Scene 1: “Lake Day! Nothing Bad Ever Happens Near Cursed Water”
Camp Evershade had two rules:
- Don’t touch the glowing mushrooms.
- Never, ever schedule a mandatory lake day.
Naturally, that meant someone touched the mushrooms and scheduled the lake day.
Todd Rensley stood at the edge of the dock, arms crossed, a crooked eyebrow raised so high it could’ve filed for elevation benefits. Before him, the lake stretched out like the world's laziest deathtrap—perfectly still, a mirror of greenish murk and fog so thick it looked like it had opinions. No birds. No frogs. No “fun.” Just the kind of silence that implies something's watching and taking notes in blood-red cursive.
“So,” Todd said dryly, “today’s theme is ‘Die Moistly.’”
Behind him, Zara snorted without humor and muttered another waterproofing charm under her breath—her third so far. She flicked her fingers at her shoes like a sorcerous germaphobe and dropped a tiny lavender bag into her bra that reeked of rosemary and fear. “Also added a ward against accidental drownings, traumatic reincarnation, and existential crises. Just in case.”
“That’s the most reasonable thing I’ve heard all day,” Todd said. “Can we ward against Jessie’s swim trunks?”
Speak of the wolf, and he shall appear—in neon-blue wolf-print trunks, no less, with a smirk that suggested he was trying to seduce the lake into revealing its secrets. “What? Wolves are majestic. Alpha. Fierce.”
“You look like a rejected mascot for a gas station energy drink,” Todd replied.
Jessie winked. “That’s the dream, baby.”
Rachel arrived a heartbeat later, wearing a black one-piece swimsuit under an oversized hoodie that read I PEAKED IN THE WOMB in bold Helvetica. She stood with the kind of gothic poise that made the sun itself dim slightly in respect.
“Ugh,” she muttered, glaring up. “Light.”
Todd leaned toward Zara. “Should we tell her the sun’s technically a gas ball and not sentient?”
Zara cast a sideways glance. “I tried that last time. She hexed my granola bar into screaming for three hours.”
Doug arrived last, not walking so much as slowly rotating forward, belly-down on a pool float shaped like a swan. He drifted up to the dock, sunglasses on, muttering phrases in Latin like a hungover Vatican exorcist.
“Possibly dehydrated,” Zara whispered.
“Possibly possessed,” Rachel countered.
Doug opened one bloodshot eye and whispered, “Corpus meus est piscina. Ego sum luxuria…”
“He says he is the pool,” Zara translated, already lighting a sage stick.
Todd sighed, rubbing his temples. “We are one monster-of-the-week away from a group coupon for therapy.”
Then the canoe growled.
No one moved.
It was a low, wooden throat-rattle—somewhere between a stomach ache and a throat punch. One of the green canoes tied loosely to the dock jerked its bow like it was trying to escape, then scraped along the edge with an audible snarl.
“Okay,” Todd said, backing up exactly three steps. “That’s new.”
“I heard it,” Jessie confirmed. “Definitely a growl. Either that, or Doug’s floaty is gassy.”
Doug didn’t react. He was staring directly at the canoe, hands slack, muttering, “Dixit illam veritatem… navicula est infernus…”
“Translation?” Todd asked, already hating the answer.
Zara pinched the bridge of her nose. “He said, ‘It speaks the truth… the canoe is hell.’”
“Right,” Todd deadpanned. “So we’re obviously getting in it.”
Jessie’s eyes lit up. “Dibs on front!”
Ten minutes later, the most cursed canoe on Camp Evershade’s rotting dock had two idiots inside it: one golden-tanned disaster in wolf trunks and one very damp, very reluctant Todd.
“See?” Jessie said, paddling with Olympic optimism. “Totally fine.”
Todd stared at the water. “We’re in a fog-covered, still-water canoe being paddled toward the deepest part of a lake that literally hissed at us earlier. You know what happened to the last guy who said ‘totally fine’ before a cursed boat ride?”
“Historical context?”
“He got eaten by an oar.”
Suddenly, the canoe shivered.
It spun—twice—like it was chasing its own tail, then began drifting forward of its own accord.
“Nope,” Todd whispered. “I knew it.”
Jessie looked behind him. “Are you… paddling?”
Todd held up both hands. “I’m not even breathing right now.”
The canoe surged forward, slicing through the fog like a blade dipped in swampwater dreams. The surface rippled behind them with long, unnatural tendrils of something black.
“Todd,” Zara’s voice rang out from the dock, “that’s not water under you!”
Todd looked over the edge. “What is it then? Regret?”
“It’s memory sap!”
“Great. Just what I needed. A canoe powered by trauma.”
The water directly beneath them began to rise. Not bubble. Not ripple. Rise. Like something decided up was the new down and forgot to ask permission. The canoe lifted out of the water, bobbing a good four feet above the surface, perched on slick, glistening tendrils of sentient tar.
“We’re being waterboarded by nostalgia!” Todd howled.
Doug stood up on the dock and barked—actual barked—three times, sharp and commanding. The fog recoiled, just a bit.
Jessie, clearly having the time of his life, backflipped out of the canoe with unnecessary flair.
“Showoff,” Todd grumbled, clinging to the edge.
Then the canoe groaned—a sound of old wood and older grudges—and tossed Todd straight up like a rejected offering.
He hit the fog with a wet splop, was swallowed whole, then immediately spat out onto the dock like a chewed-up marshmallow.
He lay there, gasping, gooey, and not thrilled about any of his life decisions.
The canoe slowly sank back into the lake, leaving behind a final gurgle and one distinct whisper:
“Next time… choose wisely.”
Todd rolled over. “I swear to all things mildly holy—if that canoe just sassed me, I’m burning this place down with sea salt and teenage apathy.”
Rachel leaned over him. “You smell like emotional damage.”
Doug barked again.
The fog thickened.
