Natalie awoke with a start, sitting straight up in her bed, heart pounding a mile a minute. The cabin was silent, despite the fierce pounding in her ears. She looked around, the dim light sneaking in the windows from the outdoor floodlights the only illumination of the interior space. She looked to the other beds, finding them completely empty.

Natalie felt her heart rate returning to normal as she relaxed. She was glad that the other girls weren’t back yet, she wasn’t sure she could face them after what had happened earlier. Her feet and legs were still sore from her sprint across campus, her body pushing her far faster than she had ever run before. Her face had been a mess when she finally got back to the cabin, but she couldn’t find the energy to care, collapsing in an exhausted heap into one of the chairs and crying until the sun had gone down outside. She hadn’t even bothered to go shower or brush her teeth, just changed into her ratty pajamas and shuffled miserably into her top bunk.

Natalie flopped back down in her bed, trying to calm her racing thoughts and go back to sleep.

A muffled thump caught her attention, and Natalie sat back up in her bed. She looked around, trying to find the source of the noise. Had something fallen over in the bathroom? Natalie curled back up in bed. Whatever it was, it could wait.

Another sound caught her attention, a muffled, high-pitched whine that wormed its way into her ears. Natalie groaned, sitting up in her bed once more, rubbing at her eyes. She looked for the clock on the wall, sighing as she noted how early it was. One o’clock in the morning was not a time to be awake. Natalie rolled over, closing her eyes and trying to block out her own thoughts.

Goosebumps erupted across her skin as an unsettling feeling shot through her. Her eyes shot back open as she realized something.

The muffled whine was getting louder, clearer, and more clearly coming from outside. It almost sounded like screaming.

As she looked around the cabin, the hair on the back of her neck began to stand up on end. She tried to ignore it, but the sound just kept getting louder, and-

Another muffled thump, this time much louder and closer had her heart beating loud once more. And now, she could tell for certain.

Someone was screaming in the middle of the night, and it didn’t seem like they were happy screams. Someone sounded absolutely terrified.

Natalie pushed herself up, crawling down the ladder to the bare wood floor of the cabin. She forced her feet to carry her over to the front door, despite the all-encompassing urge to hide underneath the bed and stay there.

Possibilities raced through her head as she inched closer to the window. Was someone playing a prank on the camp? More likely, was Victoria and the rest of her cabin trying to scare her specifically? Except it was after hours, and just being outside was against the rules. They would be caught by the staff and, inevitably, they’d find out about the party. No, Victoria and the other’s weren’t that stupid, they’d be sneaking back to the cabin, not announcing their arrival for the entire camp to hear.

Natalie reached the door and peered out the built-in window. The floodlight above the door illuminated much of the clearing in front of the cabin, but where the tree line began, so did darkness. Natalie squinted her eyes, then shifted to the right, trying to see down the path that came out to the left of the cabin.

Natalie nearly jumped out of her skin as movement erupted into her field of vision. Several girls sprinted across the clearing towards the other Ursa Minor cabin, and Natalie suddenly realized as the sound became clearer that it wasn’t just one scream, but almost each of the six girls she recognized as the residents of the sister cabin were screaming. They threw wide eyed, terrified glances behind them as they reached the door to their cabin, piling against the door as one of them fumbled for their keys.

Natalie stepped back and pulled open her door, suddenly incredibly annoyed with them. One of them turned and looked at her as she stepped out of the cabin.

“Hey, what’s the big idea-” She started, only for the rest of the girls to whip around, eyes wide with panic.

“HIDE!” One shrieked, just as the first girl got the door open and they all nearly climbed over each other to get inside.

Natalie stared as they slammed the door behind them, muffled thumps and bangs issuing from inside. Natalie felt herself lean forwards to go over to their cabin when the ground began to shake.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sounds and the ground shakes grew louder and more violent, and Natalie retreated into her own cabin as she felt her heart begin mimicking the noise, beating out of her chest. She locked the deadbolt on the door, taking one last look-

Something moved in the darkness.

Natalie’s eyes strained to see into the dark forest, down the pathway the other girls had appeared from just moments ago. There was something there, something-

Huge.

