Camp Oakwood | CreepCast

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Welcome back to Creepcast.

Today we are reading a story called I Work at a Summer Camp Called Camp Oakwood.

Something weird is going on.

Which is coincidentally the thing you told me about how you discovered yourself in the seventh grade, was it?

Sixth grade.

So this is, I'm sure, a very personal story for you.

Nice personal story for me from my nice summer camp experiences.

Can you give us a bit of a background on our author who's named Langster underscore gangster?

Yes.

So Langster Gangster is the author of this story.

The story came recommended by a couple people, I believe, in our comments.

And on r slash no sleep, the first part of the story has 2.5 000 upvotes so it looks like it was certainly adored by a lot of people funny enough in comparison to that our author doesn't seem to write a ton of stories uh at least according to his subreddit he doesn't have any posts linking off to a website or different places that he's writing as opposed to a lot of authors we're familiar with instead there is it looks like four or five stories across no sleep and r slash uh night tales and scary stories there's a few other shorter ones mixed mixed in, but he's only done a few large projects.

And then he has three entries on R slash two sentence horror stories.

You have got to.

You have got to read them.

We have got to read them.

I know I have to read them.

But other than that, it doesn't seem like there's a ton of posts.

And all of those were five years, were from five years ago or further.

And every single other post in the last five years is about football.

It's all about the New Orleans Saints and the Pelicans.

He posts about basketball sub, but he is just like, he was like, yeah, this is lame.

I'm done with the whole riding book.

But what's the other one he goes to as well?

It's very important.

Oh, it's a channel called...

So it's a subreddit called R slash Urinating Tree.

Oh, I'm talking about the other one.

Oh, oh, yeah, okay.

So he also posts a lot in R slash the Masked Singer.

And it's just talking.

Your Reddit's so weird because you can, it's like, oh, let me find out more about this guy's writing.

And you can see everything they've ever commented on.

Just laid out at once.

He's really into football.

Reddit and the masked singer.

I don't like that, dude.

It's so fucked up that you can't.

Now you have two guys talking about it.

He's just like, I like talking about the saints of the mass singer obsessively for years and years.

And you know what?

Good for him.

That's why I say, good for him.

Look, he's enjoying his life.

He's having a great time.

And then we're just jerks coming along to make his day work.

Well,

read me the two-sentence horror, and then that'll give us a nice that'll pole vault us into the story.

Yes, so he has three entries to r/slash two-sentence horror,

and they go.

I'm gonna read them chronologically.

So, okay,

I bought the most expensive pair of noise-canceling headphones I could find.

Despite how good they are supposed to be, I can still hear the voices.

Okay,

Okay.

There's our first one.

Our second one.

As I blew out the candles and my joyful relatives told me to make a wish, I did so silently.

I couldn't say aloud that I wished for the abuse to stop.

Oh my God!

And then finally,

chills went down my spine as I made eye contact with the man who was staring at me through the window.

Guess I won't be able to break into this house anymore.

You know what?

I appreciate that one.

Two Susan's horror is just so fucking lame.

I mean, there's no way

it is.

Yeah.

You can't.

You really, you really, you really fucking cannot.

They're cool in high school to be like, oh, set up punchline.

Oh, look at that.

A setup punchline.

Like, they're cool when you're just getting into writing, but there's really, I mean, there's no way to make them compelling.

It's because, like, they're those old, well, I think it was uh, Hemingway

who had that.

What's it, for sale, baby shoes, never worn that whole thing.

It was some early American author.

Oh, yeah.

So, and it's like, oh, yeah, that's impactful, and it's so short.

So, a bunch of people try to mimic that.

And the thing that they just get across is impact, not severity of what made the original sentence so cool.

But, whatever.

Look, I'm sure that will not relate to the actual writing day.

The story we're reading today is very highly rated.

We have to give him credit because there was no creature involved in any of the two sentences.

it's

true i thought about throwing one in i thought about remotes be like i looked at the man in the reflection i suddenly realized that was the creature it was the creature

my family asked what i wish for my birthday i couldn't tell them i wished for the creature it's been a second since we've had a nice campfire

like a camping like a like an actual have we done any that are like campground stories like summer camp stories.

Have we done any of those?

I don't think we have, have we?

I feel like we've gotten close.

Which is surprising.

Like Spire in the Woods had like campfire moments.

Yeah, but this is like actual Camp Oakwood.

It's going to be like an actual summer camp.

Yeah.

Vibe.

That's what we think.

Well, knowing our luck, we're going to get started with it.

It'll be like Camp Oakwood was the nickname for a human trafficking ring in the small.

Yeah.

Huh?

Yeah.

What?

Huh?

All right.

Well, I mean, fuck.

I just say

let's jump into it.

It looks like this one is five parts.

So everyone, buckle in.

And let's read.

I work at a summer camp called Camp Oakwood.

Something weird is going on.

Also, thank you guys so much for the support that you've been showing us on audio platforms like Spotify.

Continue to show support over there.

Not only do we have Spotify rankings now, we also have a YouTube chart now, Hunter.

And me and you are 15th in the world, or at least in the U.S., I think, on YouTube.

You know what?

it's not just us it's our it's us and our amazing youtube audience i want to sincerely say you guys show so much support not only on youtube spotify apple podcasts all that it really does help and it's made obvious an obvious impact to where even you know youtube has asked us to be like could you make a comment on it and and it's really funny seeing the top 15 and then for some reason yeah there's just like and there's the guys who read creepypastas so

it's kind of it's kind of funny that that's there but just want to say thank you so much for that guys it's awesome.

Also, can I read the first sentence of this?

It's like the ad in the bold.

Yes, hold on, real quick.

Just to give an update so we can let people know, we are 15th on YouTube and we are 19th on Spotify.

So I think we've effectively killed Ben Shapiro on both, which was our goal from the get-go.

That was the goal.

And, oh, Talk Two is gone.

Not even using it.

She'll rise.

Mark my words.

From the ashes, she will rise like a phoenix.

Y'all really thought I was done?

I'm just getting started, baby.

I'm just glad I didn't have to kill myself.

That's true.

That was a thing.

Well, we never know.

That was a thing.

So I'm glad that I was always loaded.

All right.

Okay, sure.

Here we go.

You go ahead, get into the story.

Read the intro.

Here we go.

Work at Camp Oakwood, looking for maintenance staff.

No experience needed.

The ad stuck out like a sore thumb on the wall at a coffee shop I frequented.

It was also new, given that I was at the coffee shop the previous day and the poster wasn't there.

At the time, I was unemployed and living at home with my parents.

Isaiah.

So every time I would go to...

Yes.

I understand.

That's you.

That's Isaiah.

Oh.

I'm unemployed and living at home with my parents.

Yeah, looking up government cheese and stuff like that in your parents' basement.

No, that didn't.

That definitely wasn't the first three years I was on YouTube.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I was unemployed and living at home with my parents, so every time I would go to the coffee shop, I would browse the wall in search of jobs I could possibly obtain.

Of course, there wouldn't be any big paying jobs available, but I hoped there would be something appealing.

And in the middle of that wall was that poster about a summer camp located many hours away from home.

I don't know why it piqued my interest, though it was probably the aspect of me being able to get away from home.

A job that would let me live somewhere without my folks sounded sounded luxurious to me.

It also paid decently well, so after thinking over it a bit while sipping my coffee, I decided to take the poster off the wall and bring it home.

The shop allowed that, of course.

I wasn't going to steal anything I wasn't allowed to take.

As I walked out the coffee shop, I noticed a blonde-haired lady staring at me from the opposite side of the street.

Once I noticed her, we stared at each other for a few more seconds.

Then, she began walking away, found it odd and a little creepy, but didn't harp on it and walked

I arrived home and watched TV for a few hours.

After binge watching a show, I decided to call the phone number on the poster.

After a few rings, someone picked up.

Hello?

A female voice said.

Hi, is this Camp Oakwood?

Or yes, this is.

Are you calling today to register your child as a member?

Oh, no.

I'm actually calling about your ad looking for employees.

I wanted to apply as a janitor.

Oh, our online ad?

No, it was a poster in a coffee shop in my town.

She then asked me for my phone number, email, and asked a few questions.

I told her basic information about myself.

After answering them, she told me when I would need to show up to start working.

I was confused and asked her what she meant.

Yeah,

you're hired.

We need people.

Wait, so I don't need to do a background check or something like that?

Nope.

I believe everything you told me.

You're hired.

Okay, that's fucked.

After

for

I camp, like with children and stuff.

Nope, that's.

You're good to go.

I love you.

No need to check that.

I love you.

No need to check that or anything.

They're definitely feeding people to something, if I had to guess.

That's my bear trap that I'm going to play.

Where's that card at?

So

I'm playing this for, what is it, two damage or whatever.

I'm playing this that

they want to kill him in the sacrifice or feed him to something or something like that.

So that'll go right there.

Yeah, I feel like sacrificial memes in camps always are fun.

I hope it goes there.

I love a sacrificial thing.

Yeah, you love sacrificing people.

That's similar to what happened to you in the seventh grade, if I recall correctly.

It's true.

After a few seconds of shock, I became ecstatic.

That's great.

When do I start?

You will need to come in May 26th for orientation/slash training, and the first camp will start the following week.

The camp has six one-week sessions, and you'll be working each one.

You'll be one of our four janitorial maintenance employees, and I'm your overhead boss.

But your supervisor will be Graham.

He's the head of the maintenance staff.

Cool.

Thank you for hiring me.

You're absolutely welcome.

I believe you'll do a great job.

If you have any more questions, you know where to contact me.

Welcome to the Oakwood family.

Just as she was about to hang up, I realized I hadn't even given my name.

During the entirety of the questioning and introductions, we both had not given our names.

Wait, I never got your name.

Oh, shit.

yeah sorry my name's amy garlania garlania is right is that how you say garlania garlania garlania the thing garlania

oh shit yeah sorry my name is ain't amy garlania and i'm the camp director okay my name is harrison tracy i then heard a thump and heard gasp in pain

you all right yeah i'm good just bang my elbow on my desk

can't wait to meet you harrison see you soon

hi my name's harrison

listen buddy you're already hired i don't give a shit what your name is just clean the diarrhea out of the bottom of the bottom of the stalls it's funny to imagine that like because obviously there's a front going on and she forgot to ask his name and in frustration she just slammed her head on the desk

yeah bust her teeth out i gotta go

Do you think someone was there?

Well, let me ask you, do you think someone was there and like fucking like hit her or something like that?

I think it depends on what the monster, yeah.

I think it depends on what the monster happening behind the scenes is.

Um,

yeah, she's like a gigantic gargoyle creature walking around.

Good,

be sure to set up the carts so the children may sleep.

It's standing behind her, and when she forgets to ask, it slams her head on the table.

I hung up the phone with mixed emotions.

While grateful that I found a job, I found it perplexing that I was hired so quickly.

I figured there was more to it, but at the moment, I was just too grateful and excited to really worry about it.

That night, I told my parents about my new job.

My mom was thrilled to hear that I would finally have a good paying job, but my dad practically spat out his food.

Curtis, you okay?

Yeah, I'm fine, honey.

He said, grabbing a napkin to clean his mouth.

You're working at Camp Oakwood?

Yeah.

It pays really well, and I heard it's an easy job.

Sorry for my reaction, Harrison.

I haven't heard that name in a long time.

That's because I worked there myself many years ago as a counselor.

Really?

I asked him, to which he nodded.

I proceeded to ask him some questions, but he seemed very hesitant to answer them.

After failing to get anything, I went back to my room.

Later that night, I heard my parents talking in their bedroom.

They were trying to whisper, but I could still hear a decent amount of their conversation.

He can't go.

That's the place I told you about.

We don't know that's what it is.

The camp started long before he was born.

Nothing's gonna happen.

And if something does, he can handle himself after all.

He has before.

What on earth has he handled before?

Well, yeah, I know, like, what are you talking about?

I like how the guy's like, he's like, he's like, goddammit, Carol, there's a seven-foot-tall demon walking around.

He hasn't done that.

She's like, of course he has.

Remember when he was a baby?

Maybe he's fought those before.

Exactly.

Harrison's just like in his bed with the covers over him, like blankly looking up at the ceiling.

I don't remember any of that.

When did I do that?

Yeah, down the hallway,

his dad's like, we can't make him fight the Dark Lord.

Voldemort's too powerful.

And his mom's like, but he's the boy who lived.

Yeah, exactly.

Remember when he adopted him and he had those horns?

Mom?

Go back to Baby.

We named him Harrison because it sounds like Harry.

And he doesn't actually know that

this camp is actually, what's the name of the school from the Harry Potter books?

Hogwarts.

Yeah, Camp Hogwarts.

He has to fight the Dark Lord.

Yeah.

They went back and forth for a while.

Honestly, I had no clue what they were talking about.

I guess my dad must have had some bad memories from that place or something.

Yeah,

he should clarify.

You're perceptive.

Yeah, I didn't know.

He was crying and hitting walls, but I just went back to bed.

My dad was talking about how.

Go ahead.

My dad was talking about how I can't go to camp and how he has all these dark memories.

I think something's up.

I think he's putting two and two together.

That's just dad when he drinks a big bottle of scotch.

He acts funny.

Keeps talking about all those camp counselors that used to be really good friends with him for some reason.

Yeah, they wrote a bunch of scriptures with a knife on his skin.

Silly times back then during camp.

Oh, Camp Oakwood.

That's where the Bible verses came from.

That's right.

That my dad can't quit quoting in his sleep.

That makes sense.

That's right.

That's why daddy talks in tongues in his sleep.

Is that your dad?

Yeah, that's him snoring.

Oh, Camp Oakwood, that explains the pagan

after five years.

Every night his mom hangs herself in the room.

She's just like hanging there.

And the dad's like eyes wide open, sleeping.

You guys want to play Donkey Konga in my room?

You guys want to play Double Dash in my room?

Yeah, sorry about my dad.

My dad's a real light sleeper, so we have to be quiet in the other room.

You just hear,

that's how I imagine you were raised.

I wish that was how I was raised.

That'd be sick.

Yeah, my dad has a lot of funny friends that exist in the shadows.

Like, what?

Yeah, those are his shadow friends.

If I get too close, it burns.

Yeah, I can't touch my dad because it hurts my soul.

I try to wake my dad up when he gets like this, but every time I do, my vision gets blurry and my heart hurts.

Yeah.

I go into a state of anaphyla shock, or whatever the fuck it is.

Anaphylactic shock.

When the time came, I packed up my stuff, told my parents goodbye, and headed off to Camp Oakwood.

Oakwood?

Amy told me I would be living in a two-story housing wing located about 50 yards away from the main camp.

There were four apartments, two on each floor.

Two or three employees would live in each one.

The counselors would be sleeping in the cabins with the campers, so that left the nurses, cooks, and maintenance staff inside the wing.

There were 11 of us, three nurses, four cooks, and four janitors.

So I had a quarter chance of getting a two-person apartment.

I didn't really care, but I craved privacy, so I was hoping for the best option.

I must have been lucky because I got the two-person room.

When I arrived, someone was inside unpacking.

He was a pretty young guy, maybe a bit older than me.

I'm 21, but very muscular.

I made my way in to introduce myself.

Hey, I'm Harrison.

Julio, nice to meet you.

I guess you're my roommate.

I'm new here, so I don't know who else is here besides you and Nami.

Julio chuckled and then said, same.

At least I'm not alone.

Now, what about his name makes you apply that accent?

Julio.

Is Julio not like a kind of like...

Julio.

Same.

I don't know where you're getting that.

At least I'm not alone.

I thought he was a Spanish, no?

It is.

I'm just trying to obsess with you.

I was like, am I going fucking crazy?

I'm just trying to set off all of your scare logos.

Like, what?

Who have I made fun of?

What have I offended?

Yeah.

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And we are back to the episode.

Before I could speak again, I heard someone walk in.

I turned to see a large, older dude with a Santa Claus-style beard and tinted glasses.

Julio, Harrison, he said, his deep voice bellowing.

We both said, Yeah, I'm Graham.

I'm in charge of you guys.

I just wanted to come by and introduce myself.

Oh, well, nice to meet you.

And you guys as well.

Graham said.

He then pointed to a guy pulling things out of a white truck before introducing him as Carson, fourth and final maintenance

Do we start work today?

No, but I'll be showing you around.

Basically, what you'll be doing and the like.

I'll be next door to y'all with Carson and

one of the cooks.

I'll come back in about half an hour.

Like he said, Graham returned 30 minutes later.

Alright, guys.

Follow me.

Accompanying Graham was Carson.

Now closer, I could get a better look at him.

He was old as well, but skinny and bald.

He didn't say anything or acknowledge us in the slightest, so I assumed assumed he wasn't a social butterfly.

Graham led us to a large golf cart and we all hopped in.

As we drove off, Graham began speaking.

He went on about how we clean the cabins.

We have to make sure we put every bag and piece of furniture back in place.

We also had to keep an eye out for wild animals, as they could be dangerous to the campers.

So we're janitors, maintenance staff, and security guards?