Zara crouched beside Todd, poked his arm, and frowned. “Did you absorb any of it?”
“I don’t know,” Todd muttered. “Can you absorb… bad vibes and lake trauma? Because I feel like I’ve been slimed by my own childhood.”
Rachel sniffed the air.
Then she bent down, dipped a finger in the puddle beneath Todd’s back, and licked it.
Zara shrieked. “Are you serious?!”
Rachel spat, face twisted.
“Salt,” she said. “That lake’s supposed to be freshwater.”
Todd blinked at her.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I almost died. Jessie is probably flirting with a snapping turtle. And now the lake is salty?”
Zara paled. “Not just any salt…”
And just like that, the paranoia cracked wide open.
Scene 2: “Yep. The Canoe Is Definitely Possessed.”
Todd should’ve known better than to get back in the canoe.
But no—peer pressure, testosterone, and Jessie’s daredevil grin all converged to override Todd’s inner voice. You know, the one that said “Hey, remember the last time something possessed a snack machine and tried to eat your face? Yeah. Don’t.”
That voice was screaming now.
The canoe glided across the water by itself again, only this time with a little more pizzazz—if your idea of pizzazz included the occasional growl, a tendency to veer toward dark patches of water, and the kind of aggressive acceleration usually reserved for horror movie trailers.
“Are you paddling?” Todd hissed, clinging to the rim.
Jessie sat cross-legged in the front like a smug spiritual leader guiding them through a very damp afterlife. “Nope. I'm channeling the vibes.”
“The vibes are cursed.”
“Everything’s cursed if you say it loud enough,” Jessie replied cheerfully, leaning over the edge like he expected to find enlightenment or at least a decent selfie angle.
The fog thickened. The lake went from unsettling to downright mood-setting—dense, ominous, and probably narrating its own audio book about their deaths.
“Okay,” Todd muttered, “is it just me, or is the water getting thicker?”
Jessie dipped a hand over the side and pulled it back with a squelch.
“It’s… not water,” he said slowly, examining the black gunk. “It’s sticky. Like, memory syrup.”
“Like maple syrup?”
“No. Like if someone condensed a nightmare and poured it into a lake. It’s… weirdly nostalgic. I just remembered my fifth-grade birthday party. We played spin-the-bottle with a hamster.”
Todd blinked. “I don’t even know where to begin unpacking that.”
Before Jessie could overshare further, the canoe jerked hard left.
“Whoa!” Todd shouted, nearly pitching into the lake.
The canoe spun in a perfect circle. Then another. Then a third, like it was possessed by a ballerina with a grudge.
“I didn’t sign up for interpretive canoe ballet,” Todd gasped, arms windmilling.
Then it stopped. Dead still. In the dead center of the lake.
Nothing moved.
No breeze.
No sound.
Not even birds.
Jessie looked around slowly. “I think we found the cursed epicenter.”
“Can we leave the cursed epicenter?”
The canoe creaked ominously. From beneath, long tendrils of black, oil-slick sap began to slither up the sides, curling around the hull like vines with trust issues.
Todd backed into the center. “ZARA,” he shouted toward the shore, “WE HAVE A TENTACLE SITUATION!”
From the mist: “OH GOOD. I WAS WORRIED YOU MIGHT BE HAVING FUN.”
“Todd,” Jessie whispered, eyes wide. “Under us.”
Todd looked over the edge.
He saw the water split.
Not ripple.
Split.
A circular gap formed beneath the canoe, revealing something swirling—shapes, shadows, maybe a prom photo from the seventies—deep below. And from that abyss came a low, guttural chant that wasn’t made of words, but memories.
“Zara said it’s memory sap,” Todd said. “So that’s what… a nostalgia pit?”
“I think it’s feeding on what we remember,” Jessie muttered, watching the shadows shift. “Do you… smell birthday cake?”
Todd’s left eye twitched. “That’s the scent of disappointment. It’s my seventh birthday. The magician never showed. I cried into a SpongeBob cupcake.”
The canoe began to rise. Again.
This time, not floating, but climbing. The tendrils thickened, lifting the boat up and up like a rejected ride at a haunted amusement park.
The fog peeled back like stage curtains.
Below them now: black tendrils writhing across the surface like roots over rotting earth. And in the center… a mouth.
An actual. Rotting. Mouth.
In the lake.
With teeth.
Rows of them.
“So,” Todd said faintly, “we’re being elevated toward a sentient memory-maw. Love that for us.”
Jessie grinned. “Admit it—you missed me.”
“I miss when nature didn’t try to eat me.”
Suddenly, a bark echoed from shore.
Doug.
The fog twitched.
Another bark—sharper.
The lake… hesitated.
One of the tendrils snapped back like a startled eel.
Jessie whooped. “Doug’s got doggy demon diplomacy!”
“Good boy!” Todd yelled. “Kill it with barks!”
Doug barked again, this time a long, reverberating growl that vibrated the fog.
The canoe quivered. Then tipped.
Jessie launched into a dramatic backflip, because of course he did. Todd, on the other hand, screamed like a man who understood his entire outfit was about to smell like haunted jell-O.
He hit the fog.
And the fog bit.
It clung to him like cold molasses, sticky and whispering.
Todd flailed, kicking, gasping, but the fog thickened in his throat. Not water. Not air. Memories.
He saw his childhood cat. His third-grade spelling bee failure. His last breakup, where she threw a smoothie at his face and said, “You’re not emotionally ready for anyone who likes themselves.”
The fog pressed in, whispering:
“You remember too well.”
“You looked away when the mirror asked.”
“You taste of guilt.”
Todd kicked harder.
And then—
WHAM.
He was vomited out like cursed loogie, flung across the dock like a fish on a trampoline.
He landed in a heap.
Coughing.
Slimy.
Emotionally disturbed.
Jessie sauntered up, soaked and somehow still smug.
“You good?”
Todd, still on his back, blinked through goo.