Like a demon from the abyss, an enormous creature shrouded in darkness rumbled forth into the clearing, an all-encompassing tide of black that swallowed the light that fell on it. The beast lumbered further into the clearing, the ground shaking with every step, rattling the window panes. Shadowy tendrils like smoke wafted lazily of the beast’s entire being, the floodlights on the cabins unable to pierce it’s depths. Natalie felt her blood freeze as she stared out the window, eyes wide with incomprehension as the beast revealed itself, obviously the source of the girl’s terror. The enormous creature stopped in the middle of the clearing, and with it’s entire body in view, Natalie could suddenly tell that the beast looked like a bear, one that had been sent from the depths of hell, but a bear nonetheless.

Bright, angry red eyes flashed open on its head, looking past Natalie’s cabin to the other. A mouth full of fangs opened, dripping with a viscous red liquid-

Natalie dropped as an all-encompassing, shrieking, bellowing blast of noise shattered the windows, the shards of glass peppering her face and head. Natalie trembled, barely able to think or breath as the bear’s echoing roar rattled her bones. Finally it ended, and Natalie heard the thumps of the bear’s enormous footfalls move towards the other cabin once more.

Natalie brushed the glass from her hair as she slowly tried to peek through the door window again, careful not to cut herself on the edges of the shattered glass still in the window frame. Her jaw dropped as the bear came alongside the other cabin, it’s bulk standing nearly as tall as the cabin’s roof. It began snuffling around the door, it’s enormous head wider than the width of the doorframe. Muffled shrieks of panic were stifled quickly from inside, but Natalie’s heart sank as the bear growled.

It raised a massive paw, slamming it against the door with all the strength of a wrecking ball, smashing the door off of it’s sturdy hinges in one fluid movement. Panicked screams erupted from the inside of the cabin, and Natalie watched in terror, frozen as the bear reached inside. She nearly breathed a sigh of relief as the bear came up empty, retreating for a moment as it growled angrily at the open door frame.

Suddenly, the bear reared up on its hind legs, and Natalie's heart dropped. Standing at it’s full height, the bear easily dwarfed the cabin, it’s bulk towering nearly twice as high as the cabin roof. A horrible sense of certainty ran awash in Natalie’s brain.

“RUN!” She screamed. Natalie saw one of the girls inside look out the shattered window, her eyes wide and bright with terror-

With an ear splitting roar, the bear threw it’s massive bulk against the cabin.

Timbers shattered and metal screeched as the entire structure imploded underneath the bear's enormous body..

Natalie screamed as she watched the girl in the window disappear as the walls folded in under the roof. A bone-jarring thump silenced the clearing, and in the back of her mind, Natalie realized that the thumps she had heard, the ones that awoke her, sounded like what she imagined a cabin being crushed from far off would sound like.

The demon bear roared it’s horrid, shrieking, rumbling roar once more, and Natalie realized, once her ears stopped ringing, that there were no more screams from the cabin underneath it.

Natalie’s knees gave out from underneath her, and she vomited onto the floor. Shaking feebly, tears flowed unbidden from her eyes.

The last, lingering, terrified look in the girl's eyes from where she was trapped in the cabin as the roof caved in on her were seared into her brain. Natalie hadn’t even known her name.

Natalie could hear the bear rooting around in the wreckage of the cabin, and she nearly vomited again. Was it eating people? The red liquid on its fangs, had that been blood? How many people had it killed already?

Natalie looked around the cabin. She wasn’t safe there, the demon bear had proved that without a shadow of a doubt. If it turned its attention to her cabin, she’d end up just like them, crushed underneath it with barely any time to comprehend how fast death would come.

Natalie crawled towards the back of the cabin, wiping furiously at her eyes as she tried to rid them of tears so she could see. She moved slowly, trying to avoid the largest patches of shattered glass. She reached her bed, then hesitated.

She pried open the latches on her trunk with care, opening the lid and fishing out her flashlight. Absently, she wondered if it was attracted to light, or just to sound, but in either case, she wouldn’t make it far into the woods without something to light her way. She’d more likely trip over a tree root, break her ankle and then be killed without it. At least with a light she’d be able to run and see where she was going-

The demon bear grunted loud, and Natalie peered over her shoulder through the window. Her heart sank as it turned its head, loudly snuffling. Smelling the air. It turned, beady red eyes fixed on her cabin.

No time for shoes, no time to change into regular clothes. Time to go.

Natalie tore the covers from Emily’s bed, laying them over the shattered glass sticking out of the window frame by their bed. She hoisted herself through the window, dropping as quietly as she could to the packed dirt behind the cabin. She could hear the wreckage of the other cabin warping and shifting as the bear moved, it’s footfalls crushing wood, glass and metal.