Julio said jokingly.

Basically.

You showed.

Well, you should write Gramson before bellowing all the time.

Yeah,

I think it's funnier if I don't say that.

Okay, actually.

If that was just...

If that was just your interpretation of the character.

Basically, yeah.

He showed us several of the activity areas during our drive.

There was an archery station, a swimming pool, the lake with the large rope swing, a playground, an open field, a basketball court, a singing volleyball court, and a rec center with ping pong tables, air hockey, and a foosball table.

There was also a small building that Graham said was a chapel.

but he said it was never used and we wouldn't need to worry about it.

Red flag.

What?

Oh, the chapel?

Yeah.

No one goes in there.

Don't touch it.

Yeah, we have ping pong foosball four arcade.

That's a 7,000-year-old church.

We don't ever deal with that.

So don't even look in there.

It's fine.

We actually don't know who built it and no one can read the writing on the door.

Yeah, exactly.

It's been locked with an unbreakable seal.

And if you get too close to it, it talks to you.

It speaks real weird.

I'm still surprised Amy was able to get this situated just two years ago.

What do you mean?

We had to move camps three years ago because the city bought us out.

Graham said, knowing he had to explain now since I'd heard him.

Imminent domain.

Why did they buy it out?

Don't know.

I thought his response was odd, but I didn't ask anything afterwards.

After driving around some more, Graham took us to the main lodge.

The counselors were already there, and the cooks were in the kitchen cooking dinner.

Graham told us to mingle with the new counselors so we could at least know who we would be working with for the next seven weeks.

Julio Julio and I split off to meet the others individually.

Most of the counselors were teenagers with only a few being about my age and some being older than that.

However, I was immediately made very uncomfortable by the ones I met.

Every time I would introduce myself they would just stare in astonishment at me.

It was as if they were staring at an elite celebrity making a surprise appearance.

Some of them would even walk up to me and just stare.

not saying a thing.

After being made thoroughly uncomfortable, I went into the bathroom and hid until it was time to eat eat dinner.

I sat in the far back corner of the room, away from everyone else.

However, even as I ate, I still felt eyes on me.

After we ate our food, Amy got in front of the room and began to speak.

It was actually then that I finally saw her in person.

She was a middle-aged woman, maybe my parents' age, with gray-streaked black hair wrapped in a ponytail and a face that matched her age.

She told us that she was glad we had decided to work or return to work for the camp, and that she was excited for for another great summer.

After speaking for a few more minutes, we were dismissed for the night.

I ended up staying back to talk to Amy about the counselors acting weird around me.

Well, you and Julia are the only new employees this summer.

We usually don't get that many new employees, so they're probably just surprised to see someone new.

But whenever I said my name, that's when they begin to act weird.

She just looked at me, not saying a word.

What?

Nothing.

Look, just don't worry about it.

If you're still uncomfortable, go back to your apartment.

Oh, that would, that would, that would fuck me up, dude.

Are you kidding me?

You'd be like, huh?

Yeah, I don't know.

Do you think that there's some kind of level of like...

Anytime I say the name Harrison, all of the adults look at me weird and she's just.

Yeah, all the kids just like roll their eyes back and they fent flop right in front of me.

Okay, hold on.

Let me just call this out real quick.

I made the joke earlier about this being Harry Potter.

This is literally the plot of Harry Potter

of the first movie.

His dad and mother was experienced to some evil, and he was left with his parents.

And now he goes to the school or camp that they're from.

And when they get there, everyone who knows his name is dumbstruck by it because he is like the boy of legend.

Do you think that his, that it's like, oh, this is like the son that was meant to return?

Kind of thing?

I think so.

I think that's what it means.

Surely, I mean, if the dad already knows that too, too, that makes sense.

Because at first I was like, oh, if the parents had never heard of it, then maybe it was like, oh, they bring in new employees and then they sacrifice them.

But I'm guessing that maybe it is.

Maybe it's something where it's like, oh, you know, that's the camp I told you about.

Because I bet you anything the dad too was like, I never told you, but I have a demon that lives in me.

Almost like Naruto style.

It's Naruto Uzabaki's dad.

Yeah.

Or like there's some reason the dad knew his son had to go back for whatever reason.

Whatever reason.

But yeah, I mean, you're kind of right, though.

It has that like almost mysticism of like, oh, we've heard of him.

And they're not fully letting him in on what's going on.

Yes, yeah.

They're just staring so funny, though.

Like,

what?

A Harrison?

What?

With that, she walked away.

I was so confused and actually a little concerned, but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I decided when her eyes rolled back into her head and she started floating in front of me that, you know, maybe she does that.

Maybe she was right.

The counselors might be just really weird people.

I walked back by myself to my apartment, but as I was passing the chapel, something caught my eye.

I walked up the stoop and looked through the window on the door.

Inside, there was a small light flickering at the far end of the room.

I could see the outline of someone kneeling on the ground, their back facing me.

I knelt down and put my ear up to the door to listen.

I began to hear whispering, Dear Savior, I have discovered it.

And I will do it.

This is what you wanted.

I'm so excited to meet you.

I I then began to hear crying, but not of pain or despair.

Rather, it was crying of joy.

Then he began whispering again.

We won't let you down.

I won't let you down.

We'll all be at peace soon.

Fuck that.

Dude, on day one?

I'm just rolling up.

I would leave.

Are you fucking kidding me?

You gotta get out of there.

Absolutely.

You have to get out of here.

Fuck, fuck that, dude.

Fuck that.

Creeped out.

I decided it was time to go.

But when I got up and looked inside again, I nearly pissed myself.

Figure was now right against the door looking out the window.

Oh, my God.

Staring at me with an angry look on his face.

I recognized it to be Carson.

Oh, my God.

So

it's even one of the other employees.

Fuck that, dude.

Yeah, hey, so Carson, I know he's being kind of weird, but he was just crying and laughing hysterically, basically talking about death in the chapel that you said no one should be around.

It's day one, Isaiah, day one.

You know what?

I think it's, it's fine.

That normally happens whenever I come over to your place.

You come into the room and I'm on the ceiling praying.

You know, every time.

Every time.

And then, and then every time I like try to bite a sandwich without saying grace, Isaiah punches the table really hard and breaks his knuckles.

And he says, wait, wait.

And then he,

yeah, just says his prayers or whatever.

And then we're allowed to go.

And he just smears blood all over my walls.

And I'm like, hey, buddy, could you mind fucking cleaning that up, you psychopath?

He's like,

we went out to a barbecue place last time I was there, and you know, my food gets to the table, so I like bow my head real quick, and Hunter just goes, Ew,

gross.

Yeah, I did.

What are you doing?

I did freak.

This guy's a freak.

I said, gay alert.

Someone's gay.

So that's why I said, uh-oh, Lame-Mo.

That's why I said, uh-oh, we got a loser here.

Everyone's going to make fun of this guy.

La la la la loser.

We're about to show this guy what religious persecution really looks like.

Come on, everyone.

Let's get around and make fun of him.

Yeah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

I will say, I will say, if the roommate with the old man and a cook I haven't met yet was bowing down, whispering like this,

would you be gone?

I mean, I would be gone.

Oh, instantaneously.

This is day one.

Listen, usually in these stories, I got to say this.

I like that he's just like, I'm going to fucking around.

Day one.

We're getting into it.

It's starting.

Yeah.

You have just had an orientation where also everyone is looking at you like a fucking freak.

And now this is, I mean, I'd be like, you know what?

I don't think this six-week

summer job is really that worth it.

I don't think that's.

I don't think it's worth dying.

Correct.

Yeah.

I agree.

I agree.

I bolted back to the apartment and was thankfully not followed by Carson.

Once inside, I slammed the door behind me, scaring Julio half to death.

That's not funny.

Wait, how did you find out?

I could see how uncomfortable you were.

Plus, I couldn't help but notice that they were constantly staring at you.

How do we like this kind of like gaze-est a little bit?

I'm not gonna lie, it feels very, it feels very, very good.

I'm not gonna lie.

I could see how uncomfortable they were.

I could see how uncomfortable you were.

Pros.

I couldn't help but notice that they were constantly looking at you, man.

For real.

That feels, that feels good.

It's gonna be so funny.

It's like, yeah, I'm from Baltimore.

His name's Julio.

He can have a Spanish accent.

I mean, he can, but it's just funny to imagine that he's like third-generation American, like, completely.

Maybe he is.

And he still talks like this.

It's a character.

I'm acting.

Also, why would he not tell him, though, about the Carson thing?

I mean, he doesn't know what he saw yet.

This guy heard.

This guy heard his dad through the window.

Carson was right up to the window.

He

heard his dad.

He heard his dad down the hallway being like, I don't know if we could send him back all the things.

That's the place I I talked about.

And he's like, huh, well, that's kind of weird.

I guess I'll go to sleep now.

Oh, well.

It's true.

He is not putting anything together with this guy he just met.

Absolutely not.

Okay, that's fair.

That's fair.

I didn't respond and just went to our shared bedroom to go to sleep, only to wake up at an unknown time.

I heard voices coming from outside my window.

I peeked through the blinds to see Amy talking with Graham and Carson.

I'm telling you, it's him, Amy said.

And I discovered how to finally perform it.

It's almost time.

Look, whether it's him or not, I don't care.

He's still my employee, and for all you know, he could be an innocent guy.

Last thing we need is another innocent person being attacked by one of our employees.

I'll make sure once again it's him.

I haven't figured out how to do it yet, but I'll figure something out.

I still question why we'll let you work here if you don't agree with our beliefs.

You told me your reason when I was hired.

Besides, you wouldn't be able to let me go without me being a threat to your safety.

I kept talking, but I stopped listening.

Why?

Horrified.

Why stop listening?

This guy, all you have to do is just be like, why don't we just talk directly outside of his window or door, and he just won't care?

You know what I mean?

I mean, yeah, I feel like that's more so an issue in the writing side of it because you could have had the three of them just walk away to where he can't hear them or something like that.

Yeah, but I stopped.

You know what?

I like the intention of him just being, I just stopped.

I just quit listening.

I got bored.

i didn't care anymore it's like um there there's a few there's been a couple instances of that where it's like just some interesting choices with the character where it's like when i got to camp graham was there he said i'll be back in half an hour yeah half an hour later he showed up and said okay time for the tour instead of just on the television yeah instead of just going directly on the tour it's true

And so I think that's what I think that is.

It's like, okay, that's all the information our character needs to know now.

And he's done.

He's tired now.

He's going to bed.

Horrified, I quietly sauntered back to my bed and curled up in a ball under the blankets.

Julio, thankfully, didn't wake up from me moving around.

Somehow, I managed to fall back asleep and woke up the next morning.

At breakfast, I was eating my food when I noticed that 10 of the counselors at another table were again taking glances at me.

Every few seconds, one of them would look my way.

At that point, I had enough and walked over and confronted them.

What do you want?

None of them responded.

Really?

You stare at me and when confronted, you have nothing to say?

Before they even got to say anything, I felt someone grab my shoulder.

Turned to see Amy looking at me with a stern look on her face.

What's going on here?

These guys have been staring at me for the last 10 minutes.

And I asked them what the problem was, but they refused to answer me.

She sighed before speaking again.

I'll deal with them.

Sit back down and eat.

I don't need any more shit starting because of you, Harrison.

How is this my fault?

I asked her only to get no response as she walked away.

I'd had enough and decided to throw my food away and walk back toward my apartment.

During my walk, I passed by the chapel again.

Given that it was now daytime, I decided to get a better look at this place.

As I looked around the room, I saw a large painting of a man.

The man was pretty tall, his body stocky and built.

He appeared to be in his 30s, if not a little younger.

He was shirtless, and in his left hand was a red book.

Below the painting was a word in blue letters.

I assumed it was a name, but I had never heard of this name before.

Said Shirino.

I was so intrigued by the pain, I didn't even notice someone had walked up to me.

What are you doing?

Someone asked.

I slowly turned to see Graham standing there.

Just looking in there.

Oh, okay.

Again, there's no point in going in there.

Besides, I don't get their obsession with this guy.

What are you talking about?

The people here dedicate this entire place to the guy who the camp is named after.

He's remembered as an hero.

What did he do?

War hero.

That's it?

Yep.

Now come on.

I want to show you the shed with all the lawn equipment in it.

We walked off, me still feeling very weirded out by everything here.

Camp hasn't even started yet, but I already regret coming here.

What have I gotten myself into?

Okay, so this is the sacrifice thing I think is happening, or it's going to be they're trying to get this buff painting man to come back to life through the body of this new hire.

The war, the war hero thing so funny, where it's like, oh,

war hero.

That's it?

Yep.

Yep.

All right.

You want to see where the mowers are at?

I'm not going to lie.

The story is at least moving fast enough, and it's just kind of silly to where this, I'm actually having a pretty good time reading this one.

It is fun.

It's fun.

But there's got to be, there's got to be something in the second part, though, that, like, get me into a little something.

I like the whole deal of creepy man crouching, whispering to himself, and then he like angrily looks through the glass almost like a goosebump scene.

I'm with that.

I hope that there's more weird, culty stuff.

You know me, I love cults.

Look, look, you've got this habit with these stories where you expect things of them.

You're like, okay, this next part, I need this, and this, I need this.

Look, I don't, if it's awful, I want to look back on it and be like, wow, that was a train wreck.

Yeah.

Or if it's great, I want to be like, I'm glad that we got so far.

I want it to take

written like

it's written like an alien kind of has written it as if like, tell me about human interactions.

That's how all the interactions feel.

I will say Harrison does read normal, but everybody else's dialogue does read very

almost stiff, intentionally stiff.

Like Amy is very much just like, oh, here, well, why don't you just do this?

And I will see you later.

But, you know, and Harrison's kind of like looking around like, what the fuck is going on?

I would like Harrison more if

he just would take more interest in people talking six feet away from him and just like fucking listen to what they're saying.

I got bored.

So I just went away and I went to sleep.

Or like there was that one interaction where

you heard Graham outside be like, um,

or no, he was fighting them and Amy was like, I don't know why we let you work here if you don't agree with our beliefs.

It's like, why,

why would she say that?

That's like a weird expositionary phrase to throw out there.

Yeah.

I mean, like, our beliefs, it's like, okay.

And even like, and then even Graham coming back later and being like, I don't know why they worship this guy.

So I'm like, to not even be like, well, what do you mean by worship?

Ah, no, let's just look at lawnmowers.

I'd be like, no, you're going to fucking, hey, you old kook.

You're going to fucking tell me what you're talking.

Like, what, what is going on?

Just tell me.

Also, her getting that call and not even asking his name makes me feel like it was maybe premeditated slightly or something.

Because if they're,

unless it's just like, oh, this is the new hire.

I don't care what your name is.

You're just perfect fodder for whatever sacrifice, which is, I mean, inevitably where I think this is going, but still.

I think so.

I think they're going to sacrifice or he's going to be a vessel or something like that.

Well, we are on part two.

Let's get it.

Part two.

A few days later, Camp Oakwood's first session officially began.

Around 100 campers, aged 5 to 10, were dropped off by their families for their week-long stay.

Julio and I watched from outside our apartment as the massive children were greeted by a cheerful Amy and all the counselors.

So glad I'm not a counselor.

You and me both.

After the staff finished their cringy introduction, the campers were all brought to their respective cabins to, I assume, unpack their belongings.

Graham told us that on the first night of each session, there would be a big bonfire that was supposed to symbolize the beginning of the camper's time at Camp Oakwood.

Graham put Julio and Carson in charge of setting it up while Graham and I were to clean it up once the whole thing was done.

50-50 split of work, as Graham liked to call it.

At that moment, I was feeling mixed emotions.

On one hand, I was still creeped out by the counselors and other staff, and I didn't know how bad the kids would be.

On the other, however, I was ready to start most of my work so that I could hopefully get my mind off of everyone's behavior around me.

Thankfully, I didn't have to wait too long for that.

While Julio and I continued chatting, Graham called us over the radio, telling us to hurry over to one of the cabins.

Apparently, a camper had already vomited all over his cabin's floor and some of the camper's bags, and we needed to clean it up.

Graham and Carson were already busy setting up bullseye targets at the archery station, which meant that we, the rookies, would have to get our hands dirty.

Grabbed the necessary supplies from the small maintenance shed that was located next to our housing wing and hurried over to cabin five.

We arrived to see about 20 campers and two counselors outside the cabin holding their noses with their shirts from the smell.

One camper stood away from everyone else.

You could see stains on the kid's shirt from a mile away.

You could also smell it from another city away.

One of the counselors, who I had not yet met up to that point, came running up to us.

He was young as well, maybe my age, with really light blonde hair and a fade-styled haircut.

I've already called the nurses.

They're on their way.

Okay.

Get the others away from the building.

The last thing we need is someone else to get sick.

You're right.

Counselor said before turning to the campers and the other counselor.

Alright, guys, we're heading to the main lodge.

Paxton, stay here.

The nurses will be here soon.

Everyone else, let's go.

With that, they briskly made their escape, leaving Paxton alone with us.

