We were all on edge, staring at the totem in the mud and listening to the distant whistle echo through the trees – when Charmine suddenly screamed out, making us all jump.
"Guyssss!! What is wrong with you all?! Maybe someone's just playing a trick on us to make us leave!"
Gian let out a nervous laugh and nodded. "Yeah right! 🤣🤣🤣 Probably just some local pranksters who saw us setting up yesterday."
His words made us pause. Andre stepped forward, kicking at the dirt near the totem. "He might be right. The blood stains... they look more like paint than real blood if you get close enough."
I bent down to look – he was right. The red marks were thick and glossy, nothing like real blood. Benjamin relaxed a little, running his hand through his hair.
"Maybe I really did just imagine the person in the trees last night," he mumbled, looking embarrassed.
Alliyah clapped her hands together, trying to lighten the mood. "See?! I told you guys! It's just a stupid joke! Now come on – we didn't drive all this way to let some prank ruin our trip!"
The tension slowly faded as we convinced ourselves she was right. El-John grabbed the totem and tossed it into the bushes. "Whoever's behind this can keep their silly wood carvings. We're staying."
We went back to enjoying the river – swimming, splashing around, and even having a diving contest off the big flat rocks. By mid-afternoon, we were all starving, so we headed back to camp to make lunch.
That's when we noticed something was different.
Our tents were still standing, but all our bags had been opened and rummaged through. Food was scattered across the ground, our clothes were thrown everywhere, and Gian's sketchbook was torn to pieces – pages scattered all over the campsite.
"This isn't a prank anymore," Lisha said quietly, picking up one of the ripped pages from her feet. It was the drawing of the figure in dark clothing – someone had drawn angry red lines all over it with what looked like marker.
Benjamin's face had gone pale again. "I told you... I saw someone."
Just then, we heard a twig snap behind us. We all spun around to see a young man standing at the edge of our campsite, wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder and was staring at us with no expression on his face.
"Who are you?" Andre demanded, stepping in front of us protectively.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wooden carving – exactly like the one we'd found by the river, but this one was brand new.
Charmine hid behind Mae, and even Gian had stopped smiling. El-John took a step forward, his hands raised carefully. "Look, we don't want any trouble. If this is your land, we can leave – just tell us what you want."
The man finally spoke, his voice low and rough. "This isn't my land. It belongs to all of us who live in these mountains. You city kids come here, leave your trash everywhere, and think you can take whatever you want."
"We clean up after ourselves!" Alliyah shot back. "We even brought extra bags for our garbage!"
The man just stared at her for a long moment, then tossed the new totem at our feet. "Tonight is the full moon. This place has rules. If you're still here when darkness falls... you'll learn why no one camps here anymore."
With that, he turned and disappeared into the woods as quickly as he'd appeared.
We stood in silence for a minute, then Mae spoke up. "Okay... maybe we should leave. Even if it's just some crazy mountain guy, I don't want to take any chances."
But when we checked the vans again, we saw that whoever had been there had done more damage than before. The engines were covered in scratches, and wires had been pulled completely out of the dashboard. There was no way we could fix them ourselves.
"We're stuck here," Jeffrey said grimly. "No signal, no way to leave... we just have to wait until morning and hope someone drives by the main road."
Andre put his arm around me, pulling me close. "Then we'll just have to stick together and be ready for anything. No one goes anywhere alone tonight."
As the sun started to set, we gathered all our things into one tent and built the biggest fire we could manage. We'd barely finished when we heard drums beating in the distance – slow, steady, and getting closer with every minute.
Charmine started crying again. "I'm scared, Rose. I don't want to die here."
I squeezed her hand. "No one's going to die. We're all together – we'll get through this."
But as the drums grew louder and shadows began to stretch across our campsite, I wasn't sure if I was telling her the truth... or just lying to make us all feel better.