
Behind her, the trees bled black ink. A thousand faces swirled in the branches—campers, counselors, memories that weren’t his, but now burned behind his eyes like retinal tattoos.
Echo pointed to his chest. “You’re already glowing. The contract is alive inside you. If you don’t end it—”
She flickered violently.
“Then it ends you.”
The vision snapped.
Doug’s bark sliced through the room like a spectral alarm clock. Todd staggered back, steam rising from his fingertips, the smell of burnt sugar and trauma curling into the air.
The pool went dark.
Rachel caught him before he hit the floor. “What happened?”
Todd gasped, blinking, his hands still smoking. “She... she showed me the camp. The real camp. The old camp. It eats people, Rachel. And we’re on the menu. Possibly as tapas.”
Zara exhaled shakily. “She didn’t die. She transformed. Her essence is woven into the place.”
Jessie helped Todd stand. “Can we un-weave it?”
Rachel, face pale and eyes hard, whispered, “Only if we end the pact. Burn it down. Break the cycle.”
Doug howled softly.
Todd looked back at the pool—now still, black, and cold.
“I don’t want to become a magical voicemail from 1987,” he said. “I’m not emotionally stable enough to be a cautionary tale.”
Rachel clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“Then we stop it. We end this thing. And if anyone tries to turn you into magic soup...”
She pulled her dagger free.
“They’ll have to go through us.”
Todd gave a nervous laugh. “You mean you’ll protect me?”
Rachel smirked. “No. I mean I’ll throw you at them while I find the exit.”
Scene 8: “Set the Contract on Fire? Great Idea.”
Rachel stood over the glowing scroll with the same expression she once used when deciding whether to throw a glitter bomb at the principal’s car. (She had, and it had been spectacular.)
“Okay,” she said, holding a lighter shaped like a tiny sword, “on the list of dumb ideas, this is top five.”
Jessie crossed his arms. “What were the other four?”
Zara counted on her fingers. “Letting Todd lick the scroll, not telling Chip about the floating corpse, eating those cursed s’mores—”
“And bringing me to camp,” Todd added, raising his hand like a student volunteering for detention.
Rachel didn’t look up. “No, that one’s top ten. This... this might be first.”
She flicked the lighter. A tiny flame hissed to life, its color disturbingly violet.
Todd stepped back, hands up. “You’re sure fire’s the answer? Because every time someone says that in a horror movie, they become the fire.”
“The scroll is the link,” Zara murmured, holding up a warding sigil made of sage, string, and questionable optimism. “Destroy it, break the chain. Maybe.”
Jessie tightened his hoodie and muttered, “Fire fixes everything. That’s why dragons are so emotionally healthy.”
Doug gave a ghostly huff and circled the group like a paranormal Roomba.
Rachel dropped the flame onto the scroll.
It screamed.
Not metaphorically.
The scroll shrieked like it was sentient and very not into being lit.
Ink bubbled up the page, twisting into shapes—fangs, claws, legal language that reeked of fine print doom. The contract writhed, paper folding and unfolding like it was gasping.
The runes on the wall flared in sympathy, casting dancing shadows that made Todd look far more heroic than he deserved.
“Why is it moving?” he yelled. “Paper doesn’t squirm!”
Zara’s protective charm sparked, then fizzled like a dying glow stick. “Because it’s not just a scroll. It’s a binding. It’s alive!”
The flame flickered.
The scroll pulsed.
And then—
The ink reached for Rachel’s hand.
Fast.
“Not today, bureaucracy beast,” she snarled, pulling back and stabbing the scroll with her dagger.
Big mistake.
The ink swirled up her arm like a furious temp filing for overtime.
Jessie punched the scroll, because of course he did.
Also a mistake.
The scroll recoiled, launched a burst of violet smoke at him, and tried to fold itself into a paper wasp.
Todd, mid-panicked scream, inhaled a lungful of cursed ink vapor and—
SNEEZED.
And not just any sneeze.
A full-body, head-whip, supernatural backfire that launched glowing green mist into the air and blew the scroll clean across the chamber into the wall.
The impact was… cinematic.
The scroll burst into violet flame. A shockwave hit the walls. The mural of Echo blinked—blinked—then melted into smoke.
The contract let out one final, pathetic hiss like a disgruntled printer dying at the DMV.
Then silence.
Doug sat down. Zara slowly lowered her protection charm. Jessie blinked at his singed hoodie. Rachel stared at Todd like he’d just bench-pressed a god.
Todd wiped his nose.
“Okay. What... just happened?”
“You sneezed on a soulbound contract,” Zara said slowly, in the same tone one might use to describe a duck tap-dancing into a nuclear facility.
“And incinerated it,” Rachel added.
“With your nasal magic,” Jessie said, shaking his head in awe. “That’s both disgusting and amazing.”
“I don’t know whether to be proud,” Todd said, sniffling, “or book a magical ENT.”
Rachel stalked over, pressed two fingers to his forehead, and stared into his eyes like she was scanning for divine malware.
“Your aura’s still pulsing. But the scroll’s dead. You unbound it.”
“With my sinuses.”
“Which means,” Zara whispered, “we might have disrupted the entire pact system.”
Doug let out a low wuf.
The room began to shudder.
Lights dimmed. The sigils on the wall flickered, hissed, then went out like blown fuses.
And somewhere, faint and terrible, a bell rang.
Not a dinner bell.
A summoning bell.
A you woke up something ancient and cranky bell.
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Well. We broke it.”
Jessie grinned. “Which means we fixed it.”
Zara nodded. “Or unsealed it.”
Todd groaned. “I’d just like to un-exist for five minutes.”
The wall behind them cracked. A long, slow spiderweb fracture carved its way through stone like a lazy prophecy with sharp elbows.
Todd turned to the others, wide-eyed. “So… that’s definitely not a good sign.”
Rachel sheathed her dagger with a flourish. “On the plus side, you didn’t die.”
Zara added, “You might even be useful.”
Jessie slapped him on the back. “You’re our magical sneeze cannon now.”
Doug woofed again, then turned to face the crack widening across the wall.
From within, wind whispered out—thick, sour, and old.
And with it, a voice.
Soft. Distant. Familiar.
It said:
“Todd Avery. You’re next.”
Todd did not faint.
But he did sit down very slowly, pull his hoodie over his head, and mumble, “I take back every complaint I’ve ever made about normal life. I would like to trade the glowing tattoo, the prophecy, the blood pact, and the haunted scroll for a coupon to Cold Stone and one anxiety nap.”
Doug curled beside him.
The mural was gone.
The scroll was ash.
But the crack kept growing.
Rachel sighed. “Chapter’s not closed yet.”
Zara lit a new rune.
Jessie cracked his knuckles.
Todd reached for the one marshmallow still in his pocket.