The drive to Summer Camp Aurora took four hours.
Four hours of questions.
Four hours of silence.
Four hours of trying not to think about the message.
"The third child never drowned."
The camp had been abandoned for years.
The wooden entrance sign hung crookedly.
Nature had reclaimed most of the property.
Tall grass covered the paths.
Trees crowded the old cabins.
Yet somehow...
The place felt familiar.
Painfully familiar.
As though part of me had never left.
The three of us climbed out of the car.
For several moments nobody spoke.
Then Vanessa pointed.
"The lake."
I followed her gaze.
My stomach twisted.
The lake was exactly as I remembered.
Dark.
Still.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Memories flickered at the edge of my mind.
Children running.
Laughter.
A summer sunset.
Then fear.
Lots of fear.
As we approached the shoreline, Ethan suddenly stopped.
His face had gone pale.
"What is it?" I asked.
He pointed toward an old dock.
Something was carved into the wood.
Three names.
Faded by time.
But still visible.
MAYA.
ETHAN.
LUCAS.
The world tilted.
Lucas.
Not Vanessa.
Lucas.
The boy.
The third child.
Vanessa looked confused.
"Who's Lucas?"
Nobody answered.
Because at that exact moment...
A memory exploded inside my head.
I saw him.
A boy around our age.
Messy dark hair.
A crooked smile.
Always carrying a compass around his neck.
Lucas.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
The three of us had been inseparable.
Best friends.
Every day of that summer.
Every single day.
Until the accident.
My knees nearly gave out.
Ethan caught me.
And then he whispered the words that shattered everything.
"I remember him too."
I looked up.
His eyes were filled with shock.
And guilt.
A lot of guilt.
"What happened, Ethan?"
His jaw tightened.
For a long moment he couldn't answer.
Then finally he spoke.
"The night of the storm..."
His voice cracked.
"The night Lucas disappeared..."
My heart pounded.
"What happened?"
Ethan looked toward the lake.
Toward the dark water.
Toward the place we'd all been trying to forget.
Then he whispered:
"We left him there."
Silence.
The wind seemed to stop.
Even the birds had gone quiet.
"We thought he drowned."
The words hit like a hammer.
Vanessa stared at us.
Confused.
Terrified.
"But the message said he didn't."
Ethan nodded slowly.
"Exactly."
My chest tightened.
Because if Lucas hadn't drowned...
Then someone had lied.
For twenty years.
And before any of us could say another word...
A voice came from behind us.
A familiar voice.
A voice I hadn't heard since childhood.
A voice that made every hair on my body stand up.
"You're finally remembering."
We spun around.
Standing beneath the trees...
Was a man.
I am thirty years old.
Dark hair.
Compass hanging from his neck.
And a scar running across his left eyebrow.
The same scar from my memories.
The same boy.
Only older.
Much older.
He smiled.
Not angrily.
Not warmly.
Just sad.
And then he said the words none of us were prepared to hear.
"Hello, Maya."

If Lucas is alive, why do you think he spent twenty years hiding?
A. He wanted revenge.
B. Someone took him away.
C. He was protecting them.
D. Something much darker happened that night.