We told him to stay outside while we walked toward the cabin.

We had all of our cleaning supplies ready, but we had to fight the smell and the urge to vomit at the same time.

Finally, got enough courage to go inside.

How bad did this kid vomit?

Dude, well, even just like summertime.

Oh, it must be brutal.

Fuck that.

Also, working in a summer camp, having to do that shit.

Kids eating all kinds of crazy shit and then they just throw up.

I'm like, oh, it's probably humid as shit out there.

Oh my god.

Disgusting.

After several long minutes, we managed to get rid of the vomit itself.

Smell lingered, but not as strong as before.

Just as we were walking out, I noticed a poster hanging on the wall above the bed directly next to the door.

It was a replica of the painting hanging in the chapel.

Hey, look at this.

I told Julio while pointing at it.

It's just a picture of Horace Oakwood, the guy who founded the camp many years ago.

That's that's what Graham told me.

Some war hero?

Yeah, he defeated a powerful try back in the 1800s.

They were heavily outnumbered and

sorry, the Julio thing.

I have to lock in because I feel like it could be good.

He defeated the powerful Tribe back in the 1800s.

They were heavily outnumbered and on the brink of defeat.

But Horace mounted a tremendous comeback and managed to defeat the tribe.

He was even stabbed in the back, but survived and rocked a pretty neat scar on the rest of

the pretty neat scar for the rest of his life.

So, he was a badass.

Oh, yeah.

Julio said before we both laughed.

Was he called Shirino?

Yeah.

That was the nickname Horace made for himself.

Horace claimed the warrior needs a unique nickname that separates him from the rest.

But why Shireno?

Honestly, no one really knows.

He never explained how he came up with it and what it was based off of.

Hmm.

Interesting.

I responded before grabbing my walkie to radio Graham.

Hey, Graham, we finished cleaning up the vomit.

What now?

About five seconds later, Graham came over the walkie.

Okay,

Corsa and I finished setting up.

We now need to go set up the rec center.

Start heading over there.

Julio and I put the stuff back up and walked to the rec center.

As I previously mentioned, the rec center was a small shelter that had games such as ping pong, foosball, and air hockey.

There were also smaller games like checkers and chess that were set up on benches and tables.

It was mainly used by the more quiet campers during the free time of the day, which was during the two-hour interval for lunch.

Well, it was supposed to have all this stuff.

The problem was nothing had been set up yet.

When Graham drove us by the rec center the previous week, the doors were closed and the windows were tinted, so I couldn't even tell if there was stuff already inside.

Graham told us what was in there, but he never told us that it wasn't set up yet.

Graham explained that we needed to set it all up so the campers could begin using the stuff the next day.

There was a small locked shed behind the rec center where all the stuff was kept.

Took a while but we managed to bring everything in and set it up accordingly.

While setting up I kept noticing Carson taking glances at me, at one point staring at me for a solid minute.

I was already fed up by the counselors doing this so I already knew I wasn't going to deal with this bullshit.

However, Given what happened in the chapel the week before, I didn't want to confront Carson on my own.

So I stopped what I was doing and decided to tell Graham, who I found back in the shed pulling out a box full of board games from one of the shelves.

I really, really wanted to explain what I had seen the previous week in the chapel, but I bit my tongue and just told I was very creeped out by him.

He could probably tell I was holding something back, but he accepted my excuse and told me he would handle it.

Gave me the the box of board games and left the shed.

As I walked out, I could see Graham and Carson talking, but couldn't hear them because they were talking quietly.

In the end, Carson nodded and Graham walked back to the shed.

True to Graham's word, Carson didn't stare at me again after that.

Well, at least I hope he didn't.

After we finished, we hopped back in the cart and drove back to our housing building.

Graham dropped the three of us off and told us to keep our walkies on in case something popped up.

He then drove off towards the main lodge building.

Julia and I went back inside our apartment and decided to chill for the rest of the day.

We'd already eaten lunch earlier that day before the campers arrived, so we wouldn't have anything else to do until the bonfire later that night.

While I was on the couch watching some show on our really old TV, Julio piped up from the small kitchen.

Wonder what made Amy hire a guy like Carson?

Beats me.

Amy probably just hires anyone who's interested in working for this camp.

He's a very weird guy.

I know.

You know, I've noticed you're always very uncomfortable at Carson.

Why is that?

What do you mean?

I saw you go complain to Graham earlier today about Carson's constantly staring at you.

I noticed as well and was just waiting for you to do something about it.

But even before that, you were already uncomfortable and, honestly, looked a little scared

every time we are around Carson.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Come on, man.

It's obvious you're creeped out by him.

You could tell me the reason why.

Up to that point, I hadn't told anyone about what I had seen on both the chapel and outside our window.

However, at that moment, I felt I was trapped in a corner.

Julio could tell something was up, so I needed to either come up with an excuse or spill the beans.

After quick deliberation, I chose the latter.

I needed help, and keeping it on my chest would only make it worse.

So I ended up telling him everything, from Carson in the chapel to Amy, Graham, and Carson talking outside our window in the middle of the night.

Julio just stared at me, taking in what I was saying.

When I was finally done, all he said was,

Wow,

I'm very creeped out right now, dude.

I don't know why he and those counselors act so strange around me.

It's so fucking weird.

Why didn't you wake me up when they were talking outside our room?

Uh,

I don't know.

Well, if something like that happens again, wake me up.

Given that you just told me everything.

I'm involved in this shit is just as much as you are now.

He then went outside to smoke a cigarette.

Hmm, I don't know.

Like, I want to trust Julio, but at the same time, I don't know.

I feel like he's not.

I think I trust him.

I feel like,

I'm skeptical, obviously, because of horror tropes and stuff like that, but at the same time, I feel like he's, it feels like he's digging a lot.

Like, he's, he seems super concerned.

Oh, you seem really weird out by Carson.

Why?

You seem, why, why is Carson weird out so much?

Almost like he's digging for some shit.

Yeah, I maybe.

I want to, I want to trust him, though.

I like, I like,

I think, I think Julio is just suspicious of everything that's happening.

I feel like if he was in on it, he wouldn't, yes, he's new, and I feel like if he was in on on it, he wouldn't volunteer information about the guy that started the camp and stuff like that.

I mean, that's true.

Much as he does.

But to be fair, he's new, but he knows a lot about the guy, about the painting.

I mean, he probably asked someone about him.

Well, true.

Once again, still kind of odd.

That's all I got to say.

I think he's fine.

I think more than anything, he's just like, like, if you got a new job and a guy's like, so turns out last night, all the people that hired us were outside our window talking about something.

And I'd be like,

why are you not, why are you just now telling me this?

Yeah, I mean, why did I not get looped into this earlier?

Yeah, I know, and that's fair.

That's fair.

I stood there, wondering if what I did was the right decision.

I mean, someone needed to know, and I spent more time with Julio since we practically slept in the same room.

But I could have told Graham as well, since he seemed to be on my side when I found Amy and Carson talking outside my room for the previous week.

I made a mental note to at least tell Graham when I had the chance, but I had to find the right moment to do so.

Later that night, all the campers and staff gathered around the campfire.

I ended up finding the counselor from cabin five, and I decided to formally introduce myself.

To my shock, he didn't act surprised when I said my name.

He introduced himself as Percy before proceeding to tell me that he's been a counselor since they moved locations.

I've always liked coming back since it's so much fun.

Just being able to hang out with other friends and giving the campers a good summer camp experience.

I mean, how's it been for you?

Pretty good.

I lied.

Well, good.

It's always great to hear that new staff members are enjoying it here.

I'm just hoping it isn't too chaotic with all these kids running around.

Oh, it isn't.

These guys are the most behaved and peaceful kids you'll ever meet.

Huh, for real?

Yeah.

Most of them come from strict, well-to-do families.

We only have to discipline maybe five or so campers every session, and none of it is ever major.

Just a couple of minor scuffles on the playground or escalating arguments over the ping-pong battles.

Anything ever major?

He paused, mulling over something in his head.

After about 10 seconds, he continued.

Don't tell anyone, I told you this, but there was one thing that happened a while ago.

Before he could finish, Amy called for everyone's attention.

She was standing on top of bench, holding a small bell in her hand.

Hello, everyone!

She said enthusiastically.

For all of you who are returning for another fun summer, we're glad to have you back.

To those who are new, I would like to welcome you to Camp Oakwood.

We're very glad to have you all here tonight, and I'm looking forward to getting to know each and every one of you over the next week.

We will pass out some more soon, but before that, we'll sing the camp's official song.

If you don't know it, or are afraid of singing, then that's fine.

But

to those of you who do know it,

feel free to sing along.

With that, she raised the bell over her head and shook it.

Small bells sounded like a thousand chorusing church bells.

I stared in awe, trying to make sense of it.

Everyone else didn't really react as if they had expected this.

Once the sound of bells deafened, she began to sing.

None of the words sounded like English, so I went

back.

I'm telling you.

Awesome.

She's like, huh, that's kind of weird.

After she hit the bell that sounded like a thousand church shells,

I have in my hand the bell of 1,000 bells.

Oh, I love this song.

I love this song of ours.

And Harrison's just kind of like, that's kind of peculiar.

That's a bit odd, but okay.

It's a little strange.

I get...

Oh, she must be Polish.

Oh, she's probably Polish.

That's what it is.

She's probably Polish.

Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense.

Yep.

I'm tracking.

None of the words.

None of the words.

That's such a funny line.

None of the words sounded like English, so I wasn't able to understand it.

I have to admit, though, she had a beautiful voice.

It was honestly so angelic that I looked up at her to make sure she wasn't playing a recording or something.

After I looked up, I noticed everyone, though only some were singing along, were all bowing their heads.

Well, except for one other person.

As I panned the crowd, I saw Graham standing in the back, leaning against the trunk of a tree.

We made eye contact with each other.

I made a confused face, trying to figure out why he was away from everyone else.

All he did in response was shake his head in what looked like disappointment.

Then turned back around and bowed my head once again.

Amy finished her song, and everyone looked back up at her.

She then said, excitedly, it was time for s'mores, which was met by cheers of the campers.

I got up again, walking over to Graham.

He met me halfway.

What was that?

It's a small ceremony done at the beginning of the camp.

Amy loves music.

She studied in college and has always had a passion for it, so she likes to implement it at some points during each session

do you know what language she was singing in

i think italian but i could be wrong

She's up there speaking like dead Latin, like some of the ancient beans and you got some old-timer in the back, like that's one of the Italians I do believe pretty much the Italians if I've ever heard that's what that's what they sound she must also be a Polish Polish Italian that makes a lot of sense she's a Polish spy I'm pretty sure I'm not entirely I would hate to you know throw it out there but

well there was one time uh

at church this was a few years back my grandmother's hearing got really bad so you had to like yell at her to talk to her at any point sure and we were in church one day.

And at the beginning, the pastor was like,

all right, let us bow our heads for prayer.

And like everyone bows their head and the room goes quiet.

And then you just hear my grandmother very loudly across the entire auditorium go, no, I believe the man was Italian.

And like the pastor heard it and he was like trying not to laugh, but also get through the prayer.

And everyone was snickering.

And at the same time, I wasn't sitting near my grandma, but someone must have like told her to shush or be quiet.

And she goes, what?

He's just Italian.

He's just Italian.

He's just Italian.

I didn't say he was like awful or anything.

I'm just saying I believed the man was Italian.

Yeah, for God's sakes.

Graham told me I could get a s'more if I wanted one, but I told him I wasn't hungry.

We just stood there, watching everyone else eat their s'mores before they began to disperse back to their respective cabins.

As planned, Julio and Carson left, so Graham and I were the only ones who would be extinguishing the fire and cleaning up the remnants of chocolate and marshmallows.

After cleaning quietly for a while, Graham broke the silence.

I see you and Percy are getting along.

Yeah, he's pretty chill.

I looked up to see Graham smiling while throwing more detritus.

What is detritus?

I don't know.

I'm looking it up.

Detritus?

I imagine that means trash.

Waste or debris of any kind.

Okay.

Can you say trash?

Just say debris.

Throwing more detritus into a black bag.

Yes, I know what detritus is and you don't.

Yeah.

You seem happy about that.

No, and I'm happy because the first night is always so full of joy.

The rest of the sessions are just sort of bland.

Is it boring?

No, it's not that.

After the first night, each group follows their own schedule, and each group straight up ignores the others, and you would think most campers would branch out with those o with those older and younger, but they stick together in their age groups like glue.

Also, most campers aren't as happy the rest of the session as they are on the first night.

Probably homesickness or something, but it's been the same for many years, and honestly, it makes me a little sad to see it.

To be honest, I didn't think Graham could become that emotional or deep.

My first impression of him was a stone-cold, hard-nosed man who just did his job and nothing else.

But now, he's starting to appear more human.

I don't know why, but I was just fascinated by it.

So fascinated by it that I forgot to tell him what I had told Julio hours before.

We finished cleaning up not long after and went back to our respective apartments.

Julio wasn't there when I arrived, but his car wasn't either.

So I guess he left the campgrounds to do something.

I didn't know if that was allowed once the session was in progress, but I decided not to do anything about it.

But there are several, that one's fine, but there's several instances of him being like, this thing happened, and I didn't do that.

I just really could not give a f.

I didn't do that.

The thing I could have done there, yep, not me.

I was not there.

I decided to not do that at all.

There it is.

Yes.

Not happening.

Yeah.

There's several instances of him just being like, and I didn't do it.

Once I got inside, I decided to take a shower.

After spending about 10 minutes under the shower head, I turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and pulled open the shower curtain.

After drying off, I went to grab my clothes, but when I checked the countertop, they were missing.

I thought I had placed them on the countertop before I got in, but I must have forgotten to.

I wrapped the towel around my waist again and started walking toward the bathroom door.

That's when I noticed the bathroom door was cracked open.

The fuck?

I was positive I had shut and locked it, so my body immediately had stopped.

My phone was in my bedroom charging, so if I had to call for help, I'd have to build up enough courage to get out of the bathroom.

I eventually peeked my head outside the door, and when I did so, I saw no one in sight.

Julio?

Called out, hoping he was just pulling a messed up prank on me.

I got no response.

I peered back to my left and found my clothes on a chair next to the table.

Damn it, I left them out here, I thought to myself as I reached out for them.

All of a sudden, a bright flash filled the room.

I turned around and saw a hooded figure dressed in black and wearing sunglasses holding a camera.

I cursed out loud in shock and the hooded figure ran for the door.

Amid the chaos, I managed to grab the back of his hood, making the back of his head visible.

Before I could do anything else, the hooded figure opened my door and ran out into the night.

I would have ran after him, but I was in only a towel and barefoot and the ground outside was gravely, so I knew there was no chance I could get him.

Although I didn't see his face, I knew who it was.

I recognized him based off the blonde, fade-style haircut.

It was Percy.

Fucking weird, man.

You feel like you like a character, and then yeah, I don't know if they're...

I'm wondering what interesting.

Taking pictures of him and stuff, I'm like wondering what is this like weird obsession with his look or what they're trying to do.

You would think that it'd be like more, if it was like sacrificial too.

I was almost thinking that that it'd be like hair samples or like they're collecting things, but it just seems so like visual, almost like idolizing, almost like he's a reincarnation of the dude that they're obsessed with or something.

Well, I think you're right.

I also,

thinking about it, I'm pretty sure Shireno is a jumbled up spelling of Harrison.

Oh, yeah.

Like same letters, whatever the word for that is.

There's a word for it, but whatever the word for it is, I think that Shirino is that for Harrison.

Um,

so I guarantee you he's supposed to be the second incarnation, but Percy was just a camp counselor.

He seemed like he wasn't in on it as much as everyone else was.

So that's interesting that he is.

So interesting.

That was kind of a menacing moment of like the uh, you know, his clothes just placed outside so that they had an opportunity to get a picture of him naked.

Maybe they're looking for a symbol on him or something like that, on his shirt or back.

You would think

something, something like that, right?

Yeah.

Some reason they needed they needed a picture of him and just a towel, maybe.

Anyway, on to part three.

Part three!

Julio returned a few minutes later to find me shaking in terror.

Dude, are you alright?

Somebody broke in the apartment and took a picture of me.

It was Percy.

Who's Percy?

The counselor from Cabin 5.

Have you called the police yet?

Not yet.

I guess I'm still in a state of shock.

Okay, I'm going to call Amy.

Go put your clothes on.

Miss Cox is out talking to him.

I grabbed my clothes and went back into the bathroom.

Through the door, I could hear Julio on the phone.

About two minutes later, there was a loud knock at the door.

Julio opened it, and both Amy and Graham walked in.

Amy quizzed me on what happened, wanting to make sure it was indeed Percy who broke in.

Graham, meanwhile, sat there silently.

After several minutes of questioning, Amy got up to leave.

I asked her if she wanted to call the police, but she said it wouldn't be necessary.

If I can get him both to confess and destroy the photo, then we should be alright.

And I can just send him home.

Besides, if he didn't steal or break anything, and all he did was just take a photo of you, I don't think the police should be involved.

