Camp Campbell had always been chaotic, but lately, it felt like the chaos was following you everywhere. It had started small—shadows moving where there shouldn’t be any, whispers in the trees, little flickers of color at the edge of your vision. You’d brushed it off as exhaustion, maybe a weird prank or some camp experiment gone wrong.

But that was two weeks ago.

Now it wasn’t just flickers. You saw shapes in the mess hall corners where nothing stood, glowing eyes behind the cabins, heard faint murmurs under the counselors’ voices. Sometimes you even swore the ground shifted beneath your feet or that the sky itself pulsed like a heartbeat. You’d gotten good at keeping your face neutral, your body still, pretending nothing was wrong.

Everyone bought it. Everyone but Max.

It started with him staring at you longer than usual during activities, his scowl less biting, more calculating. When you’d jerk your head suddenly to stare at a tree line, he’d notice. When your eyes darted to a wall no one else looked at, he’d follow your gaze, find nothing, and frown. When you sat stiffly during campfire songs, pretending to hum along while watching something no one else could see, he’d lean back, silently studying you.

Today was no different. The camp was gathered in the rec yard for some forced “team-building” activity David was leading. Everyone else was laughing, throwing beanbags, and rolling their eyes. You sat quietly at the edge of the group, staring at a shape only you could see—its warped grin stretching too far, its long fingers curling around a cabin post.

Max’s eyes flicked to you from across the field. He was half-listening to Neil rant about how stupid the activity was, but his focus kept sliding back to you. You weren’t just zoning out. You were seeing something.

He watched as your hand twitched against your knee like you were fighting the urge to move. He caught the way your breathing hitched, the way your eyes followed something that wasn’t there. And then, slowly, his scowl softened into something else. Concern.

“Hey,” he muttered under his breath, already peeling away from the group, his sneakers crunching in the grass as he headed toward you.

Everyone else was still too busy being annoyed at David to notice anything unusual. Only Max’s narrowed eyes tracked you, his expression quietly asking what the hell was going on.