“I got spit out by cursed fog,” he rasped. “I think my therapist owes me a refund.”
The canoe drifted past them. Empty. Dripping. Oozing memory sap.
As it slid back into the mist, it let out one final low growl.
“Next time… choose wisely.”
Rachel, standing nearby with arms crossed, looked down at Todd.
“So… the canoe’s haunted,” she deadpanned.
“Oh, is that what tipped you off?” Todd groaned. “The demonic memory slime or the fact that it growled in perfect grammar?”
Doug padded over, sniffed Todd, sneezed dramatically, and walked away.
Zara knelt down and pulled a clear vial from her pocket, collecting some of the goop from Todd’s shirt. It hissed when corked.
“This is… concentrated recollection,” she murmured. “Spirit-mnemonic residue. Powerful. Dangerous. And probably explains why you screamed, ‘I still love Emily!’ on the way down.”
Jessie choked on laughter.
Todd covered his face. “Please tell me that was a hallucination.”
“Sure,” Zara said. “Let’s go with that.”
Rachel pointed to the lake, eyes narrow. “That canoe wasn’t just reacting. It knew him. It went for Todd twice.”
Jessie raised an eyebrow. “So what, Todd’s got the most cursed emotional baggage?”
Todd sat up and glared. “If you ever call my trauma canoe bait again, I swear—”
Zara stood suddenly. “The lake’s active now. The curse isn’t just seeping from the land—it’s feeding. Growing. Remembering.”
Doug growled low. Not his usual “I don’t like your shorts” growl. A warning.
Rachel’s hand drifted toward her belt pouch. “And I think it knows who disturbed it.”
They all looked at Todd.
He threw his arms up. “Oh come on! I didn’t even poke anything this time!”
The fog coiled at the water’s edge.
From the depths, a whisper:
“Remember.”
Todd looked up, squinting at the sky.
“I hate this lake.”
Scene 3: “Rachel Finds Salt. In the Lake.”
Rachel Stroud was not having it.
Not the humidity, not the fog, not the lake that had just tried to emotionally digest her teammate like he was a nostalgic granola bar, and certainly not the inexplicable white residue crusting the edge of her black boot.
She crouched at the shoreline, squinting at the lake like it owed her money.
Which, to be fair, it probably did. In therapy bills.
The others were behind her—Todd was sitting on a towel, dripping fog juice and muttering about emotional boundaries with canoes, while Zara fussed over a sigil-painting kit and Jessie kept throwing lake pebbles and pretending he wasn’t disappointed none of them turned into cursed koi.
Rachel dipped two fingers into the water, brought it to her lips, and—
Spat.
“Salt,” she declared, wiping her tongue on the sleeve of her oversized hoodie. “That lake is freshwater. That—wasn’t.”
Todd sat up. “Hold on, hold on. Did you just taste test the possessed lake?”
“It looked weird,” she said, completely unfazed. “And I’m not licking frogs this time, so we’ve gotta make do.”
Jessie looked mildly offended. “The frogs were a vibe.”
“They were a hallucinogenic liability,” Rachel shot back.
Zara came rushing over, pulling a crystal vial from her belt like a magical sommelier. She scooped up a sample, swirled it, sniffed, then frowned so hard it could’ve smoothed mountains.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh, oh no. That’s not just salt. That’s ritual-grade summoning salt.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Todd blinked. “The kind that calls demons, or the kind that keeps your fries crispy?”
“Same kind,” Zara replied grimly. “Except this one’s been soaking in memory residue, echo frequency, and probably the tears of campers who tried to skinny dip in cursed lakes.”
Jessie glanced at the bottle. “Wait, how do you summon something with salt? I thought you needed, like, candles and goat blood.”
Rachel pointed toward the lake. “Apparently, you just need a dead girl, a half-eaten curse, and questionable swimming policies.”
Doug, who had been sniffing weeds near the dock like they were personally offensive, suddenly stopped. His ears perked. He growled low and padded over to a patch of damp earth, right where the water met the grass.
He barked once.
Then again.
Then rolled—suddenly and violently—over something half-buried.
“Doug, no!” Zara shouted. “That’s not a scratching spot, it’s—”
Click.
A low hum echoed from the ground.
The group froze.
Todd stood up—albeit slowly, like a man not convinced his legs were loyal—and walked to where Doug had unearthed… something.
Beneath the muck and roots, a faint white glow pulsed.
Rachel dropped to one knee and brushed it clean.
Stone.
Carved.
Circular.
And covered in symbols she didn’t like at all.
“Sigil circle,” she muttered. “Binding pattern. Someone put this here to trap something.”
Jessie crouched beside her. “Or keep something from leaving.”
“Tomato, tomahto,” Todd said, hovering nearby. “It’s glowing. That’s never a good sign.”
Zara narrowed her eyes. “Wait… those glyphs aren’t standard containment runes. They’re echo-aligned.”
Todd looked back at the lake. “You mean—like Echo, Echo? The ‘we accidentally unleashed a curse from the past and now everything’s haunted and sarcastic’ Echo?”
Rachel touched the center of the stone. It was still warm.
And humming.
Not a sound. A feeling. Like fingers brushing along her spine, whispering old secrets in a voice shaped like regret.
She stood.
“This thing’s not just active,” she said. “It’s hungry.”
Jessie winced. “Why does everything here want to eat us?”
“It doesn’t,” Zara said. “It wants to remember us.”
Todd looked up from inspecting the edges of the ring. “Is that better? That feels worse.”
“It’s feeding off us,” Rachel continued, pacing slowly around the perimeter. “It’s pulling from our presence. Our emotions. Every time we get scared, or confused, or try to suppress a memory…”
She pointed toward the lake, where fog still slithered like a living thing.
“…it gets stronger.”
Doug whimpered.
Zara dropped to one knee and traced a finger over one of the outer glyphs. It flared with faint blue light.
