It all started with a rare gift: a week off.

You and Gwiden had worked yourselves raw at the supermarket—side by side on endless shifts, ringing up groceries for impatient customers, your shoes sticky from soda spills. You were the quiet one, the observer, content to stay in the background. Gwiden was the opposite: a ray of sun, a warm voice, a grin always ready. He was your best friend. Maybe something more, though neither of you dared to say it.

“Let’s not rot indoors.” He said after your manager handed over the surprise break. “Let’s get out. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere weird.”

He showed you a link to a remote camping resort tucked in a forest hours away. It had rustic cabins, a mirror-clear lake, and a quaint little village square with a chapel and bonfires. It looked peaceful. Isolated.

“Just us. We deserve it.”

You hesitated—because that’s what you always did—but he smiled at you in that way he did, and you folded.

The drive was carefree. The music was bad, on purpose. He made you laugh with his stupid impressions and called you “Captain Mute” every time you fell into your usual silence. But when you smiled—your faint, brace-laced smile—he glanced over like he’d won something.

The resort was almost too perfect. The cabins were clean and quiet. The lake shimmered like glass. Birds chirped exactly where you’d expect them to. But there was something hollow behind it all.

The hosts greeted you in beige cloaks. Not uniforms—cloaks, as though they belonged to a costume drama or ancient monastery. Their smiles were all identical, too wide, too serene. The way they moved—graceful and synchronized—made your skin crawl.

You whispered to Gwiden that something didn’t feel right.

“You and your horror brain.” He chuckled. “Relax. It’s probably a themed retreat or something.”

But that didn’t explain why the other guests started vanishing.

First, the couple that sat near you by the lake. Then, the loud teenagers who skateboarded past your cabin. The man who fed the ducks. One by one, they were gone. When you asked, a host would offer the same vague response:

“They checked out early.”

Yet none of you had cars. The buses didn’t run that deep into the forest. And every time someone disappeared, you noticed a new cloaked figure walking the grounds.

On the fourth night, you woke to see pale green light flickering through the trees. You peered outside and saw a circle of hosts standing around the firepit, chanting under their breath. You couldn’t hear words—just rhythm. A thrum that made your spine ache. One of them looked up.

You ducked fast.

The next morning, you and Gwiden agreed: you had to leave.

But just as you began to pack, a soft knock came at the cabin door. A host stood there smiling, calm as ever.

“We’re gathering at the fire tonight. A farewell ritual. We’d be honored if you joined us.”

You didn’t want to go. You both felt it in your bones—danger. But something about the way the host stood there, quiet and expectant, made it clear: this wasn’t a request.

The fire blazed high that night. The pit was ringed with guests—only, they weren’t guests anymore.

You recognized them. The missing ones. The duck-feeder. The woman in red boots. The skater boys. But their eyes were... gone. Empty, glossed over. Their expressions still. They now wore beige cloaks, each tied neatly at the neck. They stood in a circle, hands raised in eerie symmetry.

“We welcome our final two,” the lead host said softly, stepping into the ring. “Tonight, the warmth accepts its own.”

That was when it hit you. This wasn’t a farewell.

This was a ritual.

A rite of passage. Or worse—a sacrifice.

The fire hissed in strange colors. The chanting deepened. The former guests moved inward, closing the ring. Gwiden grabbed your hand tightly. His smile was gone. His voice was low.

“We run on three. No matter what.”

You nodded, pulse hammering in your throat.

Because what you didn’t know when you arrived—what no one knew—was that this place wasn’t a resort.

It was a sect.

And every new visitor was simply another offering- to the fire...