# "The Kids at My Summer Camp Elected a Worm as Head Counselor" Creepypasta

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 19 Mar 2026, 28 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70725479/the_kids_at_my_summer_camp_elected_a_worm_as_head_counselor_creepypasta.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by frequent-cat: / frequent-cat Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep web" ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher, and... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creepypasta ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: I was twenty two when I took the job at
[0:04] Speaker 1: Redfern Summer Camp. It wasn't supposed to be anything serious,
[0:09] Speaker 1: just something to fill the gap between graduation and whatever
[0:12] Speaker 1: came next. A few months in the woods, a little structure,
[0:17] Speaker 1: something to make my CV look less like it'd spent
[0:19] Speaker 1: the year drifting. The posting made its own wholesome in
[0:23] Speaker 1: a very curated way, nature focused, child led development, unplugged creativity,
[0:31] Speaker 1: a kinder place where kids built rafts out of driftwood
[0:34] Speaker 1: and came home with bug bites and self esteem. The
[0:38] Speaker 1: camp itself looked exactly like you'd expect when funding runs out,
[0:42] Speaker 1: but the philosophy stays ambitious. The cabins were built from
[0:47] Speaker 1: dark stained timber with gravel paths that turned to mud
[0:50] Speaker 1: after rain. The mess halls smeled faintly of pine cleaner
[0:54] Speaker 1: and old oat meal. Everything was a little crooked, but
[0:58] Speaker 1: still functional. We had about thirty campers the first week,
[1:05] Speaker 1: ages seven to eleven. Most of them came from the
[1:08] Speaker 1: Seine two or three towns near by. You could tell
[1:12] Speaker 1: by the way they already knew each other's names. There
[1:15] Speaker 1: was the usual chaos you expect from a group of
[1:18] Speaker 1: kids dumped into the woods together, but they lined up
[1:21] Speaker 1: when asked, and they listened when spoken to. Even the
[1:25] Speaker 1: youngest ones kept their voices hushed as if they were
[1:28] Speaker 1: in a library, so there was hope to keep some sanity.
[1:32] Speaker 1: After this job, the kids were separated into assigned cabins,
[1:38] Speaker 1: each a team to earn points through various camp activities,
[1:42] Speaker 1: with prizes and praise to be earned. Their first task
[1:46] Speaker 1: was to elect a head counselor for each cabin, one
[1:50] Speaker 1: who best represents their cabin. I got a signed to
[1:55] Speaker 1: cabin Redfern, one of the smaller ones, tugged near the
[1:58] Speaker 1: edge of the tree line. Eight campers, all on the
[2:02] Speaker 1: younger end of the age bracket. They greeted me politely
[2:06] Speaker 1: when I walked in, as if I were a substitute teacher.
[2:09] Speaker 1: On the first day of term, one of the girls
[2:14] Speaker 1: asked if I'd like to meet the head counselor. I
[2:18] Speaker 1: figured they meant one of the older kids had taken charge,
[2:21] Speaker 1: the natural leader type who organizes games and settles arguments.
[2:26] Speaker 1: I played along, Sure, I said, where are they? They
[2:32] Speaker 1: exchanged glances. A few of them smiled, He's already here.
[2:38] Speaker 1: One of the boys said, we elected him. Elected who
[2:46] Speaker 1: They moved toward the back corner of the cabin, where
[2:49] Speaker 1: a shoe box sat on a low crate, a flat
[2:53] Speaker 1: stone placed in front like an offering plate. I laughed
[2:57] Speaker 1: under my breath. O K, I said, what's his name?
[3:04] Speaker 1: They all looked back at me, and not in a
[3:06] Speaker 1: mischievous way, just serious, mister soft. One of them quickly
[3:14] Speaker 1: reached for the lid. Another stopped to gently placing a
[3:18] Speaker 1: hand over it. Slower, she said, he's resting. They gently
[3:26] Speaker 1: opened the lid together. Inside the shoe box lined with dirt,
[3:32] Speaker 1: leaves and a bit of bark, arranged with surprising care.