Before I could even respond at all, she slammed the door, leaving the three of us in the apartment.

Sorry about that, Harrison.

Hey, no need to apologize.

You had nothing to do with this.

I know, but still, you're my employees.

And as your boss, your well-being is one of my priorities.

Percy's probably gonna get fired.

I don't even know if it was him.

All I saw was the back of his head, and Percy's hairstyle and its color was the closest one to it.

I just can't believe Percy pretended to be normal around me.

I guess him telling me nothing major and ever happening around here must have been a complete lie to gain my trust.

I guess the same goes for this major event that happened a few years ago.

Actually, that part is true.

Julio!

Graham yelled, causing me to jump.

Shit, sorry.

What?

Both of them looked away from me, not saying a word.

Julio already said it's true, so you guys might as well just tell me now.

Or maybe I should just go ask Amy about it.

Before I could even move, Graham stood up and grabbed me by the arm with a very painful grip.

Do not make that mistake, he said to me.

I, now legitimately scared, just nodded and he let go of my arm.

All right, I'll tell you, but you need to promise me you will not tell Amy at all.

Same with you, Julio, though I doubt you will.

Julio nodded while I remained silent.

Graham sighed and then began.

Five years ago, a young camper named Sharon went missing after supposedly wandering off off during a group hike.

Amy freaked out when she heard the news and spent a full day and night searching for her alone in the woods.

She didn't want to, but eventually, she had to call the police.

The camp was shut down, and all the campers were picked up and taken home.

They eventually found Sharon a couple weeks later, and I'm not going to go into detail on what happened to her.

One of the counselors was arrested after the DNA was found at the crime scene.

He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to a psych ward.

And Amy tried to reopen the camp the following summer, but not many families signed their kids up out of fear of something would happen again.

So the summer after that, Amy changed two things.

Have younger counselors and move the camp to a new location?

She didn't change the name though, and she really couldn't.

I thought you said the city bought the land out through eminent domain.

That was what she ordered us to say.

She told us to lie so that we could move on from the tragedy.

Amy, Carson, and I are the only ones left from the original camp, and she told us not to talk about it ever again.

However, it's an open secret, so to speak, and many of the new employees either already know about it or eventually hear it from one of the other co-workers.

However, if Amy found- A lot of however's.

However, if Amy found we were still talking about it, she'd probably have our heads on a silver platter.

I already knew this stuff before I came here.

Remember how Graham said it was at a different location?

Well, the city camp Oakwood was originally located in was actually my hometown, and that murder was the talk of the town.

You heard about it?

Whether you wanted to or not.

So does this have something to do with why Amy doesn't want the police involved?

Sort of.

She doesn't like the police being involved because she's afraid that any other crime, no matter how small it is, could ruin the reputation of the camp again.

Camp Oakwood is one of the most popular summer camps in our region, so another criminal act could hurt us again.

But for your case, I don't think so.

Like Amy said, if nothing was stolen, And the only thing done, besides breaking into the apartment, was taking a photo of your uncloved back, then there would be no need.

It's not a serious issue, and I doubt she'll call the police for something as small as this.

So wait.

Why exactly does she want new employees and campers to know what happened to that girl?

Would you want everyone to keep talking about how one of your campers was murdered by one of your employees several years ago?

I mean, I guess not.

That's what I thought.

Look.

Sorry to come off so aggressively, but I want to protect my job and follow the rules.

I could care less if someone else told you, but I refuse to talk about anymore.

Amy is a scary lady when she gets angry, and in fact, I'm gonna go find her to make sure she doesn't do anything to Percy.

Immediately after saying that, he got up and left.

Wait, what did he mean by the fact that Amy couldn't change the name?

Oh, you didn't know?

He asked me.

I shook my head and he continued.

Camp Oakwood is the name of about 30 camps around the world.

Not the country, but the world.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

They started the franchise of camps around 30 years ago.

There's only one camp located in each each country.

30 camps, 30 countries.

We are like any other summer camp with one caveat.

We only accept approved campers and employees.

It must be from a select family and approved by the camp director of the camp they applied for.

Makes it easier for the camp to run if we at least accept campers and employees who we know we won't be a problem.

Intro.

Okay, so this is like a Ross Child level, like super upper levels of society.

I should say, yeah, like private, almost like a, not a

Illuminati level, but like almost like a secret society, almost like fancier.

I wonder, too, if that's also if the dad maybe knew about it and he's like, oh, that's where all like the secret, you know, fucking,

what's that, what's that crazy camp with the owl statue or whatever?

Oh,

Bohemian Grove.

It's like a Bohemian Grove kind of camp.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

Also, that's why it's so important.

Oh, if you know the song, sing along, where it's like, oh, this is like a super historic passed down thing.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like a tradition that your parents would have taught you about yeah what's the what's the the quote from bohemian grove weaving spiders come not here it's like over the front sign of the camp it's like that all the secret handshakes and uh

codes and stuff like that yeah

i'd say i'd say that's probably what this is and it leads back to some ritual or something it's like a secret it's a place secret society members send their kids to camp maybe that's why all the counselors act so damn weird i thought to myself I guess me, Graham, and Julia are the only normal people they've ever hired.

Moments later, we got another knock on the door.

Julio opened it to reveal a police officer.

Harrison Tracy?

That's me.

I'm Officer Marino.

I'm here to get your statement on the break-in that happened earlier tonight.

Percy has already confessed and is currently detained.

However, we want to get your statement about what happened.

The more facts, the better.

I guess she did decide to call the police, I thought to myself.

Gave a brief rundown of what happened, and the officer Marino thanked me and left.

I bet fucking Percy probably called himself.

He's like, get me out of here.

Arrest me.

Yeah, well, I think that, I think that was a fake cop.

I think

that's the reason Amy left so quickly.

They had a fake cop come and, like, so that way he

was fucking call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But first they call, he's like, get me out.

I mean, maybe.

You never know.

I'm like, trying to see with these kind of things if it's just like, oh, you have to do this.

You know?

Yeah.

Just some weird shit.

Maybe.

Like a weird hazing ritual thing.

Like a weird.

What are they?

Or just anything for everybody?

Anything for like a sac, even like a ritual or something, you know?

Yeah, what's that word they use for like people in like secret societies have to publicly embarrass themselves?

Humiliation ritual.

Yeah,

but also hazing is another, yeah, you're right the first time too.

I was up nearly all night trying to figure out what Percy's motive was.

Nothing appeared to be stolen, so I couldn't.

really say robbery was the main motive.

I did come up with a crazy theory that maybe his motive was to take an indecent photo of me and then use it as some sort of blackmail.

However, I wasn't completely naked.

I was wearing a towel pretty much up to my belly button, and my back was facing him.

All he could have saw was the back of my head, the back of my neck, and my entire back, which kind of amounts to nothing.

Eventually, I decided to just let it go and move on.

Percy had been taken away.

He was no longer a threat to me now.

At around 11 a.m.

the next morning, while Huli and I were hanging around the apartment, we heard a commotion coming from outside.

We looked outside to to see the counselors ushering the campers back into their cabins and other staff running over to the chapel.

We followed suit and ran over to the chapel.

A few people were yelling for the nurses.

Eventually, we found Graham in the crowd and asked him what happened.

Carson stabbed himself.

What?

That's all I really know for sure.

I wasn't close enough to see it, but I've heard a couple people say he was screaming while holding a knife.

A few minutes later, the nurses came out with Carson.

The front of his shirt was stained red.

Everyone stared in awe as he was carried towards the nurse's station.

I noticed no ambulance or EMTs around, so I guess Amy didn't want them involved either.

After the small hysteria ended, everyone went back to what they were doing.

Graham told us we would have to finish any work we still have that day without Carson, which thankfully wasn't too much.

We ended up finishing around 2pm.

As you can probably imagine, I was near my banking point.

In fact, I was very close to going up to Amy and handing in my resignation.

However, part of me wanted to at least finish this session in order to get my money.

I didn't care if it wasn't much, but I would rather leave with some money rather than no money.

I've come this far.

Why stop now?

But still, I was seriously coming close to quitting.

I had enough of the secrecy and the weirdness of it all.

At around 6 p.m., while I was still contemplating whether I should quit or not, I got a text from Amy.

Meet me at the house.

I need to talk to you.

I sighed and began putting my shoes on.

What's up?

Julio asked me from the couch.

Amy told me to meet her at her house.

I don't know why.

Probably heard about Graham telling you about Sharon's murder.

Ugh.

I responded and walked out.

Amy lived by herself in a single-floor house on the other side of camp.

After several minutes of walking, I eventually reached the house.

Knocked on her front door and she opened up.

Good.

You're here.

Come on in.

She led me into her kitchen and told me to sit down.

Once I was seated, she sat down directly across the table from me.

So, why did you want me to come over here?

I wanted to check up on you.

How have you been doing since Percy broke into your apartment?

Uh, I'm doing all right.

Glad to hear that.

Would you like some coffee?

Sure.

She got up and grabbed two cups from her cupboard and grabbed the coffee pot.

She began to pour coffee into my cup, and all of a sudden, she dropped the pot, spilling hot coffee all onto my shirt.

Jesus.

I screamed out in pain from the hot coffee, and Amy began profusely apologizing for spilling it on me.

I'm so sorry, Harrison.

It's fine.

It burns like a bitch, though.

God.

Well, well, here, give me your clothes.

I'll wash them for you.

It's the least I can do.

Yeah, they need to.

They're checking his shirt, his chest, or his back for something.

Yeah, I didn't give up my shorts, but I gave her my shirt.

Turned around to grab more paper towels to clean up the coffee on the table.

What's that on your back?

Yep.

Yep.

Oh, look, Fear Trapped.

I figured some kind of like birthmark or something, maybe, right?

Yeah, it's like a birthmark or something that relates back to the back.

Some kind of mark.

Release.

Again, once again, it is Harry Potter.

He has the same scar that Baldemort had

a giant

boy back.

But yeah, he's got the same thing that Sharon had.

So anyway, yeah.

I asked her where on my back and she pointed near my waistline, right where the waistband of my shorts were.

Didn't even have to look in the mirror to know what she was pointing to.

My scar?

I got it when I was little.

The reason why, though, is pretty messed up.

Yeah, I was attacked by a wizard in the night and he marked my forehead.

Well, you see, you see, the dark lord came to try to kill me, but my mother put a protection spell over me, and that caused, you know, my mother and the wizard to die at the same time.

But because of that, he placed part of his soul into me, and it's right here in my back.

The reason why, though, is pretty messed up.

What do you mean?

I described to her what had happened.

Just describes the plot of the first Harry Potter movie.

I described to her what it

was, without a doubt, my worst childhood experience.

There was something I was going to.

Oh, yeah, the murdered girl that

he mentioned, or that Graham mentioned.

They said her name.

What was her name?

It's there was a little girl murdered.

I don't know why.

Sharon.

Share.

Sharon.

That is very similar to...

What was the name of the place?

Share

or the guy's name.

It was.

Shireno.

I feel like that's a little quids of ill that the girl that was murdered is Sharon.

Sharon, and the guy calls himself Shireeno.

And again, both of those are similar to Harrison.

So I think that

maybe

the

hold on, I had a thought here.

Oh, I think maybe that at the previous location, they tried to sacrifice this girl and they killed her, and it didn't work.

So then they have to redo it again.

And now Harrison's their next subject.

I'm guessing, Sue.

I mean, Shireeno being Harrison is just obvious versus Sharon not being it.

I don't know.

It's just similar.

I mean, mean maybe it's like a similar.

They thought that that was like the pre-Harrison or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was six years old at the time.

I was outside playing by myself in the backyard, kicking a soccer ball around.

I'd spent a lot of afternoons outside doing whatever I wanted.

I just kicked the soccer ball into the miniature goal I had when I heard the backyard gate screech open.

I turned to see a red-haired woman with a scary face.

Before I could even let out a scream, she charged at me.

I don't remember much after that, but I do remember being rushed into the hospital, my parents crying hysterically.

My back was on fire and I remember seeing blood on my clothes.

Thankfully, the wound wasn't too serious, and I was stitched up and good to go.

Parents quickly moved to another town several hours away, which is where I still live now.

The woman was never caught, even though my dad got a full view of her face.

He said he didn't recognize her.

And even though he met with a sketch artist, no new leads came of it.

Do we think that this woman is...

No, because Amy has black hair.

So probably.

Yeah, but still, I mean, I don't know.

Black.

I mean, you could dye her hair or something, but

I don't know.

I'm curious to see the dad's involvement again.

Whatever.

The dad is going to reappear in the story somehow.

Maybe not in the flesh, but I just mean like they're going to be like, oh, yeah, your dad, I don't know, made some deal with the fucking devil.

You know, there's going to be something like that.

I'm curious to see where that lines up.

It almost reminded me of long legs with like the person just standing in the backyard, whatever.

Yeah.

I put on my long legs today.

That is a menacing note to imagine like a small child just being attacked by an adult.

You know, I mean horrifying.

And the image he describes too of like I was just playing soccer in my backyard and then I turn around and there's a woman standing there.

Yeah, just standing angry.

Screaming at you and then attacking you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's terrifying.

So you have no idea why this woman did this to you?

Not a clue.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Well, I want to wash your clothes.

I have a towel in the bathroom down the hall if you can use to dry off.

I'll be back soon.

With that, she walked off and I went to the bathroom to dry off.

After I got out, I saw another room down the hall with a bluish light coming from it.

I looked inside to see the light was coming from a turned-on computer monitor.

I looked at the web pages and discovered it to be a chat room.

There was about 30 people in it.

Now, I recognized a few names, including Julio, Carson, Percy, and Amy.

Alright, maybe I was wrong about trusting Julio.

That's sad.

Curious and a bit snoopy, I scrolled through the chat logs and eventually reached the week I'd applied for the job.

My body tensed up while I read what they were talking about.

Given that I don't remember everything that was said, I'll try and recount the important bits of it.

Some of the names I don't recognize, but I'll state them anyway.

Wendy.

No.

Andy just tried another one, but that one also failed.

I'm hoping we find out soon.

The world is a mess.

Amy.

If he's who I think he is, he could do it.

Carson.

Remember these traits.

We have to carve in the same way it was carved into Horace, with the same amount of time it took, and with the same angle on the crescent.

Xander.

Kurt?

Kurt said the date of an important day of his life could correlate to the pages of the book and the corresponding prayer.

Julio.

I know.

But we already tried the day of the battle and his birth and death dates, and the pages corresponding to them.

We have to keep digging.

Raphael.

Maybe Kurt was wrong.

I mean, we all remember what happened, right?

Amy, shut up, Raphael.

He was right in some parts.

Yet, it was too much for a coward to admit that he royally fucked up.

I scroll down to another conversation, which was dated a few hours after I discovered them talking outside my window.

Amy, I'll figure out a plan soon.

I'll keep you guys updated.

I'm also also currently thinking of a plan B in case plan A doesn't work.

Though, I highly doubt that will happen.

Carson,

we have to make sure it's him.

But we also have to make sure Graham isn't on our way.

Julio.

If I see anything, I'll let you know.

He just spilled the beans to me.

He said he saw you three talking.

Amy.

Shit.

Okay, stick to the plan.

Everyone is coming in soon.

We need this to work.

The last message was right after that, and it was dated for the morning after Percy broke into my apartment that morning.

Carson, I figured out the first process.

I haven't seen the other one, though.

It's a different prayer.

But I don't know which one specifically.

Well, I was wrong about Julio.

I apologize.

It seems that he is a part of the Gambit.

He's a bit of a deploy.

It was just a bit odd.

Like, I don't know.

Just way too invasive.

You were right.

I don't know.

You get your bear trap.

Go ahead.

Make the bear trap noise.

You were right.

But I just completely

I fought you on it.

I fought that bear trap, but it was real.

You know what I mean, though?

Whenever someone's just like, yeah, that's weird.

So

like, why do you think he's doing that?

You seem so weird with this guy.

It's just, I don't know, it was a bit odd.

Yeah, yeah.

And in hindsight, he did know a suspiciously large amount of sound.

I liked Julio too.

I liked Julio, too.

That's rough.

So.

The part where she says

in the first conversation, where Amy says, based on the look on his face, he seemed very interested.

At the beginning of the story, Harrison said that when he left the cafe, there was a blonde woman across the street who was watching him.

Yeah.

It was Amy.

So since we know Amy to be black-haired and blonde-haired, I'm going to take a bet and say she was also the red-haired woman who attacked him.

I still think that

that's.

Well,

the reason I say that I agree with that too is just because now there's gray streaks in her hair.

So there's obviously

they've made such an emphasis on, oh, she's a middle-aged woman to where she probably did it when she was younger, even when maybe she was a counselor back then, too.

So they need to do a prayer from Harry or

Shirino's book or whatever.

And they need to carve him in the same way Shireeno was carved with the same ritual.

Is that what they're saying?

I'm thinking so.

And also earlier that day, Carson said, I figured out the first process.

I haven't figured out the one after that, though.

And that's when he stabbed himself.