Only one way to go, and Nataie prayed that it couldn’t see well in the dark. Natalie sprinted into the woods straight behind the cabin, keeping it between her and the demon bear. The light of the moon was the only thing keeping her from tripping as she dove deeper into the trees, praying to any god who would listen that the bear wouldn’t hear her and follow.

Natalie waded further into the thickening forest, glancing behind her occasionally as she went. Bushes and low branches sliced at her as she pushed forwards, snagging on her thin pajamas and whipping at her face. Finally, Natalie stopped, unable to see the light from the Ursa Minor cabin site anymore. Her heart beat fast, a rhythmic thumping in her chest that echoed through her whole body as she considered what to do next.

The shrieking, crunching explosion behind her heralded the demon bear destroying the cabin she had lived in for the past few days. Natalie staggered, wanting nothing more to curl up at the base of the tree she leaned on and wait for help to find her.

Except that no help seemed to be coming. The other Ursa Minor girls had run screaming through the night, and as far as she could tell, no staff members had appeared to help them. Either they were dead too, or…

Natalie turned, pushing through the dense forest, setting her flashlight on it’s lowest level and pointing it low at the ground just in front of her, trying to minimize the amount of light spilling outwards into the darkness. She didn’t know if the bear would be able to get to her through the thick trees, but she wasn’t willing to find out the hard way by attracting it’s attention. She just had to reach the staff cabin between Ursa Minor and Cassiopeia, she had to believe that there would be help there, or else she wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

She tried to remember what the emergency procedures the staff had outlined during orientation, but her exhaustion, panic and blinding fear made it hard to remember anything so long ago. Were they supposed to go to the staff cabins first, or evacuate directly to the meeting point? The meeting point for a fire in a building was the main field, medical emergencies were the health center, power outages were the dining hall. Where was the meeting point in case of a demon bear attack?

Natalie collapsed as she neared the tree line, the small clearing in front of her as dark as the forest surrounding it. Despair bubbled up as she flicked the flashlight upwards for only a moment, confirming her worst fears as hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her.

The staff cabin before her was also crushed, oppressive silence hung heavy in the air around her.

Where to go, what to do? She was alone, again, with no guidance, no help, no possibility of rescue. Natalie curled up against the tree trunk. She was so tired, her muscles ached, her brain fogged. Just a minute’s rest, and then she’d figure out what to do next.

“Hey! There’s someone over here!” Someone shouted.

Natalie raised her head. A large number of bouncing lights raced towards her, and ice flooded her veins again. She scrambled to her feet, terror gripping her.

“Turn those off, now! And quiet, do you want it to hear us?” Natalie bit out as the group approached her. A large mix of teenage girls and a few staff members looked at her blankly as she turned to look down the path on the other side of the clearing.

“What the hell happened here?” One of the staff members asked. Natalie looked back at her, then down at the flashlight dancing it’s light over the wrecked cabin. Hysteria gripped her as she lunged, grabbing the flashlight out of the woman’s hands and turning it off.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” The woman growled.

“All of you need to shut the fuck up and turn off your lights right now. That thing that did this is back in Ursa Minor. It’s going to hear us, or see us if you don’t listen to me and stop being an idiot!” Natalie whispered as loudly as she dared, her eyes wild. How could they not be as freaked out as her? Had they not seen the demon?

“What are you talking about? What did this-”

“Are there staff members in there?” Someone else asked. Lights flicked towards the

ruined cabin, and Natalie wanted to scream.

“There’s no time, they’re dead, and we will be too if we don’t find somewhere safe to hide right now!” She replied, looking back at the trail that led towards the ruined Ursa Minor site.

More than a dozen of the group ignored her, moving quickly towards the cabin and calling the names of the staff members who presumably quartered there. The others looked at each other uncomfortably, and some of them shut off their flashlights. It wasn’t enough though, Natalie thought, looking back at the do-gooders at the ruins of the cabin. They were going to get them all killed.

“What did this?” One of the girls of the half-dozen or so that remained with her repeated. Natalie looked at her, then back at the trail.

“It looked like a giant bear, with smoke coming off it. It was as big as one of the cabins, and it killed everyone inside by crushing it, just like this one! I barely escaped before it did the same to my cabin.” Natalie said.

“Where’s the rest of your cabin?” Another girl asked.

“They went to some party in a boy’s cabin, they didn’t come back. We need to hide somewhere sturdy, now, and hope it doesn’t find us.” Natalie repeated.