[3:36] Speaker 1: Pine cones had been pressed into the corners. A few
[3:39] Speaker 1: pebbles were arranged in a rough circle, like someone had
[3:43] Speaker 1: tried to build a fence. In the center of it
[3:47] Speaker 1: lay a pale and thick worm. It was large, but
[3:52] Speaker 1: not larger than any worm I'd expect to find under
[3:55] Speaker 1: a log. Its body was smooth and faintly translucent, kind
[4:00] Speaker 1: of soft pink you see when skin has emit the
[4:02] Speaker 1: sun in years. It moved slowly, pushing through the soil
[4:07] Speaker 1: with an unhurried rhythm that felt less like wriggling and
[4:11] Speaker 1: more like breathing. One of the girls leaned in close
[4:15] Speaker 1: and started humming under a breath, a low, tuneless sound
[4:20] Speaker 1: that made the others fall quiet. Another picked up a
[4:24] Speaker 1: pine branch from the window sill and began fanning gently
[4:27] Speaker 1: over the box. We elected him fair and square. The
[4:32] Speaker 1: boy from earlier said he got the most votes. I
[4:38] Speaker 1: waited for someone to laugh. No one did. There was
[4:44] Speaker 1: nothing playful about it. They weren't giggling like it was
[4:48] Speaker 1: a joke. No glances to see if I was impressed.
[4:52] Speaker 1: At lunch, I watched them slide carrot sticks and bits
[4:55] Speaker 1: of sandwich crusted into napkins. Instead of eating them one
[4:59] Speaker 1: by one. They took the scraps into their pockets for later.
[5:04] Speaker 1: A girl told me when she caught me looking, we
[5:07] Speaker 1: bring them back for mister soft. I mentioned it to
[5:12] Speaker 1: the director that afternoon, half amused, half concerned. He didn't
[5:18] Speaker 1: seem bothered. They're pretending, he said, pouring coffee from a
[5:24] Speaker 1: dented thermos. Probably saw something online or a movie reference.
[5:29] Speaker 1: Let it run its course. That night, after lights out,
[5:36] Speaker 1: I stepped back into the cabin to check for any
[5:39] Speaker 1: kids staying up. The shoe box was still in the corner,
[5:44] Speaker 1: but it wasn't where they left it. It had been
[5:47] Speaker 1: pushed a few inches closer to the center of the room,
[5:51] Speaker 1: and the lid wasn't open anymore. Over the next few days,
[5:57] Speaker 1: the kids in red Ferns stopped talking over each other.
[6:00] Speaker 1: They waited until the person before them had finished, even
[6:04] Speaker 1: if it meant uncomfortable pauses where everyone just sat in silence,
[6:09] Speaker 1: watching the speaker think. There were also no more arguments,
[6:13] Speaker 1: no games that involved chasing or shouting. They played quietly
[6:18] Speaker 1: if they played at all. Most of the time they
[6:23] Speaker 1: sat cross legged on the floor, reading or drawing, or
[6:26] Speaker 1: arranging things they collected in careful little lines. They also
[6:31] Speaker 1: started waking up at the same time early, with no
[6:34] Speaker 1: need to repeatedly jostle someone awake. All eight of them
[6:39] Speaker 1: would sit up at once, as if responding to the
[6:42] Speaker 1: same sound I couldn't hear. Other kids began drifting from
[6:47] Speaker 1: different cabins. At first, there was just one or two
[6:51] Speaker 1: stopping by to ask if they could borrow a marker
[6:53] Speaker 1: or play a card game. But by the third day
[6:57] Speaker 1: I'd walk in to find four or five unfamiliar faces
[7:01] Speaker 1: sitting on the floor near the shoe box. They didn't
[7:05] Speaker 1: touch it, They just leaned in and whispered. I caught
[7:10] Speaker 1: the same phrases more than once. Softest, peace, softest patience,
[7:17] Speaker 1: soft dis ours. They said it softly, like a rhyme.