“See this?” she said. “These weren’t carved. These were burned. Someone used live essence to inscribe this. Blood magic. Or worse—memory-forged intention.”
Todd’s eyes bugged slightly. “That is way too many syllables to tell me we’re hexed.”
Rachel turned to face them, eyes narrowed.
“We’re past ‘hexed,’ Todd. We’re cursed, haunted, ritual-adjacent, and very likely standing on top of a magical landmine with emotional PTSD.”
Jessie raised his hand. “Is that the technical term?”
“Yes.”
Rachel stepped back toward the lake and crouched again. “There’s saltwater lapping against this ritual site. The circle is binding spirits, and the water is now saturated with summoning elements. You put those together...”
“…and you get a feedback loop,” Zara finished. “The Echo curse isn’t just a remnant anymore. It’s contagious.”
Todd fell backwards onto the grass. “Fantastic. So what you’re saying is, we’re not just cursed campers. We’re carriers.”
Doug sneezed.
Rachel turned her head, expression grim. “It’s accelerating.”
Zara stood, clutching the vial like it might explode.
“It’s changing form,” she said. “Echo wasn’t just one spirit. She was the catalyst. The others—the ones she tried to warn us about—they’re waking up now. All the leftovers. The leeches. The unresolved.”
Todd groaned. “Okay, new question. At what point do we just pack up, move to another continent, and become professional yurt salespeople?”
Jessie sat cross-legged in the grass, squinting at the ring. “Not until we figure out what triggered this. Someone fed the curse. Recently. You don’t get ritual-grade lake salt from a haunted canoe alone.”
Rachel stared out across the still water.
The fog shifted.
Not rolled.
Shifted.
Like something beneath it was breathing.
“There’s more buried here,” she said quietly. “More sigils. More bindings. This whole lake is a net. We just tripped the tension wire.”
Zara muttered something in Latin under her breath and pressed a hand over her heart.
Jessie stood. “So what’s our next move?”
Rachel looked at Todd.
Then at the lake.
Then at the sigil glowing behind them.
She pulled her hoodie tighter and said:
“We find what’s feeding it—before it remembers how to feed on us.”
Scene 4: “Todd Gets Bit by a Water Snake. Sort Of.”
Todd didn’t want to be here.
By “here,” he meant “ankle-deep in a lukewarm swamp that smelled like seaweed’s midlife crisis.” He meant “wading through lake muck looking for haunted sigils while possibly radiating cursed vibes like a sweaty haunted humidifier.” He also meant “being volunteered as tribute by a smug witch and a goth banshee in eyeliner.”
“You’re the only one it touched directly,” Zara had said sweetly, like that somehow made him qualified.
“You’re cursed bait now,” Rachel had added, sipping black coffee she’d conjured from hell knows where.
Jessie just grinned and said, “You’re doing great, water boy.”
So, naturally, Todd found himself poking around the lakebed with a stick like it was the most passive-aggressive form of ghost-hunting.
“Still can’t believe I got slimed and emotionally violated by a canoe,” he muttered.
The shoreline squelched beneath his water shoes—he regretted the Crocs, but at this point he also regretted being born so it was fine—and reeds brushed his knees like they were debating whether to whisper forbidden truths or ask for a hug.
Doug sat nearby on a dry rock, looking unimpressed.
“Wanna switch places?” Todd asked. “You sniff the demon grass, and I’ll growl dramatically at ominous twigs.”
Doug sneezed and turned away.
Todd sighed.
He took another step and felt the ground shift under his foot—not a soft, muddy give, but a sudden pulse. Like stepping on a breathing ribcage.
He froze.
Then he felt it: a slither.
Cool. Slimy. Alive.
Wrapping around his ankle.
“Nope,” he said aloud. “Nope nope no—AAAHHH!”
He thrashed backward as something coiled up his leg—tight, wet, and whispering. It didn’t just squeeze—it hummed. In his bones.
Then it spoke.
“You’ve tasted the contract.”
Todd screamed like a man whose therapy budget had just tripled.
Jessie, from the rocks: “Everything okay?”
“NO! SOMETHING IS LICKING MY SOUL!”
He flailed, kicking, but the thing just coiled tighter. It wasn’t a snake. It wasn’t a tentacle. It was something else. Too smooth. Too aware.
Then—it climbed higher.
His knee. His thigh.
It whispered again:
“You were chosen. Now you are part.”
“JESSIE GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!”
Jessie leapt down from the rocks like some shirtless rescue wolf-boy and waded in, grabbing the writhing black slime off Todd’s leg.
It hissed.
Jessie yanked—hard—and the thing evaporated. Not burst. Not splashed.
Evaporated.
Right into mist.
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Todd yelled, scrambling onto the nearest rock and hugging himself like a freshly traumatized towel burrito.
Jessie shrugged, panting. “I don’t know. But it was getting way too cozy with your inner thigh.”
Doug growled from his perch.
Zara came running from the trees, robes fluttering, scrying lens in one hand and a bag of ward-stones in the other. Rachel was right behind her, flipping through an ancient field notebook that looked suspiciously like it was bound in human skin.
Todd pointed at his leg. “It bit me! With feelings!”
Zara dropped beside him. “Where?”
He gestured shakily.
She touched the skin—then yanked her hand back with a gasp.
“Oh no.”
“Oh no WHAT?” Todd shouted.
Zara leaned in, squinting. “It left a mark. Look.”
Todd looked.
Just above his ankle, a faint red glyph glowed beneath the skin like a tattoo drawn in ancient spite. A spiral, surrounded by runes that twisted if he stared too long.
Rachel examined it. “That’s ritual script.”
“Ritual as in… cool tattoo club? Or ritual as in I’ve been emotionally tethered to lake slime and am now a walking malediction?”
Rachel looked at him. “Do you want the lie or the panic?”
“I don’t even know anymore!”