So Carson went ahead and did the first step of the ritual, it seems.

And that's why he stabbed himself.

And now they're, now he's in Amy's house.

Yeah.

That's pretty menacing.

Okay.

I could feel my heart racing a mile a minute as I stared at the computer screen.

I had a deep suspicion that there was more to Percy breaking into my apartment and this seemed to confirm it.

I looked up towards the top of the screen to find another tab open.

I clicked on it to reveal a grid of black and white security cameras.

My stomach churned when I saw one of a very recognizable bedroom.

My shared bedroom.

God.

It was being filmed from the top corner of the room.

I never noticed it before, so it must have been hidden in the wall.

There's a date and time slot near the edge of the screen.

I decided to snoop through it.

Sure enough, it showed me and Julio going through our daily rituals.

I then noticed that one of the cameras was outside the housing wing on the corner of the building, which gave a perfect view of our front door.

I decided to navigate to the footage the previous night.

As I'd expected, Julio left a few minutes before I got back.

It then showed me walking in and shutting the door.

I fast forward to about 10 minutes later.

What what I saw sent chills down my spine.

Percy walked up to the door, but behind him was Amy.

Amy stepped forward and used a key to unlock my door.

Both of them went inside.

A minute or so later, Amy came out and gave a thumbs up to Percy inside my apartment.

A few minutes later, Percy sprinted out of the apartment, and a couple of minutes after that, Julio pulled back into the small parking lot next to the wink.

I couldn't believe what I had just seen.

This whole shit had been planned by Amy.

But why?

I couldn't understand.

And then I realized my scar.

My scar would be the only noteworthy thing on the back of my body.

However, I knew for a fact that my towel covered it up, considering how close it was to my tailbone.

Also, my scar was a straight line, it wasn't that impressive.

If anything, I thought to myself, Horace's crescent stab wound would be much more impressive than

it hit me.

I couldn't believe that this little detail slipped from my mind.

I never considered it important, and none of my co-workers mentioned it at all to me, despite how seemingly obvious it was.

Shirino is my name unscrambled.

And would you look at that?

No, shit.

That is an effective.

Guess what?

Guess what?

Rach.

Rarch.

It's like not even cleverly scrambled, though.

Shirino.

Like, it's H-A-R-R-I-N.

It's basically Harrison.

It's the last three.

It's HSB.

Do you think there could have been a better name, though?

Rash.

Rasha.

I wonder if you could do something.

Booch.

There's got to be a better name.

Booze.

Rash.

Bruce.

You sound like Homer Simpson.

The Rash Rhino?

Rash Rhino.

Rash Rhino would have been kind of sick, too.

Rash Rhino.

You'd miss a H.

You'd be missing an H, but it's pretty close.

I'll take it.

Before I could even process any more information, I heard Amy yelling from down the hallway, announcing that my shirt was ready.

Shut off the computer and briskly made my way back to the kitchen.

I made it just in time because she arrived in the kitchen about five seconds later.

I thanked her, trying to hide my fears as best as I could, and I raced back to the apartment.

I grabbed my keys and dashed to my car, only for my worst nightmare to be realized.

My tires were slashed.

I was back inside the apartment.

Julio wasn't anywhere, but I saw his car in the parking lot.

Honestly, though, I was glad he wasn't there.

I saw his name in the group chat.

He was in this shit just as much as as they were.

I didn't know what to do.

My only way of transportation was now ruined, and I didn't know the woods well enough to try and run out into them.

I was hyperventilated on the verge of tears, so I drank some water and began to plan out my next steps.

I had to stay calm, but I also needed to be quick if I wanted to get out of there.

After about 20 minutes of debating what would be the best course of action, I decided I should at least call for help.

Whether it was the police, my parents, or somebody, I want to grab my phone, but then I began to feel awful.

My head started spinning, my vision blurred, and I I began to feel sick and weak.

That's all I remembered before passing out.

I jolted awake at an unknown hour.

I didn't know how long it had been out, but it appeared to have been a while.

I found myself on the floor near the couch.

There were no lights on in the apartment, but I saw an orange light coming from outside.

I cautiously peeked out the window.

Outside, surrounding a campfire, were the counselors and other staff.

I saw Julio, Amy, and the other staff members I recognized all sitting around the fire talking.

Graham wasn't anywhere in sight.

Neither was Carson.

I saw Percy near the back of the group.

There were also no campers in sight.

Before I could even react or try to figure out what was going on, my phone dinged.

Checked my phone to see that it was a text from a number I didn't have on my cell phone.

It read.

It read, get out of the apartment through your bedroom window.

There's a bicycle located right outside the window.

Take the path behind your building and bike towards redacted, using your phone for directions.

Make sure you're not followed.

That's got to be graham right

yeah i think it's graham yeah

just as i finished reading that text i felt that familiar feeling of having eyes on me again i didn't want to look up but i forced myself to

everyone at the campfire was now watching me they were all looking at the window staring at me with hateful evil looks on their faces I immediately bolted toward the bedroom window and practically ripped its screen off.

As I was a large yellow bike resting against the wall, I hopped on and started pedaling as fast as I could down the backpath, with it eventually leading me into the dark forest.

Hmm.

Part four.

End of part three.

You know what?

This is like a,

I mean, I would say like a novice kind of story of writing and stuff.

Like, there's obviously Clunky Surf and Sharina or whatever.

But I will say, it's just, I'm having fun reading this one in the same way that like it's fun reading Goosebumps.

This feels like a very R/slash-no-sleep like fun vibe story.

It is a fun campfire story.

Yeah.

And I think that's.

that's uh we just haven't read something like that in a while and it's just been a lot of fun there has been admittedly a lot of intensity as of late been a lot of heavy topics and stuff so every now and then just fun is good i'll we're not we're not out of the woods yet though we're not out of the woods the first three parts have been fun the first three parts have been enjoyable part four of five though i mean it's moving along i will say that it is it is part four

I pedaled as fast as I could until I reached the location, which turned out to be an abandoned grocery store's parking lot.

In the parking lot was a white truck with its headlights turned off.

I then got a text that read, I'll come to you.

Stay put.

The driver's side door opened, and out came a man who appeared to be in his 30s.

When I saw him, I felt like I had seen him somewhere before.

His face was one that sparked recognition, but I couldn't pinpoint where I'd seen him before.

Did they follow you?

No, I don't think so.

I said, still trying to catch my breath.

Who are you?

And why did you save me?

Name's Doug.

I saved you because those guys are crazy.

And also wanted to give you some answers.

You're probably wondering what the hell is going on at Camp Oakwood.

I mean, shit's pretty weird.

Some guy broke into my apartment, another guy stabbed himself, and I found security footage of my own bedroom

in the camp director's house.

Oh, yeah.

That'd be Amy.

Yeah, she likes to act like a big brother quite a bit.

Gee, no surprise there.

Anyway,

I think I have an idea of what's going on.

Okay.

Well, you can tell me what you know later, but I want to give you a clear picture of what's going on.

I don't respond, so Doug began talking.

The camp franchise you work for is part of a cult called Horse's Harmony.

That guy who founded your camp, Horace Oakwood, started it way back in the day after he defeated a tribe in a battle.

He then proceeded to take the tribe's teachings, tweaked about 95% of it, and rebranded it as his own religion.

And thus, he began his work as a pastor for his own community.

Horse prophesies that the world would be an extremely messed up place once he was gone, and that his followers' mission would be to obtain world peace.

However, the process of how to obtain that was nothing.

Oop, had a burp.

However, the

process on how to obtain that was nothing you would have to have expected.

Horace claimed that the only way to obtain it was to conjure a spirit, and then the body he was possessed inside of would have to die.

According to him, there were two ways to do this process.

The first way is for someone to conjure a spirit by themselves and then die either by suicide or by being killed by someone else.

The second way is to conjure the spirit into another person by performing a ritual and then sacrifice the victim.

Anyway, Horace eventually died.

The day after he died, Godrello Princep killed Franz Ferdinand.

That's what triggered World War One.

The moment he died,

Franz Ferdinand got shot, sending the world into World War I.

Oh, God.

Just that.

Look, just for anyone out there writing, if you ever get to a point in your story where you are suddenly like, well, here comes the paragraphs where I have to explain things, don't.

Just don't.

Just don't do that.

It's fine.

If the audience has questions, good.

That's where they theorize.

It's where it is good to not explain things sometimes which is made which made his prophecy all the more believable pretty soon the entire world started turning into an all-out violence an all-out violent place wars between countries outcry within them so much hate and despair everywhere his members never worried though they knew one day his spirit would be conjured and they would finally obtain world peace you know it's real it's really funny in my head because like

Because Harrison's on a bicycle and the guy steps out of a car And he's like, okay, they could be here any minute now.

I'm going to very quickly tell you about this cult.

And as he's explaining it, like, you can see their flashlights in the woods getting closer.

And Harrison's like, oh, can we do this in the car?

Now, here's the funny part about this whole thing.

Horace

told them about that they needed to conjure a spirit, but he never explained how to correctly do so.

That's really cool, dude.

Here we get in the the car.

His reason why was because he claimed that world peace would already be a near-impossible task.

So, in order to obtain it, his followers needed to figure it out how to do it on their own.

That's really cool, Doug.

But I'm just

really so many years later, and I mean, many years went by without any clue of how to conjure Horus.

Then, about 25 years ago, a prominent member of the cult named Ferris Kurt made a breakthrough.

He claimed the correct way to conjure

just now.

He claimed that the correct way to conjure Horus was to recite a prayer in Horse's self-made Bible, along with carving a crescent-shaped wound into your body.

During the great battle Horse was in, he received a stab wound from

one of the tribal men that was shaped like a crescent moon.

As his life went on, he believed to be an important sign that all of his followers should remember.

Now, in hindsight, it is a bad idea to get me a bright

yellow bicycle.

Now, Kurt was well known throughout all the camps and members located around the world.

And when he made the supposed breakthrough, many members started performing the process.

This is such a long paragraph.

Whether on themselves or another people.

Whether on themselves.

Whether on themselves.

Whether on themselves or another people.

Well, long story short,

long story short.

Well, long story short, his breakthrough ended up being false.

Many members, out of excitement

that it was finally solved after all this time, either committed suicide.

Matter of fact, they either committed suicide.

They either committed suicide.

We could have gotten

either committed suicide either committed suicide after they believed horse was inside the bodies or were arrested after killing innocent sacrifice after innocent sacrificial victims there were also members who left the cult not not wanting to be involved anymore out of fear that they would be connected to the crimes horse's harmony lost almost 80 of its followers in a short span of time so many people fell for it kurt Realizing what he had done, and also realizing that many members were now calling for his head, managed to escape the cult and went into hiding.

He hasn't been seen since.

Even his ex-girlfriend, who is also a well-known member of the cult, has supposedly never been able to find him.

That's a good idea.

You could have at least

called a friend, maybe?

A buddy, someone to be in the parking lot with us.

Just listen, I can't even get reception.

If I wanted to call the police, I couldn't.

Long story short.

They are across the parking lot.

I see them right now.

They are right there.

Long story short.

Even though Doug, I'm going to steal this car from you.

Long story short.

Long story short, even though Kurt may have been wrong initially, many people believe they did have to recite a sermon, but it had to be the right one.

There are over 3,000 pages in this book, so there would be a lot of stuff to dig through and figure out.

Go ahead.

I stood there in disbelief.

Yeah, take that in.

Just in a parking lot, just standing around.

Okay, so I was, granted, I was like memeing during that whole thing, but

so the this original Horus guy made a cult based off a native religion after he slaughtered them.

And then after he dies, a bunch of other cult leaders come forward, and these, the people from the camp are their followers, right?

Yeah.

That's pretty much everything that was said without as many words, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I stood there in disbelief while listening to everything Doug was explaining to me.

Honestly, I couldn't tell if this guy was being serious or not.

Still, I kept quiet and let him continue.

Oh, he's not done.

Long story short, the killings and suicides kept happening.

Long story short, more members kept joining, and those members would marry and have children.

Long story short, that's one of the reasons why the camps were set up about three years ago.

Sit in the car.

We don't have to drive yet.

That's one more step.

Long story short.

If we need to get out of the car,

it was so the members' children were aged five to ten years old could learn about the teachings of Horace Harmony.

Also, the dad was an original member of Horace's Harmony.

And then go home and continue practicing the religion.

The camps were also made so it would be easier for all the members located around the world to stay connected.

And long story short, I'll say that many of the deaths had stopped, with the last notable one happening at our camp five years ago.

Sharon?

Many of them.

Yep.

Sharon Ida Ravington.

Long story short, she was a counselor killed here when she was convinced that she was discovered the right page number in prayer.

Long story short, like all the other documented deaths, it didn't work, and the camp came under fire again.

Yet, they still were able to rebuild and move on.

How has no one stopped them yet?

Long story short, I really can't explain.

But, more than likely, there are a high-power people involved with them that probably help hide the cult from the outside world.

Politicians, police, etc.

So, why are you explaining all this to me?

Long story short,

you're most likely the next person to be killed when they attempt to make horse's pierce basically.

Take you, I'll be safe, and I can take the truck, so just hand me the safety.

Long short, long story short of the ship.

Long story short.

Long story short.

I promise I will not drive away as soon as I get in the driver's ship.

Long story short, there has been some talk that someone inside your camp successfully conjured horse by themselves.

And now, you would think that the person who who conjured horse would just kill themselves so that everyone else could obtain world peace and long story short the plan is for them to meet them in the middle of the rituals what i mean is this somebody person a successfully has horus possess them and then performs the victim ritual on person b long story short person b is killed and the world peace finally comes long story short it's basically both rituals being performed at different points in time the same process for both

Jesus Christ.

Okay, that whole, that whole, like, well, person A gets possessed of person B, that sounds like something we would say making fun of a convoluted ritual.

Being like, so person A has to get possessed and then they have to kill person B.

Again, if you feel the need to explain something in a story, don't.

If it's that, if it's that awkward to shove in.

Jesus Christ.

I said, the seriousness of the situation hitting me hard

I could have sworn they were after me because I was horse resurrected or something what he asked me looking perplexed my name's Harrison and Shirino is my name with some letters rearranged I must have a stab wound on my back though it is straight line and not a crescent uh no

long story short Horse never prophesies that he'd come back in a resurrected form.

How do I ever know?

Are Are you from here?

Do you

just say it?

Long story short.

Long story short, he always explained from the beginning that he would need to be conjured and then possess someone's body.

And long story short, your name being an anagram for Shirino is just crazy coincidence.

Besides, you have nothing like Horus.

And if someone were to be resurrected,

long story short, they would most likely look the same.

So, why the fuck am I a target?

Revenge.

What?

Well, long story short, besides the obvious, trying to obtain world peace bid.

From what I understand, you are a target to also get revenge on you.

I haven't done a single damn thing to them.

Then it must be someone you know.

Did you ever have family or friends that worked at one of the camps or was it Camper?

Oh, you gotta be kidding me, was the first thought that formed in my head.

Yeah,

yeah, I do.

Long story short, then I would talk to them and get some info.

I wish I could tell you the exact reason, but it hasn't been explicitly stated.

How do you know all this?

It was a question I'd been wanting to ask since he began his monologue on the history of Horace's Harmony.

Long story short, I have an inside guy reporting to me on what's going on.

And I've had family killed by these guys.

Long story short, I plan on taking this whole shit show down.

Long story short.

Well, who is it?

Long story short,

now that I'm gonna tell you, I don't wanna risk his safety.

I will tell you this, though.

There are two other employees at your camp that also aren't a part of this cult.

It's one of the older workers and his son.

Might seem weird that a cult would hire two people who don't believe in anything they believe, but your camp did just that.

There's probably more to it.

Long story short, if we can find out who they are, they can help you.

Have you been smoking crack tonight, sir?

We've been here for 40 minutes.

Long story short.

Thankfully, they've gotten lost twice, but I've seen the flashlights go over the hill three times now, so they have to.

By process of elimination, they're gonna be in this parking lot sooner than later.

Long story short, I'm addicted to ketamine

and I love opioids.

I then heard a text alert, and Doug pulled out his phone to read what was on the screen.

Look, sorry.

I have to end it here.

I need you to get it going.

Your best bet is to keep pedaling away from here and go into hiding.

Long story short, you have a massive target on your back, and they will not stop at anything in order to complete their end goal.

Just as he was getting back into his white truck, I yelled out to him.

How am I supposed to trust you?

Long story short, that's up for you to decide.

But if you didn't trust me, then why would you have stayed here for the last few minutes talking with me when you

know why they are coming after you?

Long story short, I saved your ass and led you to a pretty well-hidden location in these woods.

Long story short, just think about that.

Wait, he's not gonna take him with us.

He found him in the middle of the woods and told him all this, and he's like, well, good luck with that.

And then he just gets in this garden.

He just wasted 30 minutes of his escape time.

Just making it up.

Also, I imagine it's a red herring, but if it turns out to be true, it's like, oh, my name's an Enagram.

And he's like, well, that's a coincidence.