[7:22] Speaker 1: They were afraid to forget. I asked one of the
[7:25] Speaker 1: boys where they'd heard it. He looked at me like
[7:29] Speaker 1: I'd missed the point. We just remember, he said. That afternoon,
[7:38] Speaker 1: while the kids were down by the lake for swimming hour,
[7:42] Speaker 1: I lifted the lid of the shoe box again. Missed
[7:45] Speaker 1: the soft lay where he'd been before, coiled loosely in
[7:49] Speaker 1: the soil. But he didn't look the same. It wasn't dramatic,
[7:56] Speaker 1: not enough to make me jump, Just more of him,
[8:01] Speaker 1: a slight thickness along the middle, a length that seemed
[8:05] Speaker 1: to fill the box more completely than it had on
[8:08] Speaker 1: the first day. By midweek, the atmosphere in the cabin
[8:15] Speaker 1: had started closing in on itself. The kids didn't invite
[8:19] Speaker 1: me in anymore. If I stepped inside during free time,
[8:23] Speaker 1: conversations would trail off, drawing would stop. Someone would move
[8:28] Speaker 1: subtly to stand between me and the shoe box. One afternoon,
[8:33] Speaker 1: when I asked him to head out early for archery,
[8:36] Speaker 1: a girl shook her head. We don't want you to
[8:40] Speaker 1: upset him, she said, glancing back at the corner. He's
[8:45] Speaker 1: helping us be good. I asked what she meant by that.
[8:51] Speaker 1: She didn't answer, just went back to folding a blanket
[8:54] Speaker 1: with slow, careful hands. Later that day, out by the trail,
[9:00] Speaker 1: one of the campers from another cabin screamed. I ran
[9:05] Speaker 1: over to find him crouched in the dirt, sobbing over
[9:08] Speaker 1: a worm. It had been crushed into the soil by
[9:12] Speaker 1: the heel of his shoe. He kept saying it was
[9:15] Speaker 1: an accident, that he didn't mean to. His hands shook
[9:19] Speaker 1: so badly I had to help him stand. The red
[9:23] Speaker 1: fern kids silently gathered around the spot, digging a small
[9:27] Speaker 1: hole with sticks and fingers. They placed the worm inside,
[9:31] Speaker 1: covered it gently, and then knelt around the mound softest peace.
[9:37] Speaker 1: One of them whispered, softest patience. Another replied, soft dis ours.
[9:45] Speaker 1: They said it again and again. I tried to interrupt,
[9:51] Speaker 1: to tell them to wash their hands before dinner, but
[9:54] Speaker 1: they didn't seem to hear me. I had lost the
[9:57] Speaker 1: little authority I had. Back at the staff cabin that evening,
[10:03] Speaker 1: I mentioned it to the other counselors. One of them laughed.
[10:08] Speaker 1: If it keeps them quiet, let the worm lead, he said,
[10:12] Speaker 1: reaching for another marshmallow. The joke got a few tired chuckles.
[10:18] Speaker 1: I could only dwell on how hard it was to
[10:20] Speaker 1: describe things without sounding pedantic. The next morning, the loudest
[10:26] Speaker 1: kid at camp stopped talking. His name was Jamie, ten
[10:31] Speaker 1: years old, non stop energy. He'd been in trouble every
[10:35] Speaker 1: day since check in, but now he sat perfectly still
[10:40] Speaker 1: during breakfast, hands folded in his lap. He didn't throw
[10:44] Speaker 1: food at the other kid's or cause any trouble. He
[10:48] Speaker 1: just smiled and followed the rules. His eyes didn't seem
[10:53] Speaker 1: to focus on anything at all. At the end of
[10:58] Speaker 1: the week, I started at seeing the same patterns in
[11:01] Speaker 1: other cabins. Kids sitting in silence during wreck time, waking
[11:06] Speaker 1: before the morning bell without being told, meals eaten and neat,
[11:10] Speaker 1: identical bites, softest peace, softest patience, soft disaurs. Some one
[11:19] Speaker 1: built a second place for him. I found it by
[11:22] Speaker 1: accident behind the camp stage, a hollow scooped out beneath
[11:27] Speaker 1: the planks, lined with moss and twigs. A shallow bowl
[11:31] Speaker 1: of damp soil rested in the center with bits of
[11:34] Speaker 1: apple peel and carrot arranged around the rim. There was
[11:38] Speaker 1: no worm inside, but the dirt was warm, and I
[11:42] Speaker 1: touched it. Later that day, I noticed the boy from
[11:46] Speaker 1: blue cabin, the one with the inhaler he kept on
[11:49] Speaker 1: a lanyard around his neck, wasn't wearing it any more.
