Be careful. Because sometimes when you tell a story it comes to life. I didn’t realize that words held magic till a scary story competition around a campfire went awry and suddenly I, along with fifteen other campers, became hunted by the very monsters we had just created.

It began with a story about a vicious wolf that hid in these very woods that hunted campers that wandered too far from the firelight. We thought nothing when campers suddenly stopped coming back from the bathroom. Sharon told a story about killer cicadas and we didn’t notice when suddenly the screeching of the bugs got louder.

Now, as we ran, all I could think was why? Why did I have to tell a story about a shadow monster that morphed into whatever you feared the most. Behind me, I could girls fall one by one to their own personal, killer demon.