Zara whispered something and held her palm over the mark. It pulsed—red, then blue, then hissed like hot wax on skin.
Todd flinched. “Ow ow OW!”
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s not reacting to healing magic.”
“Why would it?” Rachel muttered. “It’s not damage. It’s binding.”
Jessie frowned. “So what, Todd’s part of the spell now?”
“No,” Zara said slowly, “not part of the spell.”
She looked up, face pale.
“He’s fueling it.”
Todd’s stomach dropped. “I beg your hexing pardon?”
Rachel straightened. “You’ve been marked. You’re a conduit now. A magical Capri Sun for whatever’s feeding on this place.”
Todd blinked. “So… I’m delicious?”
“Spiritually, yes.”
Doug howled softly.
Todd sat down, clutching his knee. “This is fine. I’m fine. Everything’s great. I just need to avoid large bodies of water, cursed circles, retro fashion, my own reflection, and now apparently snakes made of existential dread.”
Zara patted his shoulder. “Oh, and don’t sleep near mirrors. Or under trees. Or anywhere moist.”
“Great. I’ll just sleep in a bucket of silica gel and cry myself to death.”
Jessie grinned. “You’re taking this way better than I expected.”
Todd looked up, eyes twitching. “Jessie?”
“Yeah?”
“If anything else whispers at me today, I’m setting this entire lake on fire with my mind.”
Doug barked once, sharply.
Rachel turned, scanning the misty shoreline.
“What is it, boy?”
Doug stepped aside, revealing a small pile of rotting vines coiled near a half-buried stone. They twitched faintly. And in the middle of the vines—another sigil.
Glowing.
Pulsing.
Hungry.
Jessie sighed. “Guess it wasn’t just one snake.”
Todd curled into himself.
“I am never swimming again.”
Scene 5: “Sponge Kevin and the Curious Cleansing”
Todd was done.
Done with cursed canoes.
Done with ghost snakes that whispered contractual language.
Done with being emotionally, spiritually, and now physically wrapped in eldritch nonsense like the world's most cursed fruit roll-up.
And just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse—just when he thought he might have five minutes to dry off, reset his emotional equilibrium, and not have another entity flirt with his thigh…
Kevin happened.
He emerged from the fog like a myth made of off-brand bug spray and misplaced confidence. Shirtless, wearing too-short khakis and a bandolier made entirely of garlic cloves. He looked like he’d tried to dress for vampire hunting but lost a bet with a salad bar.
“Hey, hey!” Kevin called out, waving enthusiastically and nearly knocking himself off-balance. “Todd! You look spiritually violated!”
Todd blinked. “That’s… an aggressive greeting.”
“I sensed your aura rippling!” Kevin jogged closer, eyes wide and shimmering with the kind of energy usually reserved for conspiracy vloggers and overly excited sword salesmen. “It’s full of ooze and betrayal.”
Jessie, sitting on a stump sharpening a rock like it owed him money, muttered, “Here we go.”
Kevin held up a handful of—was that fast food salt packets?
“I brought protection!”
He flung one at Todd’s chest.
It hit with a sad plap, bounced, and then fizzled slightly where it touched the lingering lake slime.
Todd yelped. “Why does that sizzle?!”
Zara, watching from under a moss-draped pine, narrowed her eyes. “Is that iodized?”
“Ritual-grade Denny’s,” Kevin said proudly. “Stolen from four different truck stops. Blessed by a guy who said his name was ‘Reverend Crispy’ and smelled like regret.”
Rachel sighed into her coffee. “That actually checks out.”
Todd tried to back away, but Kevin was already rummaging in a canvas pouch made from what looked suspiciously like a shower curtain. “No, no—this calls for Stage Two Cleansing. You’ve been contract-touched. That means the vibes are already whispering in your limbic system.”
Todd whimpered. “I don’t think my limbic system consented to that.”
“Exactly!” Kevin announced triumphantly. “Which is why you need…” He flourished his hand like a magician pulling a rabbit out of trauma.
“…The Cleansing Sponge.”
It was pink.
It was damp.
And it was breathing.
Everyone stepped back. Even Doug.
Todd blinked at it. “That sponge is alive.”
“Not alive,” Kevin said cheerfully. “Awakened.”
Jessie snorted. “Looks like it just finished arguing with a loofah about Nietzsche.”
Kevin approached like a man bestowing a holy relic. “Take it. Let it absorb your anguish.”
Todd hesitated, arm outstretched like he was about to grab a radioactive porcupine.
He touched the sponge.
The sponge screamed.
Not metaphorically.
It let out a high-pitched, echoing wail like a kettle boiling in the fifth circle of hell, followed by a string of muttered curses in seven languages—only two of which were human.
Todd dropped it. “OH MY GOD.”
The sponge hit the ground, wiggled once, and then disintegrated into a puff of glitter and shame.
Zara crouched, examining the glitter. “That sponge wasn’t cleansed. It was cursed. Like, reverse-cleansing cursed.”
Rachel took a long sip from her mug. “He just gave Todd a soul loofah that tried to eat his regret.”
Kevin gasped, staring at the glitter like it had betrayed him. “Impossible! I bought that sponge from a licensed cryptobotanist in the parking lot of a Limp Bizkit reunion concert.”
Jessie gave him a slow look. “That sentence was a cry for help.”
Todd backed away. “Okay, Kevin. That’s enough unsolicited spiritual exfoliation for today.”
But Zara had stopped listening.
She was staring at Kevin’s ID badge, her brow furrowed.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Come here.”
Kevin skipped over. “Did you feel that? That was a partial cleansing. You’ll be emotionally crusty for a few hours, but then—”
She grabbed his ID and turned it over.
Then blinked.
“Kevin…” she said slowly, “Why does your camp ID say… Placeholder 003?”
Kevin froze.
Jessie stood. “Wait, what?”