“Zoe, what do we do?” The first girl asked. The second girl looked back, then into the woods down the trail.

“You’re sure you saw right? Not just a nightmare or something?” Zoe asked, her tone low and dangerous. Natalie nodded, and Zoe stared into her eyes for a long moment before turning around.

“We need to go. If she’s right, none of the cabins will withstand that, only a larger building.” Zoe said. “I doubt the shower buildings would be too good, so the next closest are the meeting halls.”

“What about them?” Another asked. Zoe and Natalie looked over at the group trying to sift through the wreckage of the staff cabin.

“Jennifer, have you found anything?” Zoe asked as she walked over. The staff woman turned and looked at her, a fierce expression on her face.

“No, but you could get up here and help. If Pauline and the others are in there, we need to get them out.” She replied.

“If they’re in there, they’re dead, and nothing you can do can help them. We need to go.” Zoe replied. Jennifer turned, stepping off the wreckage towards them, her eyes bright with anger.

“Listen here, you little bitch-”

Natalie tuned both of them out as the hair on the back of her neck began to stand up on end again. She forced herself to look towards the pathway to Ursa Minor, peering into the darkness. Her heart stopped as a sickening realization washed through her, and familiar vibrations began rhythmically shaking the ground beneath her. The rest of the girls around her grew quiet.

“Run!” She screamed, and bolted towards the pathway at the other edge of the clearing. Several sets of feet running behind her echoed in her ears as the small group with Zoe followed.

“Hey! Where are you going? Get back-”

An earsplitting, screeching, rumbling roar made Natalie’s stumble, and she threw a glance over her shoulder as the group that had stayed behind all turned their flashlights towards the pathway to Ursa Minor.

Shrieks erupted from the group that had stayed behind as Natalie’s worst nightmare erupted from the treeline, it’s red eyes burning with malice as it barreled faster than she could have imagined towards the wrecked cabin. Natalie looked away, focused on the pathway in front of her, barely lit by the light of the moon, and tried her best to ignore the sounds of the terrified girls behind her.

“Go, go, go!” She heard Zoe bellow, and the footsteps followed her into the darkness.

Tears flooded her vision as they turned down the dark pathway, the sounds of carnage and death echoing behind her. She choked down the vomit threatening to erupt from her stomach as the terrified screams were silenced.

“Holy shit, holy shit!” One of the girls gasped.

“Shut it, Harriet!” Another wheezed.

“They’re dead! We’re dead!”

“We will be if you don’t shut up and run!” Zoe retorted. “Turn right!”

Natalie jerked herself to the right, nearly heading down the wrong path in her panic to escape. The other girls caught up to her finally, Zoe coming alongside her and matching her pace.

“The meeting halls are down this way, we just need to turn left after the split to Orion,

That’ll take us by Aquarius.” Zoe continued. Natalie flicked on her flashlight, keeping it low to the ground ahead of them. None of the others turned theirs on as well, something Natalie was grateful for as they ran down the dirt path. The sickening hope that the group they had left behind would keep the bear distracted for long enough for them to get to safety churned her empty stomach.

The lights on the Orion cabins flickered by as they ran past, and Natalie belatedly wondered if they should warn the campers inside. She wondered how anyone could still be asleep after all the noise the demon bear had made-

“Oh shit! Back, back, back!” Zoe grabbed her, nearly taking her off of her feet as she skidded to a halt. Natalie looked up and despair filled her as she looked down the pathway, where two angry red eyes practically glowed in the darkness far ahead. Natalie was sure her eardrums were going to split as the demon bear ahead of them let out its own terrible screeching roar and began to pursue the group, it’s heavy footfalls slow at first, but gaining speed.

“There’s more of them?!” One of the girls shrieked.

“Dammit, Jenna, just run! Right, right, right!” They turned into the Orion cabin site, splitting around one of the cabins and meeting on the other side as they raced for the pathway on the other side towards Pegasus.

“Meeting Halls are that way!” Harriet gasped as they exploded into the Pegasus cabin site. “Right-”

An enormous explosion of metal, glass and wood breaking apart came from behind them as the demon bear bellowed, and Natalie's legs nearly collapsed under her as she realized they had led the bear straight through the Orion cabin site.

Anyone who had been in that cabin was dead, and this time, it was entirely their fault for running towards them.

“Back! This way!” Zoe hauled at her, pulling her away from where Harriet had pointed. Natalie glanced down the pathway in front of them, where yet another pair of red eyes glared at them through the darkness. She turned, her heart beating mad as they sprinted past the Pegasus cabins, two of them crushed and silent, the other two with doors wide open. At least it seemed as though some of them might have been able to escape.