That's going to be the stupidest.

Like, that, I guess the scar is a coincidence.

They're really just mad at your dad.

It's going to be the most frustrating.

So, as he got in, he turned back and yelled at me.

Oh, by the way, he yelled out.

If you mess up the victim ritual after someone already has Horus inside of them, Horus will disappear again.

That's one of the theories I've heard.

Long story short, may want to use that to your advantage if you do get caught.

Also, long story short, I heard another theory that states if a person is possessed by Horus, they'd have the ability to appear physically as him.

So yeah, long story short, trust no one that looks like him.

Though, I doubt you already trust that many people in this area.

Good luck.

Sadly, I didn't hear anything he said after the first five words because, as previously stated, he was driving away, so the end of that was completely incomprehensible.

Oh, by the way, hey, I was wondering, could you stop?

If you mess up the victim ritual after someone's all ages, right?

What?

that was really crucial.

Can you take me with you, please?

God,

they're trying to kill me.

They're gonna fucking kill me!

Yeah, yeah, long story short, you're in for a wild rat, kid.

People are stabbing themselves, and they've been talking.

I'm so scared, please.

Come back.

Why is there a grocery store in the middle of the woods?

Because the bears gotta eat too, kid.

Yeah, he gets mauled to death by a grocery store.

Because the Keebler elves and the bears didn't live in this forest.

And that's a story for another time.

Long story, the world's a fucking short face.

Putting long story short, and the one legitimate time it was in the story was cruel to do that to us.

That was like mockery.

Okay, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the rest of the story would have operated just fine and everything would have worked if you removed that entire interaction.

If Doug doesn't exist, you take that dialogue out, the story will probably work.

You could literally have Harrison just look out the window and there's a bike and he's like it, I'm leaving, and then he just goes, you know what I mean?

And then the next stages happen, and then at the end, if he like uses information Doug gave him to stop the ritual or whatever, we could have figured that out if he decides to stab someone or in something different.

I have a feeling Doug's gonna come back, but he's a bad guy, and he's gonna be like, What, Doug?

I trusted you.

And he's like, Well, long story short, kid, you shouldn't, you should be more careful on who you choose on who you choose to be friends with.

It's gonna be like one of those things.

I feel like

something about imagining Harrison is like the short little like

just in a parking lot just like i'm so scared as the trucks as the truck's taillights are getting yeah he's just standing in the dark good luck kid i hope they don't splice you up from inside out

could i just ride with you you yeah it's a truck i say well so well

what's so weird is like He's like, I gave you a pretty good hiding spot out here in the woods.

It's like, why don't you just drive me to another city or a fucking airport?

Why am I here here right now

why do you have to leave me here you started world war one kid

the world the world war one thing is the that's insane unbelievable it's unbelievably lame it's also insane that uh like from that moment on it progressively got worse i tell you what though this is why i love these old internet stories is like they're so funny like it's so funny like

The idea,

someone creatively was sitting here and they were like, oh yeah, well, this Horace's harmony is the reason that World War I started.

And then he probably told that to somebody in his life in between an NFL game or a Mass Singer episode.

And they were like, that's really cool.

That's a great idea.

I love it.

He's sitting around.

He's like, I know what I'll do.

I'll bring Germany into this.

Just like, yeah, he's just like, he's like, so then that started World War One.

And then he tabs over and he's just like, did anyone else think that, you know, Dennis Rodman on the Mass Singer was fucking sweet?

It was really good performance.

Send.

Anyways, where was I?

That's right.

Exposition dump.

I love that.

Yeah.

Anyone else think Drew Bree should put a gun in his mouth and kill himself since we lost the fucking playoffs again?

Send.

Anyways.

Yeah, so you need to be.

Long story short, you should.

Just...

A man completely unburdened.

I love.

I'm doing this.

I love him.

I'm having a good time.

I'm going to bring.

You know what?

I'm going to bring Franz Ferdinand into this because I want to.

He made a story about a cult who started World War I, and then he literally did not write another story again.

And all he did with he was like, fuck writing.

That shit's too easy.

Bored.

He's like, I'm going on NFL and Mass Singer subreddits, and I'm conversating with people there.

I want to get a drink with this guy.

He had a bunch of critical guys in the comments, and he was like, I literally don't need you.

I have the NFL subreddit.

Yeah, he's just like, who gives a fuck about these gay short stories, dude?

I want to talk about fucking spring training.

You think people are going to read these things?

Is that what you think?

You think there's going to be a podcast?

The Saints and Pelicans have a hard spring ahead of them.

That's all I need to do.

I made this while I was drunk on Friday night, and you think there's going to be some

couple guys are going to come along five years from now, and they're going to read this and try to pick it apart for like its literature merits.

That obviously makes him

so cool.

That makes him sound so cool, though.

being blackout drunk and he's like yeah i don't know i'm writing a story he's just like posting it that's so cool dude that's so sick

i'm gonna write this i'm gonna post it honestly i gotta say though

i'll save the rest for after the story's done we're almost done he then started his truck and drove off leaving me alone in the parking lot

I still didn't completely trust this guy, given that he just abandoned me in a parking lot.

How did he get his number?

Because he went to the fucking camp with the information.

These guys are going to come along and ask where he got his number?

Really?

That's their problem with it?

They're going to ask where he got his number.

But I trusted him over everyone else at the camp.

Heck, I can't even trust Graham at this point, though he hasn't shown himself to be a huge believer in this stuff.

But who knows what he does in private?

He could have a shrine to Horace Oakwood for all I know in his apartment.

But if he isn't, maybe he was the old guy Doug was referring to.

But he never mentioned he had a son.

So I wasn't sure about that either.

All I knew was that I needed to get out of these woods and figure out my next steps.

I hopped back on the bike and started pedaling back down the highway that was connected to the parking lot.

After about an hour of biking, I needed to take a breather.

I hopped off and went into the tree line surrounding the highway.

Thankfully, it was completely dead at night, so I didn't see any cars coming up and down the two-way road.

The whole hour I was biking, however, all I could think about was my dad.

He claimed he had been at this camp before as a counselor, but must have done something so horrific that they're after me now.

Even though it had been years and time usually heals the wounds, unless, of course, it was really bad.

I needed answers and needed them now.

So, even though it was the middle of the night, I called my dad.

After the fact that he can call and he hasn't called the police here anymore.

But whatever.

He didn't call the police because I didn't want him to call the police.

I didn't want that to happen, so I didn't write it.

Duh.

After a few attempts, he finally answered.

Hello, Dad.

It's Harrison.

I need you to tell me the truth.

Harrison, it's the middle of the night.

Unless you're dying and need help, I'm gonna go back to bed.

Last thing I need is to wake up your mother.

What have you been hiding from me?

What are you talking about?

He asked, his tone becoming more annoyed with every passing second.

You said you worked at this camp.

This place is a goddamn cult, and you know it.

They're after me because of something you did.

What the hell did you do?

There was a long pause, and I mean long.

It's been about a minute before he spoke again.

I'm so sorry, Harrison.

I thought that part of my life was over.

I thought I could get away.

Dad, one of those cultists stabbed me as a child.

She also named me Harrison, which is Shireno, but the letters are rearranged.

Now tell me the truth.

I expected him to tell me the reason, but instead he told me something else that threw another curveball into this whole saga.

I shouldn't have told them that.

I found a way.

They listened to me and it got so much worse.

So many people blame me and I thought I had escaped.

I did everything.

But I guess naming you Harrison was a clue on who I really was.

Although.

Wait.

Although, I wanted to leave that part of me behind.

I just couldn't.

It's too much part of my life.

You're the only boy in the world named Harrison.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

No, sorry.

Harrison, listen, I'm sorry I named you that.

You're the only boy in the world.

Hold on, Dad.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Let me get this straight for a second.

I am in the middle middle of God knows where on the side of a highway.

You knew about this whole thing.

And not only when I told you I was getting a job there, did you not say, I don't know, hey, son, maybe don't go to the super ancient cult that wants to kill you that you knew about.

No, so I know that.

Not only that.

No,

you know what?

My bad.

Harrison, for no reason other than the fact that

this was a part of your life?

All right, I'm finna apologize for that one.

My goofy ass shouldn't have even done that.

I'm sorry, bruh.

But they never would leave me alone.

So I hope that, well, maybe you being there would finally get them off my back.

That was a real shit.

Like, oh, he's like, so I've just sacrificed you.

So, so, let me get.

So, not only do you, Davey Harrison, you threw me to the dogs

to try to save yourself.

Bruh, I know I be acting goofy ass.

For real.

I'm sorry, bruh.

Oh, man.

Can you fin of it?

He then began.

He's got, now I imagine him.

He's wearing like those DC shoes, and he's got like a gold chain on.

Yeah.

It's like whatever that

hair that like Gen Z TikTokers have, like the curly hair.

He's like, bruh.

He keeps doing the arm thing, the gun thing.

I'm about to air this out.

He then began quietly sobbing.

I didn't even get to do anything else.

While listening to my dad, I hadn't noticed that a car had pulled up alongside the road.

When I finally did notice it, I saw blue lights blaring on top of the car.

It was a police car.

An officer turned on his flashlight and pointed at me, and the phone call began shielding my eyes.

What are you doing?

Officer Marino?

How do you know my name?

It's it's me, Harrison Tracy.

My apartment at Camp Oakwood was broken into a couple days ago.

You asked for my statement.

He gave out a surprise.

Oh, right.

Before turning off his flashlight, flashlight, he led me back out onto the side of the road to talk to me.

Began to tell him about what was going on, how it basically ended up hiding on the side of a highway in the middle of the night.

Okay, don't worry.

Amy will take care of you.

I looked up at him, dumbfounded by what he said.

And then it hit me like a bullet to the skull.

I remembered what Graham had told me when Amy said he would take care of Percy.

Amy doesn't like the police involved.

If Amy didn't like having the police involved, why would she have called them specifically for me?

It took Sherlock a bit to put that one together.

Yeah, wait, what?

You're evil?

I'm so scared.

I looked up at Officer Marino, and a soul-killing smile formed on his face.

Before I could even react, he pulled a pistol out of his belt and pointed at my head.

Now, come on, Harrison.

It's time.

I then heard footsteps behind me, and just before the world faded back into darkness again, I finally remembered where I had seen Doug before.

He was the man in the painting in the chapel at Camp Oakwood.

Uh-oh, part five.

Oh, oh, oh, Doug looks like

Shireeno, right?

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

And

remember, Doug was like, hey, don't trust anybody that looks like him.

The painting.

He's like, got it.

If I see anyone that looks like this highly specific painting, I remember, I'll let you.

You'll be the first to know.

I saw it one time before I took a shit and a piss when I first got to the place in a dimly lit room.

I remember as clear as day, Doug.

Thanks.

Okay, Doug.

I'll never look at a painting again.

I hate paintings now.

Death with art, Doug.

I'll never, I'll look at it.

Okay, my dad, I think it wants to kill me, but I'm not sure, Doug.

Yeah,

my dad basically said that I was dead and he was really tired, so he went back to bed.

It was awesome.

I'll be completely honest, Doug.

I'm so scared right now.

Doug, you're goofy, eh?

You're goofy, eh, for real.

It's funny to imagine he's just like, everyone walks up to you.

He's like, hi, I'm so scared.

I keep forgetting things because I am so scared.

It's like the protagonist from the abandoned ship.

Like every situation he gets in, he like shivers and throws up and runs.

All right.

That's the end of part four.

We're on to our final part.

Final part, part five.

And let's see the interesting conclusion to Camp Oakwood.

I awoke in a dimly lit room.

The back of my head was aching terribly.

When I attempted to touch it, I discovered that I couldn't move my arms.

I looked over and found that my arms were tied up.

I then looked down and found my legs were tied up too.

They were tied up so that I was lying on my back, spread eagle on whatever I was on.

No, please!

Kill me!

Shoot me in the head, please!

Anything else?

Okay, just kill me!

Kill me!

I'll do it.

I'll get literally anything else.

You were talking about carving me with the knife.

That's awesome.

I'm going to hold my breath till I die.

I'm going to hold my breath till I die.

I'm going to hold my breath till I die.

That's such a childish way to kill you.

That's like a five-year-old strategy.

Well, yeah.

Well, they walk in, they're like, What's wrong with him?

Well, he's passed out seven times from trying to hold his breath until he died.

They're like, spit all over him.

I'm gonna hold my breath until I die.

He keeps waking up and trying to do it again.

It's really sickening.

I'm gonna hold my breath till I die.

Like, he's so scared he's reverting to like

childhood strategy.

Oh.

Maybe if I turn my teeth on the ground,

I keep forgetting that he's 21.

I don't know why.

I keep thinking he's a teenager.

No, he's 21 years old.

Because he keeps saying and doing things that sound like a teenager.

Yeah.

I then noticed that I wasn't even on the ground.

The board that I was situated on was about six feet off the ground.

The board slightly angled back.

I also noticed I wasn't wearing any clothes except for my boxers.

He's waking up.

I heard someone say.

I looked forward and saw that there was a massive crowd, at least 200 people, standing there watching me.

I then recognized the room that I was in to be the chapel at the camp.

In front of the large crowd, there were three figures wearing black robes, their faces shrouded with hoods.

Once everyone's attention was on me, the three hooded figures lowered their hoods, and I immediately recognized them to be Amy, Carson, and Julio.

I also recognized some of the faces in the crowd, including Officer Marino, Percy, and the other employees of the camp.

Welcome back, Harrison.

So glad you could join us for this special event.

Fuck Fuck you.

We understand you're in denial right now.

But in just a few moments, you will be our hero.

Because of you, we will finally obtain world peace for everyone to experience.

Well, except for you.

You probably don't understand what's going on right now, but I'll quickly explain.

We are.

Horace's harmony.

I interrupted him.

I know everything.

Doug told me.

I like how Carson was ready to launch into the evil villain monologue.

But But he's like, I've already got it.

Thank you very much.

I expected mild confusion or something to that effect, but instead Carson gave a loud laugh and smiled at me.

Oh, Doug, my good ol' outside guy.

He's actually here with us right now, you know.

Me when I reward I refer to one of my guys on the outside.

Yeah, Doug, my good ol' outside guy.

Yeah, you know, the way humans speak.

Where?

Oh, right.

Just give me a second.

I expected Doug to be dragged in or something, but that didn't happen.

Instead, I saw something that had I not seen with my own two eyes, I would never believed.

Carson's body began twitching, and then it started to change shape.

His skinny body grew larger in size.

His bald head became long hair, and his wrinkles started to fade from his face.

After about 20 seconds, his body stopped morphing.

Standing now where Carson once was, was Doug.

Now, because remember, Carson said in the message earlier, he was like, I found a way to let my body be a vessel for Horace.

So now, like, Horace can, like, transform, yeah, and Doug's, yeah, in Carson's.

Yeah, we're just getting into shape-shifting, it's no big deal, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

Oh, then, hey, just in case, and Isaiah didn't need to bring that up because he says, Remember how I said if a person was possessed by Horace, that they'd have the ability to change physically into him?

Yeah, oh, of course,

I forget.

I said, still stunned by what I just witnessed.

Well, Tada,

by the way, I'd rather you now call me Horace, since that's who I am.

You will see Carson soon.

We can now drop the name, the naming style of Doug, as we have now established Doug.

It was an alias called Horace at the time.

No longer Carson, nor Doug.

You will refer to me now as Horace.

You know,

I think you're right, Hunter.

I think I'm being critical on a story that's clearly I'm supposed to have fun with.

This is fun.

He's transforming.

There's a big ritual happening.

I am now in fun.

This is, in a way, in a way, this is legitimately the masked singer

with what's going on.

Is he not?

Is it not?

We don't know who it is.

He has written a horror story based around his love for the Mask Singer.

And I want to say

it was an unconscious decision.

It was unconscious.

Subconsciously, yeah.

It was between the two pieces of fiction that he has consumed.

The Mass Singer and Harry Potter.

All we have to do.

Excuse those.

All we have to do now is have some kind of football reference, and it is all fucking coming together.

And it is going to be the most dude, bro.

That has ever existed.

I love it.

I was too stunned and too confused to understand what he just said.

Ladies and gentlemen, Horace spoke out to the crowd.

If you haven't guessed by now, Carson successfully conjured me by yelling out my famous sermon from 1892

and then stabbing himself in the stomach to form a crescent-shaped wound.

After all this time, someone finally discovered it.

I'm disappointed, but at the same time, proud as well.

It's almost sweet.

The author being like, well, what if they don't understand what happened?

I don't want them to be confused.

He is literally revealing himself as the mass singer.

Like, that is the, I just, I love that.

I love that.

Everyone either murmured in excitement or didn't react.

Hulu and Amy didn't even flinch.

They must have known all along.

So unless Horace, or who you like to call Doug, hadn't explained to to you what is going on yet.

No,

please, are you serious?

Julio said, unless he hasn't explained.

So unless Horace, or who you like to call Doug, hadn't explained to you what's going on yet, we will be performing a ritual on you.

As just mission, Carson successfully conjured Horace and is currently possessed by him.