[11:53] Speaker 1: I asked him where it was. I don't need it,
[11:58] Speaker 1: he said, calm as anything. He helps us breathe better.
[12:04] Speaker 1: I reported it to the nurse. She checked his bunk
[12:08] Speaker 1: and found the inhaler wrapped in leaves, tucked under his mattress.
[12:13] Speaker 1: The cook started locking the pantry after that, not because
[12:16] Speaker 1: of theft, at least not the usual kind. We weren't
[12:21] Speaker 1: missing sweets or soda or anything obvious. Instead, it was
[12:25] Speaker 1: things like dried mushrooms, tree bark from the foraging bin,
[12:30] Speaker 1: ground oats, and salt, anything dry enough to crumble. One afternoon,
[12:36] Speaker 1: she found four kids in the craft room using a
[12:39] Speaker 1: mortar and pestle from the pottery station. They filled it
[12:43] Speaker 1: with bark, shavings and something that looked like lichen. That evening,
[12:48] Speaker 1: one of my campers pulled me aside while the others
[12:51] Speaker 1: were brushing their teeth. He's helping us get ready, she said,
[12:56] Speaker 1: quietly for what. She thought about it for a second,
[13:03] Speaker 1: as though checking the answer again something I couldn't hear.
[13:08] Speaker 1: He says, the quiet will come soon. I didn't sleep
[13:14] Speaker 1: much that night. Some time after three, I heard movement
[13:19] Speaker 1: outside the cabin, a low rustling that didn't belong to
[13:23] Speaker 1: wind or animals. I stepped on to the porch in
[13:28] Speaker 1: the open field beyond the tree line, A dozen of
[13:31] Speaker 1: them stood in a loose circle. They were moving, dancing
[13:37] Speaker 1: slowly and deliberate, eyes closed, hands lifted as though feeling
[13:42] Speaker 1: for something in the air. Their feet shifted to the
[13:45] Speaker 1: grass in perfect silent rhythm. One of them turned toward
[13:50] Speaker 1: me as I stepped closer. It was Jamie. His smile
[13:55] Speaker 1: was wider than before, and then they all ran back
[14:00] Speaker 1: to their bunks. I went straight to the director's office
[14:06] Speaker 1: after breakfast, didn't wait for a staff meeting, just walked
[14:10] Speaker 1: across the gravel with that sick electric feeling in my
[14:13] Speaker 1: chest that comes when you know you've let something go
[14:17] Speaker 1: too far without saying anything. The door was already open.
[14:23] Speaker 1: He was sitting behind his desk with his hands folded,
[14:26] Speaker 1: staring down at a stack of paperwork. I knocked once,
[14:30] Speaker 1: then stepped inside. Do you have a minute. I think
[14:35] Speaker 1: a kid's game is going too far. He looked up
[14:40] Speaker 1: when I said his name, blinking slowly, like I pulled
[14:43] Speaker 1: him out of a dream. They're not pretending, he said,
[14:49] Speaker 1: that's what's beautiful about it. I hadn't told him what
[14:57] Speaker 1: I'd come to talk about yet. I backed out without replying.
[15:03] Speaker 1: The landline in the staff cabin gave me nothing but
[15:06] Speaker 1: a low, steady tone. My phone still showed signal, but
[15:10] Speaker 1: every call I tried dropped before the first ring. I
[15:13] Speaker 1: checked the van. The keys weren't on the hook where
[15:17] Speaker 1: they were supposed to be. By lunch, I couldn't find
[15:21] Speaker 1: two of the other counselors. The bunks were empty, the
[15:24] Speaker 1: phones still charging, and the windowsill. The ones who were
[15:28] Speaker 1: left didn't seem concerned. They're probably helping set up for tonight.
