Page 49 of Fed By Fear

Madness’s voice is a whisper inside my mind. “No, ghost girl. You are about to be reborn.”

The room vanishes, taking my monsters with it. Dark, quiet. I spend a few seconds in shocked silence. Did they lie to me? Am I dead? I don’t want to go back to that room of dolls.

The shimmering outline of a door takes shape to my left. Simple and wooden, with three words carved into it: “Black Bear Cabin.”

My stomach drops out. The summer camp I went to didn’t number its cabins. It gave them all the names of local wildlife. The Black Bear Cabin is where I stayed. It’s where everything changed.

Before I can move, the door swings wide. A gust of air rushes out, bringing with it the scent of pine and campfire smoke. A second gust blows into the open door, so strong that my feet are lifted off the ground. I’m sucked in, tumbling head over heels.

Children’s voices overlap, all shouting and laughing.

No, no. Don’t take me back. Don’t take methere.

It’s hopeless. There is nothing I can do to stop from being hurled back in time.

The sensation of slamming into the floor is muted, both physically and audibly. The pain that should be firing up my tailbone is absent. My arrival does not echo through the cabin. No one looks my way. I’m a silent observer.

A gangly blonde girl in pink cat pajamas runs past me. I take a quick step back to avoid collision.

I’m not fast enough to dodge the girl chasing after her. Instead of bumping into me though, she passes straight through me.

“You cannot change the past.”Madness’s voice glides through the cabin. Is he here? The bunks and corners are empty. Four glowing eyes in the darkened window are the only tell that my shadowy monster is nearby.

“What am I doing here?”

“Learning. Now watch.”

My insides twist when I first spot myself. Purple heart pajamas and frizzy brown hair. The younger me is reading. Probably something with unicorns and magic. A commotion in the center of the room draws both of our stares. Kristy pulls the Ouija board from her duffle bag.

I’m gonna throw up.

Bounding off my bunk, I race to join the others huddled around it on the floor.

“Don’t do it. Don’t touch it. Please,”I beg my younger self.

“It is already done,”Madness reminds me.

My hands land on the planchette first. Why was I so eager to play this game? A majority of the girls huddle around the board. Three girls stand farther back, their anxious expressions betraying their fear of what we’re about to do.

One of them keeps glancing toward the door. I wish she had said something. Run and tattled to a camp counselor. Saved us all.

Squeals of delight fill the room as the planchette moves. We all wanted it to be true, but of course one of the players is always sliding it. I never believed it was actually moving on its own.

The anxious girl takes a step toward the door. Hope soars in me. She might go and tell someone.

“Hope and memories do not mix. What’s done is done.”

Madness’s red gaze brightens as the cabin lightsflicker.

It’s happening.

Staring into my younger self’s face makes my heart shatter. My expression goes from excited to terrified in a matter of seconds. The lights turn on and off again and again. An unnatural wind picks up within the cabin, whipping up our hair and tossing clothing and journals around the space. The anxious girl yanks the door wide. Others follow her out. They run, screaming into the night.

I am the last one left. I remember feeling frozen, like my fingers were glued to the planchette.

The lights go out completely and do not turn back on again.

What happened from this moment until I woke up on the bank of the lake has always been a mystery.