Camp Verity had been shut for nineteen years. The cabins smelled like wet paper and the dock sagged under your feet. Mara set the recorder on a tree stump while Devon clipped on the mics and Priya filmed the dead waterfront of Signal Lake. "Episode one," Mara said. "Why does a whole town pretend this place never existed?" Then they noticed something weird. When Priya yelled across the water, the lake gave back no echo at all.

Priya wandered toward the main lodge with her camera. The front door hung open. Inside, the walls were covered in old camp photos, except every single face had been scratched out with a key or a knife. "Guys," she called, her voice shaking. "You need to see this."

Priya kept filming the scratched-out photos, then froze on one in the corner. Unlike the others, this face was untouched: a smiling girl with a lifeguard whistle. Taped under it was a name tag that read COUNSELOR, 2007. That was the same year the camp closed.

Priya zoomed in on the counselor's whistle. Behind her in the photo, six kids stood in a line at the water's edge. Priya counted them twice, then went cold. In the reflection on the lake, there were seven. "She's the one who kept the count," Priya whispered. "And the count was always wrong."