[15:35] Speaker 1: One of them said, eyes fixed on the mess all wall,
[15:38] Speaker 1: despite nothing being there. Campfire started just after sunset. We
[15:45] Speaker 1: usually did songs on Fridays, skits, s'malls if the cook
[15:50] Speaker 1: had the patience for it. This time, no one brought instruments,
[15:55] Speaker 1: and no one asked for marshmallows. The shoe box had
[15:59] Speaker 1: been placed on a stump near the fire pit. Kids
[16:03] Speaker 1: from every cabin lined up without being told. One by one,
[16:08] Speaker 1: they stepped forward and knelt in the dirt. Some closed
[16:12] Speaker 1: their eyes, others pressed their foreheads to the lid. No
[16:16] Speaker 1: one spoke above a whisper. I pushed through the back
[16:20] Speaker 1: of the crowd and reached for the stump. The lid
[16:23] Speaker 1: was already off. The soil inside had been disturbed, hollowed
[16:29] Speaker 1: out in the center, like something had pushed its way free.
[16:34] Speaker 1: Mister soft wasn't in it anymore, and when I looked down,
[16:39] Speaker 1: I saw a narrow, child sized opening at the base
[16:43] Speaker 1: of the stump, fresh wet earth crumbling inward, a tunnel
[16:50] Speaker 1: leading under the camp. I turned around, looking at the
[16:57] Speaker 1: lining crowd, tried to do a fast headcot, but they
[17:01] Speaker 1: moved around too much to confirm. But I had to assume,
[17:05] Speaker 1: and it was a strong assumption that some of the
[17:08] Speaker 1: kids had crawled in. Feeling like I was the only
[17:12] Speaker 1: sane person here, I felt like my responsibility to get
[17:16] Speaker 1: them out and shut this whole thing down. The tunnel
[17:21] Speaker 1: was narrower than expected. I had to crouch almost immediately,
[17:26] Speaker 1: one hand braced against the top as I followed the
[17:29] Speaker 1: slope down the air smelled wet. The kindness been turned
[17:34] Speaker 1: over too many times, packed and repacked until it holds
[17:38] Speaker 1: its shape. This was too big for the kids to
[17:42] Speaker 1: have done in an evening. I had to pretend it
[17:45] Speaker 1: had been here the whole time, opened up by the kids,
[17:49] Speaker 1: because the alternative was too overwhelming to think about. I
[17:55] Speaker 1: thought it would open up eventually, that there'd be some
[17:58] Speaker 1: kind of chamber where they'd build to nest, a hollowed
[18:01] Speaker 1: out room with a worm in the middle, surrounded by
[18:04] Speaker 1: candles or leaves, or whatever it was they thought they
[18:08] Speaker 1: were doing down here. It didn't. The tunnel split, then
[18:14] Speaker 1: split again, low crawl spaces branching off in different directions,
[18:20] Speaker 1: all of them shallow enough that I had to get
[18:23] Speaker 1: my hands and knees to follow. The soil had been
[18:26] Speaker 1: pressed smooth along the walls, as if someone had taken
[18:29] Speaker 1: the time to pat it down with their palms. I
[18:33] Speaker 1: picked one path at random. After a few feet, the
[18:37] Speaker 1: ground dipped slightly. A shallow depression had been carved into
[18:43] Speaker 1: the dirt, just enough to cradle something the size of
[18:46] Speaker 1: a fist. Inside it was a worm. It lay coiled
[18:54] Speaker 1: in on itself, pale against the dark soil, moving with
[18:58] Speaker 1: that slow, steady traction I'd come to recognize in the
[19:02] Speaker 1: box back of the cabin, and beside it a child.
[19:10] Speaker 1: He was lying on his back, eyes open, hands folded
[19:14] Speaker 1: neatly over his chest. I recognized him from Cabin Blue,
[19:18] Speaker 1: the one who always forgot his water bottle during hikes.