Oh my god.

And that's so funny.

Long story short, Carson successfully conjured Horace and is currently possessed by him.

So he completed

the first possible ritualistic process.

And long story short, you might think that since Carson currently has Horace within him, we would just kill Carson and be done with it.

But long story short, Carson doesn't want to die.

And I don't blame him.

So instead, long story short, we will now perform the second ritual, which is to have Horace possess another person.

Meeting is in middle, so to speak, long story short.

Just that, the opening, Julio being like, so unless Horace, also known as Doug, for the purposes of this story and the reveal which just occurred, had not yet explained to the audience what is happening, I will now explain for what is the third time what is happening right now.

But there's another reason, of course.

Horace told you himself that we also want to get our revenge.

But I didn't fucking do anything.

My dad was the one that fucked you guys up.

Oh, your dad Curtis?

Also known as

Ferris Kurt.

I know!

He came up with a way to conjure horrors, but it wasn't innocent.

And long story short, it just caused many people to die or leave the cult, and he was forced to go into hiding.

Long story short, no need to get explained to me.

I don't give a shit about him anymore.

I mean, he's the one who let me go here so that he could save his own ass.

But long story short, as you probably already know, this isn't the first time we've tried to hurt you

Yeah, one of you crazy fuck stabbed me as a child

In fact, I'm positive.

It was my dad's ex-girlfriend who did it that psycho bitch

Well, I don't think I'm a psycho or a bitch

gosh, okay

It took me a few seconds to understand what she said, but when I did

Okay, I'm going back to Shinji.

It took me a few seconds to understand what she said, but when I did, I actually felt my jaw drop.

Never at all did I consider that Amy could have been the one who stabbed me, let alone also be my dad's ex-girlfriend.

You're the one who stabbed me?

I screamed at her, my words almost echoing in the chapel.

Guilty as charged.

Of course, I had a different hair color at the time.

Jesus Christ.

but why me why not go after my dad

well

long story short hold hold hold hold on hold on i'm just it's going to explain in a moment that she was also the blonde-haired girl across the street and he's also gonna have that realization at the same time just

well

well

long story short What better way to torture someone than by torturing the ones that they loved?

Having a son become a new victim would be the ultimate punishment.

Harrison, ever since you were born, we've been watching you.

Long story short, you never suspected a thing.

And never once saw this.

Well, except once.

When?

When you discovered this job.

My mind immediately flashed back to the day I discovered the help wanted at at the coffee shop.

When I walked out, I noticed a blonde woman staring at me.

I never considered it important, but now...

Phew.

Phew, motherfucker.

Long story short, I knew you had flunked out of school and you were currently stuck at your folks' place.

I also knew that you'd like to view that wall to see if there were any appealing jobs on there.

Well, long story short, I made an ad.

Waited until you noticed it, and to my utter joy, watched you take it down to bring it home.

When you saw me...

Long story short, I got a little nervous.

But you walked off without batting an eye.

I quickly made it back to the camp and waited for your phone call.

And when you called, long story short, I was so excited that I completely forgot to ask you your name to confirm that it was you.

And thank goodness you remembered for me.

And when you said your name, I accidentally hit my desk in excitement.

They're explaining the noise at the beginning?

Checkmate.

This is awesome.

This is awesome.

Okay, how you feel right now is how I felt during I Dared My Best Friend to Ruin My Life, by the way.

This emotion you're feeling.

It's a nice, it's a nice, it's a nice switch.

I'm in agony just because I was into it the first three sections.

I was like, this is fun.

This is engaging.

I like it.

And now having every single second explain.

We really need to give more props and credit to the stories that like

really follow through to the end.

Here's the thing is, is that people, there's so many people that have amazing ideas.

Well, we can get into it later, but so many ideas, but it is so hard to actually articulate a full arc story to where it ends in a satisfying way.

You know?

You can feel where it's kind of like, well, that was everything I wanted to tell.

So now I'll just kind of explain those things that I wanted to tell.

And then we'll, yeah, yeah.

I wasn't even scared anymore.

I was seething with rage.

I couldn't believe that this was so meticulously planned out.

It seems so staged, yet I knew it wasn't.

I didn't say a word as Amy continued.

And so, we've come full circle.

Soon, not only you will die, but we will also live in a peaceful world that we've waited for so long.

It is unfortunate that your dad won't be here to watch us, finally avenge all of our fallen brothers and sisters, but he'll probably find out eventually.

Not even three seconds after she said that, the doors to the chapel opened and two large men came in, dragging somebody behind him.

Hey, Amy!

We found this guy snooping around!

One of them said, You won't believe who it is.

They threw the man forward, and a grim but recognizable face became visible to me.

Dad,

what the fuck are you doing here?

Well,

I'll be damned if it isn't Ferris Kurt himself,

Amy said as if she was finishing Julio's sentence.

That's not my name anymore,

my dad said.

Right, because Curtis Tracy is such a better name.

Amy said, then sarcastically.

I'm so glad that I get to see you again.

I've missed you so much.

I don't give two shits about you.

Leaving this lunatic society was the best decision I ever made.

Why the hell did you come here?

Oh, God, I'm sorry, Harrison.

Don't give me that bullshit!

You knew full well what I was walking into and you let me go so that you would be so that you would be left alone

I know, and I'm sorry.

You'll probably never forgive me, but that's why I'm here.

I like how it's like, hey, I want the dad to be at the climax.

How do we get him there?

And it's like, I don't know, maybe literally drag him in.

He was snooping around.

He was snooping around like

the fucking Scooby-Doo crew outside.

He then turned to Amy, began speaking to her.

Sure.

Amy, you have have wanted me dead for so long.

If you want to kill me, now's your chance.

Just just perform the ritual on me, and you guys can finally have more peace.

Please leave my son alone.

I looked at Amy, who was quiet for about ten seconds before she made a decision.

You know what?

I think that's a great idea.

Julian Carson, who I hadn't noticed until then, had morshed back into himself,

just stared at her in disbelief.

I tensed up, knowing what was about to happen.

And he walked up to my dad, and he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

You ready to die?

Yes.

Wait, don't you need the Bible to perform the ritual?

Oh,

we're not performing the ritual on Ferris.

Before anyone could react, she pulled out a knife and stabbed my dad in the neck.

My dad grabbed his neck and collapsed to the floor.

Oh, Ferris, you little fool.

You didn't think I was gonna let it be that easy.

You piece of shit.

I'm surprised you care.

She said to me without a single ounce of emotion in her voice.

He did let you come here.

He's still my father!

I said, tears rushing down my face.

My dad wasn't moving anymore, his body now lying in a pool of his own blood.

I knew he was dead.

Alright.

Well, now that we got that over with, can we please continue?

Yeah.

Let's get started.

What?

What if you guys fail?

I asked him, all while still crying.

Horse, Horace told me that if you mess up the ritual with what he's already conjured, then he'll disappear.

What are you gonna do?

Just keep trying until I'm dead.

That's the plan.

Besides, I'm absolutely positive we have the right sermon.

All right, let's get started.

Isn't Carson possessed by Horace?

Can't Horace just say if it's the whatever.

Carson grabbed a stepladder and walked up to it to reach the area I was hung up at.

I just want to thank you for what you're about to do for us, Carson said, a smile forming on his face.

Come fuck yourself, I said before, spitting in his face.

I guess your stab wound isn't that serious, huh?

We have the best nurses a person could ask for.

No, no, Hunter, it's we've have.

We've

have the best nurses nurses a person can ask for.

He then revealed two things from his robe.

In one hand was the Bible, in the other a large carving knife.

He opened the book to a page and began to read.

And once he finished, he plunged the knife into my gut.

I screamed from the pain as he meticulously carved a new wound into my body.

I closed my eyes, anticipating my death.

This is it.

I thought to myself, this is how I die.

Mercilessly executed by a cult.

I thought my body would begin to morph into horse or something, but about 20 seconds passed and nothing happened.

I opened my eyes and Carson was just staring at me, a terrified look on his face.

What happened?

I messed up.

What?

I messed up, Carson said.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again quickly.

Horse is gone.

He's gone.

I messed up.

Fuck.

He threw the knife onto the ground in rage.

Good job, asshole.

He said, the pain from the wound making it hard to speak.

Shut up, Harrison.

Just because you messed up doesn't mean you're getting out of this alive.

I don't care if your dad is now dead.

I haven't fulfilled my desire for your revenge yet.

I haven't fulfilled my desire for revenge yet.

Carson, perform the ritual on yourself again.

Can I just say the idea of like this cult that's been operating for years, and they think when Horace comes back, the world will enter a stage of world peace.

And they had completed the ritual, but

Carson didn't want to die.

So they risked losing the ritual.

Can you make a stabbing sound effect for Carson?

Like

me doing the stab?

Yeah.

Like that, like a

like that, you mean?

Do it again.

I'm just spitting all over my setup.

I just really enjoyed doing the thing, so he's cutting himself.

So I'm doing it.

But while Carson was conjuring horse again, an idea popped into my head.

Amy had just said that she hasn't fulfilled her desire for revenge, but not their desire for revenge.

It may have meant nothing at all, but she was also the one who explained the entirety of why she wanted revenge on my my dad.

With no other options, I decided to test that notion.

It was a long shot, but I hoped it would work.

I like how you seem to be the only person who wants revenge.

I spoke as loud as I could.

Everyone has been waiting for years to obtain world peace and is still killing the one who is currently possessed by Horace.

You want to make them wait even more just because you want me to be the sacrifice.

I don't care.

Most of them don't even want revenge.

They just want to have the world peace.

I made it so that they get both for the price of one.

But the plan just failed.

Now they'll have to wait until you guys find the right servant in order to fill the religious duty.

You're making them wait just because of you.

That's been the plan all along.

I promised myself that I wouldn't stop until Ferris paid the price for what he did to me and my friends.

My dad just did pay the price!

I screamed, my stomach hurting more from me projecting my voice.

But now you don't even seem to care about the mission anymore.

You just want to fill your need for vengeance, but it will never be satisfied.

You're punishing these guys just as much as you're punishing me.

I don't care!

I will never be satisfied until you're dead.

I don't care what everyone else wants.

I don't care about world peace.

I don't care about my religious duty.

I don't care about getting my revenge.

Again, you know, the way people speak.

Humans, right?

That's how they talk.

Her scream.

Her scream practically echoed in the room.

I couldn't believe she fell for my bluff.

Because of me, she just admitted that she only cared about revenge.

You could hear a pin drop in the chapel.

Everyone, except for Julio and Carson, was stunned by what Amy just said.

Despite the predicament I was still stuck in, combined with the pain in my gut, I smiled wildly.

Well,

you guys just heard the truth.

She doesn't care about what you guys want or seek.

She just cares about herself.

How selfish of her.

Well, I'll tell you this.

They haven't figured out the right sermon yet.

Wait, is it

as he's saying all this, Carson is stabbing his face?

Yeah, Carson.

So Carson's, Carson's like, ah, ah!

Still, so that's in the background.

Even if I died before they discover it, and Aby's true desire would be satisfied, you guys would have to wait until someone else was captured, tortured, just to gain world peace.

Unless, of course, you just killed a person who already has Horace possessed inside them right now.

Almost all of them turned their heads towards Carson, who was sitting on the floor, his blood pooling beneath them.

Carson looked up and his face was as white as a ghost.

He definitely heard what I said.

So,

I gave you guys a choice.

We can wait here for them to keep trying to solve the second ritual, or you can finally obtain world peace you have forever wanted.

And all you have to do is kill Carson.

He's already weak from the stab wound, so it should be easy.

What will it be?

I prayed this would work in my favor.

All I needed was one person to see the sense I was spewing, and I could be spared.

This was my only shot, and I hope someone sided with me.

After about 10 seconds, someone came up from the crowd and started walking toward the altar.

Rafael, don't you even think about coming up here?

Fuck you, Amy.

Harrison's right.

You killed Ferris and he's the one who wronged you.

You got your revenge on him.

But I've waited my entire life to fulfill my religious obligation.

And I won't, and I won't force you to make me and my friends wait any longer.

It's also funny to imagine that, like, this person who supposedly wants world peace like that's the reason they're doing all this is like i have to kill this child to get my revenge i have to kind of kill people to get vengeance then we can have world peace

before anyone could react he charged the altar julio tried to grab him but raphael barged right through him once he took lead several others began charging the altar as well some screaming that it was finally going to happen that's when all hell broke loose Carson tried to limp away, but he was caught almost immediately.

Amy got bone rush as well and was knocked back against the wall, seemingly unconscious.

Julio managed to get out of the way and was pushing his body against the wall next to where Amy was.

People began jumping onto Carson, punching and kicking him.

I didn't feel bad one bit.

He did stab me after all.

I then felt my board begin to move and before I knew it, I began falling back to earth.

I hit the floor hard, the impact momentarily dazing me.

I then saw someone standing over and heard a voice that I didn't expect to hear.

Don't worry, I'll get you out of here.

Percy began untying my arms and legs, but just as he was beginning to untie my last leg, he was pulled from behind and thrown to the ground.

What do you think you're doing?

Amy yelled at him, a bloody knife in her hand.

She cornered Percy against the wall.

After seeing this, I managed to untie the last knot and charge at her as fast as I could.

I knocked her down just as she raised the knife in the air.

Amy and I began wrestling on the ground.

Under normal circumstances, I would have been much stronger than her, but my stab wound had severely weakened my strength, and she was gaining the upper hand fast.

She managed to get on top of me, the knife still in her hand.

I don't

Just when I thought I was done for, I heard a smack sound, and Amy fell limp on me.

Standing behind her was Percy, holding what looked like a baton.

I have no idea where he got it, but I could have cared less at the moment.

Come on, we need to get you out of here.

He picked me up and started leading me over to the back of the chapel.

As we were making our way to the back, I found Julio on the ground.

He also appeared to be unconscious.

Quitchy, throw it into the crowd.

We need that diversion.

I turned to see someone I didn't recognize throwing Molotov cocktails into the crowd.

We need a diversion.

Quick, burn everyone alive.

I turned to see someone I didn't recognize throwing Molotov cocktails into the crowd.

It exploded.

You know what's funny?

Most people just say Molotov unless you grew up playing Call of Duty World at War.

where it was called Molotov Cocktails.

Because calling it a cocktail is a bit of a joke, right?

So you can tell when someone riding played Call of Duty growing up, because they will always add cocktails to the end of the phrase, which further goes back on my theory with this piece.

But anyway.

It exploded and people began screaming.

He then raced back to where we were.

Percy found a small window in the back of the chapel.

Percy began slamming the baton against the window in order to break it.

After a few more swings, Percy broke through the window and we made it outside.

You see, little instances like that is what I mean by time being weirdly spaced, where it could have just been, we walked up, he hit it, we walked out.

That's like he didn't try at first, but after a few more, he got it.

That happens a lot.

Percy then pulled out a walkie and radioed to someone on the other line.

Bring it around.

Hurry.

He yelled into the walkie.

Not even five seconds later, a white truck came barreling down the road of the camp.

Familiar face was behind the steering wheel.

I love also the amount of like not like not even five seconds, not even three seconds.

There's a lot of second intervals here.

Yeah, yeah.

Or like whenever the worst one to me was when he was taking a shower, and it was like,

I get in, I take my clothes off, I turn on the water, I am in it for about 10 minutes, I get out, I turn off.

It's just like, why?

Just say you were in the shower, you got out, the clothes, you know.

Get in!

We need to get out of here!

We all piled in and Graham accelerated out of Camp Oakwood.

So the two inside people were Graham and his son, Percy.

Got it.

Yep.

Yep.

We stopped at a house about 40 minutes from Camp Oakwood.

While driving there, Percy used his shirt to put pressure on my wound.

When we eventually reached the house, the three of them brought me inside the house where I was introduced to a woman named Bea, who turned out to be Graham's ex-wife.

Bea was apparently a nurse and she helped disinfect and bandage my wound.

She was happy to report that none of my organs seemed to be damaged by the stab wound and that

I would more than likely be okay.

Percy and Quincy were both bruised, but nothing too severe.

While being patched up, I talked to Percy for a while and he explained quite a bit to me.

As it turned out, Percy had been forced by Amy to go into my apartment and take a picture of my scar so that she could prove that it was definitely me.

He didn't want to do it, but she threatened him and eventually he relented.

He managed to take a photo.

However, not only was my towel obscuring my scar, but the photo also came out blurry.

Despite him failing, they stuck with the plan of Percy being arrested by Officer Marino.

I asked Percy if he was just a cult member dressed as a police officer and he confirmed it.

Not that I was surprised to hear that.

Anyway, Percy was never taken away and would remain at the camp out of view.

Well, that was the plan until Carson successfully conjured.

Just

every second needing to be explained to the reader.

Until Carson successfully conjured Horace, and Amy had to hasten her plans.

When they met around the campfire the night I escaped, it was so that Amy could explain what would be happening.

To my shock, there was also waiting to see when I would wake up.

And once someone noticed I was up and moving, Amy alerted Carson to text me the message I received and waited until I was recaptured.

