The next morning, I was already awake before my alarm went off.
I hadn't slept. Not really. Every time I closed my eyes, the dream forest came back, thick with fog and silence, and Lena's voice echoed in the dark.
"Why?"
And now I had a name.
A face.
A piece of the truth, even if it didn't make sense yet.
I didn't tell Mom I was going to school. I didn't even tell her I was leaving. I scribbled a quick note and walked out the door just after 6 a.m., with the old photo stuffed into my pocket and Lena's name burning behind my lips.
I knew where I had to go.
The camp was almost two hours away, deep in the hills outside the city, a place I'd been once, years ago. A place I apparently forgot.
But not anymore.
The roads were still wet with morning dew, and the air smelled like pine and rust. I hired a motorbike to take me as far as it could, then walked the rest of the way.
Every step closer felt like walking into a memory.
But whose memory,mine or hers?
The camp looked abandoned.
The sign out front was half-fallen, its wood chipped and letters faded: Cedar Ridge Youth Camp. No one had touched this place in years. Weeds choked the pathways. The cabins sagged under the weight of forgotten summers.
And yet... I remembered it.
The crooked bell tower.
The lake.
The dock.
It was like walking through a faded photograph I hadn't seen in years except now, the silence was deafening.
I found the main cabin locked, but the window was cracked just enough for me to slide in. Dust coated everything. Spiders claimed every corner. But in the mess of paper and rot, I found something.
An old registration list.
Names.
Most didn't mean anything to me… until I got to the letter L.
Lena M. Rivers.
Cabin 5.
Emergency contact: None listed.
There she was.
She was real.
I ran to Cabin 5.
The door creaked like it was trying to warn me not to go in. But I pushed it open anyway.
Inside, the beds were still made. A few old photos pinned to the walls, their edges curled with age. I looked through drawers, under mattresses, behind the loose boards until I found it:
A notebook, hidden beneath the floorboards.
With my name on the first page.
"To Lilith,in case you ever remember."
My knees buckled. I sat on the floor and flipped through it with trembling fingers.
Page after page of messy handwriting, drawings, poems, and strange little notes. Most of them were about me.
"Lilith likes the rain."
"She hums in her sleep."
"She promised not to leave."
Some were darker.
"Lilith said it wasn't my fault."
"She held my hand when it happened."
"But she forgot me."
I didn't even realize I was crying until a tear smeared the ink.
What had I done?
I took the notebook and walked to the lake.
It was just like in the dream still and cold, with fog curling above it like breath. The dock creaked under my feet as I stepped out, the water below black and glassy.
And then I heard it.
A whisper.
Not in my head. Behind me.
I spun around, heart pounding.
Nothing.
But the voice came again soft, almost kind.
"You left me here."
I turned slowly.
At the edge of the trees, half-shadowed in the mist…
She stood there.
Lena.
Pale.
Silent.
Watching me.
And then she smiled.
But it wasn't warm.
It was sad.
"Day two," she whispered.
And just like that she vanished into the fog.
I collapsed to my knees on the dock, the notebook clutched to my chest.
There was no more denying it now.
Lena was real.
Something happened here.
And somehow, I was the reason it ended the way it did.
But I couldn't remember why.
Not yet.