[19:23] Speaker 1: He didn't react when I said his name, didn't blink,
[19:27] Speaker 1: just kept breathing, slow and measured. I called further, another hollow,
[19:34] Speaker 1: Another worm, Another child beside it, this time a girl
[19:39] Speaker 1: from my cabin. Her braid had come loose and spread
[19:43] Speaker 1: out in the dirt behind her, like something rooted. A
[19:47] Speaker 1: worm rested across a collar bone, its body rising and
[19:51] Speaker 1: falling with each breath she took further. In a third,
[19:56] Speaker 1: the worm had been placed across the child's mouth. His
[20:00] Speaker 1: body curled gently along the curve of his lips. He
[20:04] Speaker 1: didn't move, didn't flinch. They weren't afraid of being down there.
[20:10] Speaker 1: They weren't afraid of anything. They were copying it. Each
[20:17] Speaker 1: child lay beside their own hollow, matching the worm's posture
[20:21] Speaker 1: as best they could, stillness, whether should have been fidgeting,
[20:26] Speaker 1: silence where there should have been whispers. Their chests rose
[20:29] Speaker 1: and fell in time with one another identical. I tried again,
[20:36] Speaker 1: said their names, louder this time nothing. Then one of
[20:42] Speaker 1: them turned their head toward me, just a slow, careful
[20:46] Speaker 1: motion that kept the rest of her body perfectly aligned.
[20:50] Speaker 1: Her eyes met mine. He's teaching us, she whispered, Oh,
[21:02] Speaker 1: to be soft. I reached for the boy closest to me.
[21:09] Speaker 1: It was Aaron. He cried the first night because he
[21:12] Speaker 1: missed this dog. He used to talk through every activity,
[21:16] Speaker 1: narrating what he was doing, even when no one asked.
[21:20] Speaker 1: Now he lay beside the hollow with his hands folded
[21:23] Speaker 1: neatly over his chest, watching the ceiling of packed dirt
[21:26] Speaker 1: above him. I took hold of his wrist and pulled
[21:32] Speaker 1: His arm came up easily, slack at the elbow, fingers
[21:35] Speaker 1: still curled in that same relaxed shape. When I tried
[21:39] Speaker 1: to sit him up, his body followed in pieces, head,
[21:43] Speaker 1: last spine loose, like he'd forgotten how to support himself.
[21:49] Speaker 1: Behind me, I heard movement. The other children were sitting
[21:54] Speaker 1: up now, One at a time. They lifted themselves from
[21:58] Speaker 1: the dirt and turned a look at me with faces
[22:01] Speaker 1: full of concern. He doesn't like it when we struggle.
[22:07] Speaker 1: One of them said, I turned back to Aaron. His
[22:11] Speaker 1: eyes hadn't left the ceiling. He's helped us. Another voice added.
[22:18] Speaker 1: No more fighting, said a third, No more shouting, no
[22:23] Speaker 1: more wanting things. The boy with the inhaler lay two
[22:29] Speaker 1: hollows down, chest rising and falling with the same slow
[22:33] Speaker 1: rhythm as the rest of them. The lanyard was gone,
[22:37] Speaker 1: so was the tightness they usually showed up around his
[22:40] Speaker 1: mouth when he laughed too hard. One of the younger
[22:44] Speaker 1: girls picked up the worm from a hollow and placed
[22:46] Speaker 1: it gently into her open palm. She pressed down until
[22:51] Speaker 1: the skin of the base of her thumb turned white,
[22:54] Speaker 1: until the soft body beneath her hand bulged at the edges.
[23:00] Speaker 1: Keen is loud, she said, smiling faintly. Soft is quiet.
[23:10] Speaker 1: They weren't worshiping it. They were practicing learning how to
[23:15] Speaker 1: lie still, how to let things happen without resistance, how
[23:20] Speaker 1: to stop asking, stop objecting, stop moving. I backed out
[23:29] Speaker 1: the way I came. No one tried to stop me.