The plan was for you to make it to that location, only to find Carson or Horace, or

I should call him, and Officer Marino waiting there for you.

It was just a trick to get your hopes up, and you could possibly escape.

Why would they do?

Why do they need a trick to get his hopes up?

Well, Officer Marino wasn't there.

You seemingly perplexed by that.

Well, Amy never told us that.

Then again, it appeared that Amy hid quite a bit from you guys.

I said before we both laughed.

Jet's like, but he was there because he just biked for an hour, then got arrested.

Why would that need to be whatever, whatever, we're almost done.

Percy then began explaining that he had come up with a plan to get me out of there.

He knew what was going to happen to me, so he, Graham, and Quincy, who I later found out wasn't even an employee at the camp, Percy's best friend back home, came up with a way to get me out.

The plan was for Quincy to make homemade Molotov cocktails and throw several of them at the church to act as a diversion so they could quickly get me out and carry me out.

Which, if you'll remember, is when he loudly announced we need a distraction, throw the Molotovs.

but i will now explain to you that the molotovs were a distraction that were made prior to advance they didn't actually make them there it's important for you to know that that they were prior made and then brought to the location for the purpose that's been explained twice now to you however they did plan on two things one my dad showing up unexpectedly and two me getting amy to say that she didn't care about everyone else's desire for world peace when several of the people in the crowd stormed the altar they took their chance and proceeded with the plan as best they could however he explained to me that they did have to wait until they tried the ritual on me because if they tried it before the ritual attempts,

it would have been harder to get out because everyone would have been pissed at them and they too would have been attacked.

It was a shitty move to do, but I told him it was okay.

I got out with my life.

That's all that mattered.

He also explained to me that many of them.

Slow, just slow down a little bit.

God, you're like, just

slow down a little bit.

People are going to be so pissed if you read that fast.

The Politov cocktail thing.

Good God.

He also explained to me that many of the counselors were beyond pissed off when Amy proclaimed that they would have to wait until they got the ritual right on me before they could all complete their mission.

She said that would be the plan, and anyone who disagreed with her would have to...

deal with it.

So many of her employees were angered by her actions.

The only people who sided with her were Julio and Carson.

Carson, I understood because he didn't want to die, but I wonder why Julio agreed with her.

Congratulations to them.

Still, dude, you really saved yourself when you managed to break Amy.

If it wasn't for that alone, you would have been a goner.

I mean, she did it to herself.

She gave it away right before when she said that she didn't care how long it took them to get it right.

But as long as I was die as a result of it, it didn't matter to her.

Plus, she also killed my dad, which basically was her revenge.

The desire could never be satisfied.

I'm just thankful.

I'm just thankful you, me, Quincy, and my dad all made it out alive.

Your dad?

Oh, yeah.

You didn't know that either.

Bram is my dad.

Honestly, I always suspected that was a possibility.

Horace did say an older worker at the camp didn't believe in this stuff, and the worker also had a son who apparently didn't either.

After thinking over a little bit, I actually suspected Percy and Graham were related, especially considering how concerned Graham was for Percy's safety when Amy planned to talk to Percy about why he broke into my apartment.

I ended up resting for the night, and the next day, Graham gave me the keys to the truck and told me to get out of town.

I asked him what he, Percy, Quincy, and B would do and he said not to worry about them.

I didn't know if I could trust them at this point, but I had no other options.

Just as I started the car, I asked Graham and Percy why they were work at a summer camp when they knew it was run by a cult.

They looked at each other and Graham replied, We're free now.

It doesn't matter anymore.

That's a really funny answer.

Well, I love the idea of like, you're going to overexplain everything, but the other guy, he's just like, ah, fuck it.

i'm not gonna tell you that's like every every breath every like passing thought that was made explained and in three different ways and then it's like wait why did you a group of good people work at a camp whose purpose was to kidnap and slaughter people kill yourself

and he literally says that doesn't matter anymore gg no re

that's not important don't ask that question ask other ones kill yourself gg no re I wanted to ask them what that meant, but I decided to just get out of there.

I drove off the property and away from the city, promising myself to never return.

Once I got out of the city, I ditched the truck and went into hiding.

That is where I am now.

I have already changed my appearance and am currently in the process of changing my name.

I ended up reading in the news that about 20 people died in this chapel, and many others were injured and or arrested.

I don't know how the police found out, but they did.

A list of the people who died was published as well.

I saw Julio, Carson, Raphael, and my dad on the list.

One name I didn't see though was Amy.

That means she's still alive and possibly looking for me.

Even though I have since escaped and have tried to move on with my life, I still have so many unanswered questions about what happened.

My biggest question is this.

Why did my dad let me go?

I mean, I just don't get it.

Why would he let me go when he knew who was there and they and that they were dangerous people?

I just can't understand why.

But then he came back and tried to sacrifice himself so that I could possibly live.

He died trying to save me in a way.

Regarding his death, I feel, well, in the middle.

I'm devastated that my dad is dead, but I am still angry at him for letting me walk into a trap that should have killed me.

And also, don't understand my mom.

She must have known about my dad's previous life.

She must have known about my dad's previous life, yet she also let me go.

She even said I've dealt with it before.

I don't know what she meant, but my only logical conclusion was that she was was referring to when Amy stabbed me in my childhood.

I don't know.

I don't plan on trying to find out soon.

Ever since I escaped, I've contacted, I haven't contacted anyone in my family.

I can't trust them anymore.

My mom must be heartbroken that she practically lost both her husband and son.

Maybe one day I'll reach out to her, but right now I just can't.

Another problem is that I don't understand why Carson, disguised as Horace, gave me all that information and then let me try to escape.

Percy told me that wasn't part of the plan, so Carson Carson must have had something else in mind.

I don't know what, but if the end goal was for me to get captured, then I guess it doesn't matter now.

Also, I never did, I did never get the answer as to why Graham and Percy would work at the summer camp.

All they said was that they were free now.

I guess they must have been held captive or something, but they never told me even when Percy and I talked just before I left to go into hiding.

And lastly, though it isn't that important,

but that hasn't stopped me before.

What happened to the campers?

I didn't see a single kid in the crowd while I was tied up.

Honestly, I don't care enough.

This whole part is 100%.

Somebody was proofreading his stuff, and then people in the comment sections below were probably like, what?

So, yeah, this is all fine.

What about all the children that are camping there?

This is him addressing every single one of those and being like, yeah, that is weird.

This is such a miserable.

He's just lampshading it, being like, Yeah, I know.

Anyway, and just moving on.

Somehow,

we have more exposition.

I'm really weirded out by that, too.

Yo, that's a crazy point.

I didn't think about that.

Yo, on job, bro.

I didn't think about that.

Yo, I'm going to air this camp out.

What happened to the campers?

I didn't see a single kid in the crowd while I was tied up.

Honestly, I don't care enough to want to know the answer to that question.

It was just another mystery to this whole suck.

Fuck them kids.

Yo, bro.

I don't care at all, bro.

Get those kids out of your room.

The only interaction with kids in the story.

The only interaction with kids in the story is that one of them threw up on Cabinet.

Is that

Paxton?

Paxton or whatever his name was threw up on everything.

Yeah, that was it.

That's the only kid thing in the whole thing.

I don't care.

Yo, let them kids die, dude.

It's just that's so funny.

I guess it's just another mystery.

Literal madness.

To this engaging saga that I brought up.

It's just a theory.

I'm just so frustrated that I will never get these answers.

I know you are too, but I, the author and narrator of the story, am also frustrated.

I haven't spoken to Graham or Percy or anyone involved since I've escaped, and I plan on keeping it that way.

I just can't risk it.

This happened a while ago, and I've never been able to get full closure on all this.

However, typing it here has really helped me.

I will say that I have read the comments you guys have been sending me.

First off, thank you guys for y'all's concern for my well-being.

I appreciate it greatly.

Secondly, for those who said I was too naive and trustworthy, you're right.

I was indeed.

But now I'm not.

In fact, I can't trust anyone.

That's why I'm hiding alone.

All I know is that I will always have a target on my back.

Horace himself said that these guys are all around the globe, and they're probably still looking for me as I type this.

After all, I practically destroyed one of their bases of operation, a summer camp known as Camp Oakwood.

End of story.

And that is the end.

Here's the thing.

Could you, do you think that he started off and he's like, oh, I want to make a I want to make a camp story.

And then as he was writing it, he was like, I really don't want to write a camp story.

So then he just kind of abandoned that because there really is no reason.

this had to be a camp.

Like, I was expecting more stuff of like, well, what are the children doing?

How do you get the children involved?

Could it, could it have also not been like, hey, you could,

you're a landscaper out at my property or something, right?

You're a maintenance guy for like a wealthy woman that lives out in the middle of nowhere or something, right?

But it's just, I don't know.

I'd like, I wonder if it's like, oh, it'll be in a camp.

It'll be like a scoopy, a

spooky goosebumps kind of meme.

But then there was no mention of any campers or anything actually camp related besides a chapel, which it's like that chapel could have just been anywhere.

you could I mean in a way it feels very uh it feels comparable to deep woods in that way where it's like at least with that one it's just like yeah there's a random chapel out in the woods it's all creepy and weird and there's stuff hiding in it that one that one's fine though because it's like it's an old community yeah that like called deep woods that like the town's been lost and it's the church from that town so the chapel makes sense to a degree i'll say this whereas here just kind of i'll say this as my final thought because that was i mean first off i feel like i feel like someone just beat the hell out of me with like a bat is what it feels like.

I feel like

the first three chapters were fine.

I was enjoying myself.

I like the setup too.

Yeah.

Absolutely tanked it.

Yeah, as soon as we got to Doug, that's whenever I was like, this is where.

That's when it's going to be.

As soon as the World War I thing hit, I was like, this is, I know where we're heading.

It's always sad whenever there's a giant sign like that that's just like, by the way, you're about to get really disappointed.

You're, well, welcome to the jungle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

the um

I will you know what?

And I'll give it this to end on a positive note because I, you know, I'll say this, to end on a positive note, if you would have told me, hey, Hunter, what would you expect a person who's on, who is religiously, religiously on the Mass Singer subreddit in NFL?

If they made a story

airing him out, if they made, if they made a story, what would it be?

I would not expect this, and I'm impressed.

I would

say that.

Look, it's it's hard writing a story.

I get, I get that 100%.

Uh, and especially if you have good ideas and concepts, it is so hard to execute or come up with the things in between the concepts you want, like the big picture stuff.

Yeah, but do you think that this was an interesting concept?

I don't think there was really anything good about this, was there?

No, no.

I mean, like, it was, I think, we said at the beginning, the idea of a summer camp that's having rituals is fun.

I like that.

Like, that is fun.

That's true.

So that's like an interesting idea.

It's like, I want to write a story about that.

So you write a bunch of your big picture stuff.

And then it's like, well, I don't really know.

So you don't really come up with new ideas for the ending.

You just kind of get to a point where you explain the stuff you've already came up with.

To judge.

Which is what the last two chapters feel.

Exactly.

To be like, well, this is why I did this.

And the first, it's like, it's like the first three chapters was the story they wanted to write.

And then the last two was like, well, here's why I wrote those first three chapters.

You know what?

I would love a very straightforward camp horror story where it's just a bunch of vignettes of like, almost like guys, like camp counselor at this place and they need new, fresh people, whatever.

And then it's just like a bunch of vignettes of like creepy kids doing weird rituals and shit.

You know, all kinds of different things of summer activities that are contorted or whatever.

Like,

I feel like a lot of time, and I don't know if you agree, but I feel like a lot of time people are too afraid to just like kind of do crazy and weird shit because they want to like ground it in the realms of it, like having like a fun payoff or, you know, like a satisfying ending or something versus it being like a string of fun ideas that you like interweave into each other into like a cohesive story you know so like in between each one of these events like having like real fun big things happen because in this story really all that happened was a kid throws up somebody took a picture of somebody and then all of a sudden uh people are whispering outside their houses and then people getting stabbed in the stomach and that's about it

Like I would love I would love for more some more stuff, especially if you're going into shape-shifting and stuff.

Like how cool would it have been if it's like, oh, out of these, these children who are selected who are carefully selected through the country, whatever, because, you know, it's like a private program, whatever.

It's like all of them are almost like a, are doing this weird thing where they're all like shapeshifting and transforming.

And only, like, you know, the kids are dying while they're transforming.

And this guy's like watching it.

It's almost like a weird

fucking...

Like a kid's growing and contorting and he dies and it's like, well, that one's not it.

But it's like this weird, like just a bunch of weird vignettes like that would just be fun to explore you know i just feel like sometimes people are so nervous about like getting super fucking weird with their stuff versus like give me give me give me all the weird i want all the weird just give me something strange don't don't explain yourself don't feel and like again yeah don't ever explain yourself fuck it Never explain yourself.

Just like, that's the coolest thing about so many horror projects.

I mean, we talked about that when we talked about the original one with like Bring Her Back or a bunch of horror movies like Hereditary.

It's like, it's cool to have a built-out world and order of operations acting behind the scenes and let your audience see the machinations of it, but never have it explained because in the unknown is where it's scary.

Yeah.

If you explain every piece of it, it just becomes like an action.

Yeah.

People are going to formulate what is the most interesting thing in their mind.

Like you'll never be able to satisfy that.

I will say though, like if you go in and you have a full, if you have a full,

fully idealized picture, that's different.

Like.

You can explain things if you're like, I have the story idea and I think that it ends in this way.

That's really satisfying.

But I feel like a lot of the time with these stories that we read, it's people who have an interesting hook or they're like, this is my idea.

And then they like try too hard to like force a square peg into a triangle hole or whatever.

You know what I mean?

Like they're trying too hard to make it all make sense versus just being like, have fun with it.

Just run with it.

and have it kind of be a bit chaotic and nonsensical and you know leave things up to the imagination to where it can kind of end on this weird note i think r slash no sleep uh works a lot it works really well when it's treated almost like a found footage horror film where you're like stuck in the middle of a vignette that just kind of ends and we're not sure really where it goes afterwards because it's just like this, this, this piece of media that we've just kind of stumbled upon.

I think that's how it works.

That's when it works best, you know?

So I think,

like I said, it's hard to write stories.

I did, I posted something on No Sleep a while ago where like

I had a dream about this really weird like visual concept.

So I wanted to write it out.

So I wrote out the dream and then I was like, I guess I have to like give it a story ending.

So I'm like, okay, the guy dies.

like whatever no thought just threw it up on no sleep for the fun of it um but it's like that's not like i it was it was me throwing together a little concept in one night and being like uh i'm not sure how i wanted to end so i'll just end it like this like i get it it it's the thing that happens but to have that go on for two chapters like please yeah like just If you want to explain, give some dialogue, that's fine.

Just you got to cut back on the length a little bit because once it becomes the length of the rest of your story, then half of the story becomes filler about stuff that's already happened.

Yeah.

And I feel like it takes away from what was an interesting concept and a fun time there for a while.

Yeah, I don't think that my biggest complaint was even the kind of like amateurish writing.

I think like I actually sometimes even with some of these like r slash no soup stuff, the amateur part of it is what makes it so fun and like a little more believable in a way of like somebody trying to articulate their thoughts or something.

It wouldn't be this perfect well laid out thing.

It would kind of be a little juvenile.

So I don't know i it's just it's just repetition of like

you just told me what's it's like yeah it's just the exposition of like i already know about this you know so yeah but you know camp oakwood it was uh it's another experience we have got to read a good story soon though i'm telling you guys you know people people always ask us like well they haven't read a good story or whatever we go into these just as blind as everyone else

Again, two and a half thousand upvotes.

And all the comments are like, this is great.

This is awesome.

So, okay, there's not really, we can't trust you guys, clearly.

And a lot of you guys are like me and are purposefully sabotaging episodes, being like, oh, this story is awesome.

I dared my best friend to ruin my life.

You guys should read it.

It's very scary.

I know what you all are because I would do the same thing.

There are a few that I've heard highly recommended before.

We poi our audience became poisoned and tried to trick us.

Like accounts from a lonely broadcast station, we should check that one out.

Yeah.

So

there are some options, but yeah, we need, I need a good one.

I need a good one soon.

We've been on a bleak streak.

If anything, we need like a

for our community, we need like a board, you know, like when it's like a factory where it's like X days since the last accident.

We need to do like X days since last good story or something like that.

Spire in the Woods was good.

I guess that was our last one.

Yeah, I would say Spire in the Woods was our last big banger for sure.

You know,

they don't all need to be biblically amazing stuff, but just a nice, like, I just want a nice little fucking punch in the gut where you're like, ooh, that's some fun ideas.

I like that.

So I don't know.

Until next time, guys, we appreciate you.

Thanks again for supporting us on YouTube.

Like I said, we're, I can't believe how high up ranked we are, and uh, even on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and all that, it's very, very appreciated.

So, thank you so much.

And until next time, everybody, stay creeped.

See you in the next one.

Next time someone tells you you have to explain yourself, uh, just don't, and uh, just punch that person.