Ya know, when your girlfriend disappears before your eyes, your brother being burned alive along with children, you find your cousin dead with her torso split open, and you see many of your friends' dead bodies, with one hanging from a ceiling, and your sanity is already slim-to-none, and you are chased throughout the woods out of a cave by a demon who wants no more then to watch you die along with the rest of your friends, you begin to lose hope. You wouldn't guess that would you? Well, let me tell you when you officially lose hope, when the demon is kneeling down to you, cutting his head open to show you that he "Don't never got no brains or nothin'."

As he pulled away from my face with his tooth-rotting smile, his demonic laughs filled the woods. I started to laugh with him. I had already gone completely, no-turning-back insane at this point. So, I thought, laughter is contagious. The laughter stopped when he pulled out matches. I knew what was coming next. I not only heard about it, but I saw it with my own eyes when Angelica was killed.

He lit a match, and threw it on the stake that had my right hand nailed to the ground. I screamed in excruciating pain. He laughed, spit blood on my face, and lit another match. That one, wouldn't you know it, he threw on the stake that nailed my left hand to the ground. At this point, the pain was nearly too much to bare. He laughed at my cries of anguish.

I heard the sling of his knife as he pulled it from his back. I looked up and saw him appreciating it with his hands. He looked at it, made it shine in the light of the moon. I didn't want to imagine what might have come next. But, I knew. That's when he cut my shirt open down the chest.

I began to cry, but at the same time, laugh. Hysterically. From fear. From rage.

He cut the first slash. I screamed, once more, from the unbearable pain.

"X marks the spot..." He said as he cut another slash intersecting the one he had already cut, making an X. He did this a few more times, chanting "X marks the spot." with each X he made. Screaming and in tears, my vision started to become blurry, and white. I didn't want to believe it, but I was beginning to think that I was about to join my friends in the afterlife.

I thought back. I just wanted it to be a dream. It was real. It was too painful to be a dream. It was supposed to be the greatest trip we had ever taken. It was supposed to be our last big blowout before senior year. It was supposed to be something we were going to look back at one day, and tell our children about... but what did we come to?

A bloodbath of vengeance that we had no do with. We were drawn in. The evil that pursued us... was killing me slowly. I had to accept it. My acceptance was beginning... I knew that once more slash... and I was going to bleed out too much. It was going to be the end for me.

Goat kneeled down and looked at me in the eye.

"Ya know, I have to have some mercy here, boy. I should tell you why I want you and all of your little friends and all of the children back at camp to... well, die, for lack of a better word. You see, the afterlife continues to curse me... but for the better. I can walk the earth as much as I please! But, as soon as a 'man of God' finds out, that's it. I'm done for, straight to hell with me. The first thing y'all sons-a-bitches would have done... was send an exorcist here. To put it simply, the mystery of why Camp Everwood became a camp, which was, of course, the town was burned down because the world wanted to forget it ever existed because I 'sulleyed the name', and to cover it up with some camp. That is why my nephew and I have been roaming these ground for nearly 300 years. Because we have to stay here on earth until someone tells the world. The mystery, in other words, is to be solved by either me getting thrown into hell, or someone finding out and telling the rest of the world. You have solved that mystery... or at least, not quite. Only you know, don't you? Can't let you live... you'll go and tell everyone. And I'll be sent to hell... no thanks, I like it here."

"I WON'T TELL ANYONE! JUST LET ME GO!" I screamed underneath tears.

"How cliche." He said, as he raised his blade at me. That's... when it happened.

Almost like in a movie, the hero came to the scene just as he was needed. Bean ran in, and tackled Goat to the ground.

"You... little... shit... You mean to tell... that's it... you can't die again, boy. But I'll just make you wish you were dead." Goat said to Bean.

"Tommy! Those stakes will hurt him! They're his objects, not ours!" Bean screamed at me. Goat then slashed Bean in the arm with his machete. Bean's blood showered out as he screamed in agonizing pain. I started to laugh again, and I looked at my hand. I began to wonder, with both of my hands staked to the ground, how would I get the stake?

I was insane at this point, so I just did the first thing I thought of. I pulled my hand away from the ground. With the fire and blood and pain, I kept pulling. With each second, I screamed louder. And with the passing time, Goat was hitting Bean in many tormenting ways. He was slapping him, kicking him, cutting him.

Thirty seconds had passed, I had reached my maximum pain limit. My hand split down the middle to the center of my palm. I screamed extremely loud from the absolutely excruciating pain. At this point, Goat had Bean on the ground, and was slashing his back. In the moment of intense pain I was in, I grabbed the stake with my nearly-split in half hand, and threw it straight at Goat. Lucky shot, I guess, because it hit him right in his open eye, and he dropped his machete.