[23:33] Speaker 1: The tunnel stayed quiet behind me, just the slow, shared
[23:37] Speaker 1: breathing fading as I crawled toward the light. By the
[23:42] Speaker 1: time I pulled myself out into the open air, my
[23:45] Speaker 1: hands were shaking hard enough that I couldn't tell if
[23:48] Speaker 1: it was from the dirt or something else. I went
[23:52] Speaker 1: straight to the cabin. The door was open. One of
[23:57] Speaker 1: the missing counselors was lying on the lower bunk, perfect posture,
[24:01] Speaker 1: hands folded neatly over his chest, eyes open. For a second,
[24:07] Speaker 1: I thought he was dead. Then I saw his throat move.
[24:13] Speaker 1: A worm rested in the hollow just above his collar bone.
[24:17] Speaker 1: Its body curved gently along the dip where his neck
[24:20] Speaker 1: met his chest. It rose and fell with each shallow
[24:24] Speaker 1: breath he took. I said his name. Nothing. I stepped
[24:31] Speaker 1: closer and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him once, then harder.
[24:36] Speaker 1: His head rocked with the motion, but his eyes didn't shift.
[24:40] Speaker 1: They stayed fixed on the ceiling, unblinking. When he spoke,
[24:46] Speaker 1: it was barely louder than a breath, soft his peace.
[24:55] Speaker 1: I let go. He wasn't sick or hurt. He was corrected. Outside.
[25:04] Speaker 1: I heard footsteps on the gravel. When I turned toward
[25:07] Speaker 1: the door, they were already there. A handful of kids
[25:11] Speaker 1: from different cabins stood just beyond the threshold. More gathered
[25:15] Speaker 1: behind him, moving slowly out of the trees. No one pushed,
[25:21] Speaker 1: no one tried to come inside. They were waiting. You
[25:27] Speaker 1: don't have to be scared, one of them said, it's
[25:31] Speaker 1: easier when you stop trying. A girl from red Ferns
[25:37] Speaker 1: stepped up beside the doorframe, her hands clasped in front
[25:40] Speaker 1: of her. She looked at me the way you look
[25:43] Speaker 1: at someone who's struggling with something simple. Do you want
[25:49] Speaker 1: to be good too? I rushed past them. No one
[25:55] Speaker 1: reached for me or tried to block the door. The
[25:59] Speaker 1: girl by the frame moved just enough to give me space,
[26:02] Speaker 1: the way you would if someone needed to leave the
[26:04] Speaker 1: room in a hurry and you didn't want to make
[26:07] Speaker 1: it worse. Outside, the clearing had filled. Campers from every
[26:13] Speaker 1: cabin stood in loose rows across the gravel and grass,
[26:16] Speaker 1: some still in pajamas, some barefoot, all of them facing
[26:21] Speaker 1: their cabin like they'd been waiting for something to finish.
[26:25] Speaker 1: They stood in silence, with their hands folded, watching me
[26:29] Speaker 1: the way the others had watched from the tunnels. Calm,
[26:33] Speaker 1: patient and unafraid. I walked down the steps. No one followed,
[26:41] Speaker 1: past the fire pit, past the empty benches, through the
[26:44] Speaker 1: line of trees that marked the edge of the main field.
[26:48] Speaker 1: My legs felt unsteady, like I was stepping through water.
[26:52] Speaker 1: But nothing reached out from the dark. No one called
[26:56] Speaker 1: my name, no one ran. When I reached the path
[27:01] Speaker 1: that led to the road, I turned back. Once they
[27:06] Speaker 1: were still in the clearing, every one of them waiting.
[27:14] Speaker 1: One of the younger boys lifted his hand and gave
[27:16] Speaker 1: a slow, careful wave, not good bye, just acknowledgment, And
[27:27] Speaker 1: from somewhere behind him, or maybe from all of them
[27:30] Speaker 1: at once, I heard it again, soft enough that I
[27:36] Speaker 1: almost missed it, soft as peace, softest patience, soft disaurs,

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.