Zara held up the card. The photo flickered—Kevin, then static, then… no one. Just blank.
Rachel leaned in. “That’s not an ID. That’s a construct marker.”
Todd recoiled. “Like… a fake person?”
“No,” Zara said carefully. “Like… a temporary person. A magical stand-in. They get assigned to high-contamination zones. To observe. To absorb.”
Kevin blinked rapidly. “I—no, I’m Kevin! I wear garlic and scream at moss!”
Doug stood suddenly and barked once.
Then howled.
The ground trembled.
And Kevin—exploded.
Not into chunks.
Not into gore.
Into glitter fog.
A shimmering puff of neon sparkles and the faint scent of Axe body spray and fear.
Gone.
Just… gone.
Silence.
Then Rachel deadpanned, “Either Kevin was a magical trap… or the best-dressed warning sign ever.”
Zara crouched, brushing her hands through the fading glitter mist. “He was a proximity alarm. They sent him to monitor magical instability. Which means—”
“We’ve reached critical levels,” Todd finished, voice thin.
Jessie exhaled. “They don’t send Placeholders unless they think someone’s going to crack.”
Doug barked once. Sharp. Then turned toward the dock.
The others followed his gaze.
The lifeguard chair—normally occupied by the silent woman in mirrored sunglasses—was now empty.
And something about that emptiness felt… wrong.
Rachel dropped her coffee.
It didn’t even splash. It just… vanished into the fog.
Todd shivered.
“I liked it better when the worst thing here was emotional leeches and sentient salad croutons.”
Zara stood, glitter in her hair and a sick expression settling over her face.
“They’re not hiding anymore,” she said.
“They’re testing.”
Scene 6: “The Lifeguard Was Never Real”
Rachel stood at the edge of the dock, fists clenched at her sides, staring up at the lifeguard chair.
Empty.
For the first time in camp memory—collective or individual—the tall, sun-bleached lifeguard stand wasn’t occupied by the silent, sunglasses-wearing woman with the resting “no one is drowning on my watch” face. The one who never spoke, never moved, never so much as blinked.
The one whose mirrored lenses never reflected anything quite right.
Zara stood beside her, muttering a protective chant under her breath and clutching a salt packet like it owed her answers.
Jessie leaned forward, squinting up. “You think she just… went on break?”
“No,” Rachel murmured. “She’s never not been there. Even during lightning storms. Even when we evacuated for the toxic fog incident.”
Doug growled low, his hackles rising like static before a thunderclap.
Todd shivered. “Okay, what if she’s just really committed to the bit and, like, sleeps up there?”
Rachel didn’t answer. She was already climbing the narrow ladder up the tower, every step creaking like it resented the intrusion. The wind was nonexistent, but the air felt tight. Heavy. Like the tower was holding its breath.
She reached the top and froze.
There was no lifeguard.
There never had been.
The chair’s seat was not worn. The cushion was untouched. And in place of a lifeguard sat…
A mannequin torso.
A plastic mannequin torso propped stiffly upright in the chair, a synthetic blonde wig glued to its head and a pair of mirrored sunglasses fused to its molded face.
Rachel stared.
Then slowly reached out, pulled off the sunglasses, and held them up to the light.
No reflection.
Not dim.
Not off.
None.
No sun.
No sky.
Not even her own hand.
It was like holding up a pair of portals to nowhere.
“Well,” she muttered, “that’s subtle.”
Zara, now at the bottom of the ladder, called up, “What do you see?”
“Plastic torso. Wig. Haunted eyewear. The usual.”
Jessie cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ask if it does birthday parties!”
Rachel ignored him and searched the chair’s side compartment—standard issue first aid kit, sunscreen, a whistle that smelled faintly like brimstone. Then her hand hit something soft and square.
A leather-bound notebook. Frayed at the edges. Tied shut with red string that pulsed faintly when touched.
Doug barked.
Rachel undid the string.
Inside: a journal.
Handwritten entries. The same shaky hand throughout. Ink smudged in places where water had bled the letters into murmurs.
She flipped through.
Day 1: Arrived. They said the tower was mine now.
Day 4: The water is wrong. Too still. I swear it watched me undress.
Day 10: Campers don’t look at me. No one waves. I’m starting to think I’m not seen.
Day 17: She’s beneath us. Beneath all of us.
Day 24: I can’t leave the chair. If I do, she swims closer.
Day 30: I forgot my own name. She took it. I only remember her voice now.
Day 35: She promises freedom. But only if I watch. I’m always watching.
Day 40: They don’t know. They forgot. But she didn’t.
Final page:
She’s swimming beneath us. We forgot what we promised. She didn’t.
Rachel’s blood ran cold.
She set the journal down carefully and stepped to the edge of the platform. The lake stretched out below—still. Fog-covered. Waiting.
Doug barked again—sharper.
The water directly below twitched.
Zara screamed.
A column of water erupted from the lake.
Not a splash. Not a geyser. A pillar.
Straight up. Towering. Churning. Shaped like something was pushing it from below—rising through memory and pressure.
And inside it—just barely visible—was the outline of a face.
A girl.
Eyes closed. Mouth open.
Echo.
Rachel’s breath caught in her throat.
The scream that followed wasn’t hers. Or Zara’s. Or Todd’s.
It came from beneath—from inside the water. A polyphonic shriek that vibrated in the bones. Like five different campers were screaming through time, their voices folded over each other like a sonic origami of horror.
Then the sun disappeared.
Just… blinked out.
No dramatic eclipse. No slow fade.
Just gone.
The sky turned ink-black.
The fog lit up like it was backlit from another dimension.
Screams echoed across the lake in bursts—half-heard, half-felt. Some too old to place. Some recent enough to name.
Todd fell to the dock, hands clamped over his ears. “WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE A SOUNDTRACK?!”
Zara was chanting now, fast and hard, trying to form a warding circle with nothing but wet salt packets and a broken glow stick.