"SHIT! YOU LITTLE SON OF A, AGGGHHH!" He screamed as he held his eye. The stake was still burning, so it not only scratched his eye. Bean's a real trooper, because he got up, bleeding profusely, grabbed Goat's machete from the ground, and slashed Goat on the back. Goat tensed up from the pain, and Bean kicked him to the ground.

I was still laying there in pain, laughing, watching these horrifying events unfold. Bean grabbed the stake I threw, still on fire, and started to draw something on the ground surrounding us with the fire. After a second, I realized he was drawing a pentagram. I had no idea what he was trying to do, but I was hoping that it would work.

He threw the stake in the middle of the pentagram, and stood still. Just as the stake hit the ground, a giant hole of fire emerged from it. From this hole, I heard screams and countless "OH GOD, HELP!"'s and many "OW, WHEN WILL THE FIRE QUENCH?!"'s and just screams of agony and pain... I knew at this moment, that Bean had just opened up a portal to Hell.

"Tommy, where is he?!" Bean said to me. I was still laughing. Still insane. I didn't know what to say. But, I wanted to warn him when Goat ran up to him and pushed him into this pool of fire.

"Yeah, that'll teach you, you bastard. Taught you in life, and I'm teaching you now, you little shit. Burn forever." Goat said. He picked up his machete, and started walking towards me. "Don't think... I've forgotten about... you... yet..." He said as he limped towards me. My laughs... turned into screams for help and fear.

"You can join my nephew now..." He said, as he raised his blade once again. Just as he was about to strike, a giant fire exploded from the portal from Hell, and engulfed all of the tress around us. All that was left around us was burning, dead grass.

Somehow escaping the clutches of Hell, I saw a hand reach the ground from the portal. Goat ran over to the portal and looked down. "No, you mother... STAY! YOU CAN'T COME BACK, YOU BASTARD!" Goat screamed as he stomped on the hand. Another giant flame emerged from the portal. This flame, rather than aimlessly bursting, formed into a giant hand, that grabbed Goat. "NO! WHAT THE SHIT?! WHAT THE, WHAT THE HELL!? THE MYSTERY, IT ISN'T SOLVED, I CAN'T... NO! AHHH, IT BURNS! IT HURTS! SHIT!" Goat screamed. The body that the hand belonged came up, which appeared... to be a flamed form of Bean. He looked at me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"Tommy... I knew that you and your friends were the ones to solve this mystery from the first time I saw you. You solved the mystery by hearing everything about Goat... that's never happened before. Goat has always just killed his victims... no. You studied what he was doing to us... and you came to stop him. And now, we can both move on. I may suffer too, but... as long as he suffers... that's ok..." He said to me. I just looked at him, saying nothing. I had nothing to say. He turned back into his normal self, and fell into the portal.

"YOU'LL BE HERE ONE DAY, BOY! I'LL SEE TO IT! YOU LITTLE SHITS!" I heard as the portal closed up.

The fire was gone, and I laid on the ground with my hand staked by a fire-laced stake. I chuckled lightly, and wheezed. "We did it, guys...we...we... we solved the mystery... the mystery... at camp everwood..." After I said that to myself silently, I coughed up some blood. My vision was blurring. My head was spinning. A white blur was covering what I could see. I was a goner...

You know that "light" they say that you see when you die? I was seeing it. It was in a distance, almost inviting me. So, I went towards it...

The light dimmed... and then, I heard something. A woman talking, that's what it sounded like.

"...Welcome, new campers, to camp Everwood!" I heard. My vision began to clear up. It was still blurry but... there I was, standing before a small crowd of... the campers.

I looked to my left, and... I couldn't believe it. And by the looks on their faces, neither could they. It was all of my friends... alive.

The looked around at each other, and down at themselves. It wasn't long before we were all jumping around in joy, hugging each other, giving each other high fives. Crying tears of joy, screaming and shouting and whooping. I looked at Kimi, deep into her eyes. She began to cry and I kissed her passionately. As Chuckie did with Angelica, and Dil with Lil. Suzie and Phil... well, they just kind of stood there.

"Uhm... counselors... not the time or place, what seems to be the...?" Said the lady giving the speech. Phil went up to the stand where she was giving the speech. "Umm, we just reeeeaaal excited about this trip." The kids laughed, we laughed, the lady scolded us for acting out of line... everything was normal again. Like, a complete deus ex machina... everything was completely and totally out of order. Then, it flipped around... for the better.

After the speech, we all went to our cabin. "Um... that was real right? Not a dream?" Suzie said. "I think... if we all... reacted like that, and... remember it... it couldn't have been a dream." Kimi said. "Should we make sure?" Chucky said. "How would we make sure?" Lil asked. "We go to the woods." Angelica said. "Uhm, I would just like to stamp that one with a 'hell no.'" Dil said. Lil just jokingly and lightly back-handed his chest with a smile. "No... let's go. Let's see if we really did solve the mystery." Phil said.

We that, we walked out of the cabin, and started to walk towards the woods, hoping that everything... was in order.