Jessie pulled Todd upright. “Move! MOVE!”
Rachel didn’t move.
She stared down from the tower, face pale, hair whipped by wind that shouldn’t exist.
The face in the water opened its eyes.
Glowing.
Empty.
And it saw her.
The column collapsed.
The scream stopped.
And the sun returned—blinking back on like someone flipped the switch labeled terrifying daylight restoration.
The fog rolled back slightly.
Doug stood tall at the dock’s edge, growling into the silence.
Todd coughed. “What—what the hell was that?!”
Rachel climbed down, holding the journal like it might disintegrate.
“She’s under the lake,” she said softly.
Zara looked at her. “Echo?”
“No. Worse.” She held up the final journal page again. “Echo was a warning. She’s the punishment.”
Jessie rubbed his arms. “And the lifeguard?”
Rachel tossed the wigged torso onto the sand. The sunglasses clattered beside it.
“She was never real.”
Todd sat down. “I want a lifeguard. I want a real lifeguard. I want one with a whistle and anxiety meds and a five-star rating on Yelp.”
Doug walked to him, sat down, and licked his cheek once—solemnly.
“Thanks, Doug,” Todd whispered. “I feel so safe now.”
Rachel held the journal tightly.
And the lake—calm again—giggled.
Just once.
Just enough.
Scene 7: “Zara’s Scrying Bowl Shows Too Much”
There were rules to scrying.
Never do it after sunset.
Never do it alone.
And never—ever—look too long at your own reflection.
Zara ignored exactly one of those rules.
Twilight clawed at the sky above Camp Evershade like a slow, tired god. Doug had finally stopped growling, Rachel had stopped staring into the lake like it might answer for its crimes, and Todd—bless his anxiety-riddled heart—was huddled under a tarp labeled “EMERGENCY SMORES RATIONS” like it might save him from supernatural scrutiny.
Jessie sat nearby on a tree stump, chewing on a cursed granola bar with the kind of gusto only found in himbos and feral woodland creatures.
Zara set the obsidian bowl in the center of the clearing and filled it with lake water drawn precisely thirteen steps from the sigil site. It shimmered before it settled—like even the water knew it shouldn’t be here.
She whispered the incantation.
Latin, druidic, a few terms borrowed from Craigslist. Her hand hovered over the surface. Her pulse slowed. She didn’t breathe.
The water swirled.
“Okay,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Let’s see just how cursed we are.”
Rachel crouched beside her. “Want me to take notes or just gasp dramatically when appropriate?”
“Both.”
The bowl pulsed once.
Then images bloomed across the surface like bruises made of memory.
First: Todd.
His aura flared—a deep, seething red. Not crimson. Not blood. Something darker. Something syrupy. It pulsed with every heartbeat, coiling around his limbs like invisible vines.
Jessie leaned in. “So… he’s got the glow?”
Zara winced. “That’s not a glow. That’s a magical rash.”
“Gross.”
Rachel tilted her head. “Why’s it centered around his ankle?”
Todd peeked out from his tarp. “That’s where the whisper-snake made a soul bracelet.”
“Right,” Zara muttered. “So he’s the cursed Capri Sun. Confirmed.”
The water shimmered again.
It zoomed out.
Showed the lake.
Half of it—red. Veined. Glowing like it was hooked to an emotional defibrillator.
Zara’s heart stuttered.
“That’s contamination,” she whispered. “That’s not memory. That’s active hex current.”
Jessie frowned. “How much of the lake is affected?”
The image pulled back again.
Half the lake. Then the docks. The waterline. The shore…
Then—
The staff lodge.
The entire building glowed crimson.
Rachel stood. “That confirms it. Every staffer’s either cursed or replaced.”
Jessie dropped his granola bar. “And we’ve been eating their meatloaf.”
Todd made a strangled sound. “I liked the meatloaf!”
Rachel patted his shoulder. “It liked you too. That’s probably why it stayed down.”
Zara waved her hand and shifted the image again. She swept the view toward their side of camp, toward the campers’ cabins. Doug. The ritual sites. The path to the archery range.
None glowed.
But the fog behind the cabins… did.
Worse, the trees had faces.
Not bark.
Faces.
Whispering, repeating something over and over that looked like “remember” in every language and also none at all.
Jessie stepped back. “Yeah, I’m not sleeping under those tonight.”
Rachel pointed to the scrying bowl. “Go back to Todd. Zoom in.”
Zara obeyed.
Todd’s face shimmered on the water’s surface. His brow furrowed in real-time as he squinted at himself.
Then—
His reflection smiled.
Not regular smile.
Not “oops I’m adorable” smile.
It winked.
“NOPE!” Todd shouted, scrambling back and nearly knocking over a lantern.
Zara dropped the bowl. Water sloshed.
But the image stayed.
In the air.
Hovering.
Todd’s reflection looked up—at them.
And said, with a voice made of flayed memories and bad decisions:
“You’re not supposed to look.”
Then it vanished.
Gone.
No echo.
No shimmer.
Just... gone.
Silence.
Even Doug didn’t make a sound.
Zara turned slowly toward Todd.
He looked pale. Pale in the “I just saw my own cursed doppelg?nger make bedroom eyes at me” sort of way.
“Did I—” he started, voice shaking, “—just flirt with my own haunted reflection?”
Rachel said nothing.
Jessie nodded solemnly. “You’re officially your own red flag.”
Zara reached for her salt pouch, hands trembling. “We need containment wards. Like, yesterday.”
Todd stood. “So let me get this straight. Half the lake is cursed. The staff lodge is glowing like a demon rave. My reflection is a sassy ghost. And Kevin exploded into glitter.”
“Correct,” Rachel said.
“Coolcoolcool,” Todd muttered. “Do we have a campfire song about all this? Maybe something with hand motions and a breakdown verse?”
Zara sat back, drawing sigils in the dirt. “This isn’t just a curse anymore. It’s a network. Something’s spreading. Evolving. Like a magical virus.”
Rachel crossed her arms. “Which means someone didn’t just forget to close a ritual. Someone’s still feeding it.”
Todd exhaled, shaky. “So... what do we do?”
Zara looked at him.
Then at the bowl.
Then at the forest.
“We prep for tomorrow,” she said. “We gather what’s left of our sanity, our supplies, and—”
Doug barked once.
They turned.
At the edge of the fog, a figure stood.
A girl.
Faded camp uniform. 1980s shorts. Hair floating like it was underwater.
Eyes glowing faintly.
Rachel’s breath caught.
“She’s back,” she whispered.
Zara rose slowly. “Echo.”
The figure opened her mouth.
Far too wide.
And from it came…
Not a voice.
Not words.
A sound.
Wet.
Layered.
Like screams from five different decades twisting together into one harmonic gut-punch.
The scrying bowl shattered.
And in the shards, Todd saw his reflection again.
This time?
It wasn’t winking.
It was mouthing something.
Something he couldn’t hear.
But understood.
“You’re next.”
Scene 8: “Echo’s Voice Comes from the Dock”
There was a special kind of silence that came just before things went full Stephen King.
The kind that draped the camp in static, curled around the throat, and whispered, You’re already too late.
Todd felt that silence now.
It settled into his bones as he followed the others back toward the dock—the same dock where the canoe had hissed Latin at him, the same dock where Kevin the Glitter Bomb had burst into sparkles and identity confusion. The same dock now creaking beneath an invisible pressure, like it remembered everything and wanted more.
Doug walked ahead, his tail stiff, his shoulders tight. He didn’t bark. He didn’t growl. He simply walked—as if answering a summons.
Zara clutched a full ring of salt packets in one hand and an unlit match in the other.
Rachel had a journal tucked under her arm and a look in her eyes that said I will hex a ghost if I have to.
Jessie was shirtless again for some reason. No one questioned it.
Todd brought up the rear, dragging his hoodie tighter over his torso like it might serve as armor against spectral trauma.
They stepped onto the dock.
And that’s when she appeared.
Not from the fog.
Of it.
A figure. Girl-shaped. Girl-sized. Maybe sixteen. Drenched in sepia tones and VHS distortion, like a memory trying to render itself in meatspace.
She stood at the very edge of the dock, feet bare, hair damp and tangled. Her Camp Evershade uniform was faded, the fabric too crisp—like it had been ironed by grief. Her name tag blinked between Mallory and Echo every few seconds. Her eyes glowed a soft, sickly amber. Not evil. Not angry. Tired.
Todd froze mid-step. “Oh no. Nope. This is an I Told You So ghost.”
Jessie raised a hand. “Hey, uh… Mallory? Echo? Possessed time-looper? Want to maybe not manifest your trauma here?”
The girl tilted her head.
Then, without blinking, opened her mouth.
Far too wide.
Far too wrong.
No teeth.
No throat.
Just shadow.
And from it came a sound like ripping film reels, memory bleeding across decades.
“You broke the loop.”
Zara stepped back. “Oh hell.”
“But not the chain.”
Rachel’s lips parted. “What chain—?”
The dock vibrated.
Planks splintered under their feet as a groan echoed up from the lakebed, deep and ancient, like wood remembering every step it had ever endured.
From Echo’s mouth poured—
Leeches.
Not the squirmy kind from biology class.
Memory leeches.
Shimmering translucent creatures that pulsed with fractured images—campers from the 60s, 70s, 80s. Screams. Laughter. Kissing in cabins. Drownings. Fire. Fire.
The leeches spread across the dock in a black-glass tide, dragging snippets of the past with them.
“Back up!” Zara shouted, flinging salt. “Circle! NOW!”
Rachel ripped open her journal, scribbling a containment sigil that sparked mid-air.
Jessie grabbed Todd by the back of the hoodie and yanked him backward as the first leech slithered up his sneaker and whispered: “Do you still love her?”
“I DON’T KNOW, OKAY?!” Todd shouted.
Then came the sound.
The one Todd hadn’t heard before.
Five voices.
Five distinct screams.
One male. Two female. A child. A chorus.
Layered.
As if the lake had recorded them. Preserved them. Replayed them on shuffle.
Zara dropped to her knees, chanting in Old Fae.
The dock warped, boards curling upward like teeth. Nails hissed out of place. One post exploded in a spray of splinters. Fog coiled up from the lake like it was alive—watching. Waiting.
Echo—still smiling, still open-mouthed—took one step forward.
The dock cracked.
Todd stumbled back.
“WHO HEXES A CANOE?!” he screamed into the chaos.
Rachel sliced her palm and slapped it against the center of the dock. A blast of light surged outward, vaporizing half the leeches and knocking Todd flat on his back.
Zara dropped the match into a salt ring and it burst into violet fire.
Jessie, still standing because he was some kind of shirtless demigod of resistance, pointed toward Echo.
“GUYS!”
The girl was gone.
The fog churned in her place.
And then—rising from the lake—a chain.
A real one.
Rusted. Wet. Old.
Attached to something far below the surface. Something pulling.
The dock twisted.
Cracked.
Then snapped.
Todd screamed as the boards under him gave way and he plunged into the water—again.
But this time there was no splash.
Only silence.
Darkness.
And cold.
A voice whispered in his ear—familiar. Close.
“She wants you to remember.”
He flailed upward. Hands grabbed him—Jessie’s, Zara’s, Rachel’s—and yanked him from the lake just as the fog surged forward.
They collapsed on the beach.
Breathless.
Shaking.
The dock lay in splinters behind them.
The lake stilled.
Doug padded up to Todd, leaned close…
…and whispered:
“You’re next, water boy.”
Todd fainted.
Because sometimes, you have to know when to shut off your brain and let the curse win for a minute.