“Get off the path, the trees might slow them down!” Natalie yelled, and the group followed as they dove into the treeline on the other side of the Pegasus cabin site. They tore through the underbrush as yet another cabin was destroyed behind them, the ground shaking beneath their feet as the bears pursued them.

“Where are we going?!” Jenna screamed as they vaulted over a low lying brush.

“Craft Shop! It’s cement! This way!” Zoe shouted. The group turned slightly, exploding out of the woods to the path ahead of them, running alongside the fenced in sports courts.

“There!” The drab, grey two-story building that loomed out of the darkness seemed to shine like a beacon to Natalie as it came into view, and tears of relief came to her eyes as the group sprinted for the door.

“It’s locked!” One of the younger girls cried as she pulled at the doorknob.

“Out of the way!” Zoe shouted. Natalie pulled the girl back as Zoe planted herself at the door, driving her heel into the door just next to the doorknob. She was lucky, Natalie thought as Zoe hauled back and tried again, at least she had the time to put on boots.

“It’s not working!” One of the other girls cried.

“It is, just hold on a second!” Zoe grunted.

“Help! Help!” Natalie’s eyes snapped towards the main field, and she froze.

Victoria and the rest of her cabin mates ran out of the darkness onto the main field from the other side of the Craft Shop, a number of boys with them. Her throat went dry as they ran along the shoreline, the moonlight shining off the water silloughetting them.

Her throat closed in on itself. Should she call out to them? What if there was another demon bear following them? Would they be able to make it back across the field and to them before it caught up? Would Zoe be able to break down the door in time, or would their pursuer kill them all if she called out to them?

Natalie’s heart sank as a mass of shadow erupted from the trees behind their group, rapidly gaining ground as they sprinted towards the boathouse. Her heart seized as one of the boys tripped, and two more of them stopped to help him up.

Natalie could only watch, her brain frozen and her breath gone as the demon bear descended upon them. Nothing could have prepared her for their terrified screams turning into gurgling death throes as the bear crushed them underfoot. The echoing sounds of their bones snapping as the demon bear ground their bodies into the dirt had her dry-heaving, unable to vomit on her empty stomach. She sagged, helpless except to watch and listen, Victoria’s and the rest of the girls hysterical screams echoing into the night. She let herself crumple to the ground, unable to listen, to know if the bear was going to kill the rest of them before they reached the boathouse.

It was her fault. If she had just called out to them, brought them this way, they might have survived. From where they came from onto the field, the Craft Shop had been much closer than the Boathouse, and much sturdier to boot. Why hadn’t they tried to come that way? Even if they made it to the Boathouse, it was mostly wood timbers. Natalie had a hard time believing that they would be safe inside. If she hadn’t frozen, hadn’t let her hesitation at seeing the girls who had tormented her for the past few days get the best of her, then maybe they would have had a chance to survive.

“Come on! Break!” Zoe growled, slamming her heel into the door yet again. Natalie looked back at the door, where the doorknob noticeably bulged from it’s normal place in the door. The wood was cracked all around it, the door slowly being forced into the building.

Natalie looked behind them into the darkness. Far off, where the path turned into the Pegasus campsite, the shadowy mass of one of the bears lumbered out of the treeline, it’s red eyes scanning the area.

“Hurry!” She breathed, and Zoe drove her heel into the door again. The door around the doorknob splintered, the wood cracking but not giving way. Natalie’s heart fell as the demon bear’s red eyes snapped towards them.

“It’s coming!” Harriet screamed. Zoe yelled as she exploded, slamming her heel into the door rapidly, the door cracking and splintering as the bear began it’s lumbering run towards them. The door suddenly slammed inwards, the doorknob spinning into the air as it finally broke out of its setting in the door.

“Move!” Zoe shouted, grabbing the closest girl and nearly hurling her inside the dark building. The rest of them surged inside, Natalie pushing herself to her feet as Zoe’s hand grabbed her shoulder, hauling her inside. They plunged into the darkened interior, the bear roaring as it barreled towards the building.

Belatedly, Natalie wondered if even concrete would be able to hold up to the demonic bear’s charge.

“Back, further back!” Zoe shouted. Natalie staggered with her, past the front desk and behind the leatherworking counter. She sagged, boneless to the floor, a miserable heap in the darkness.

The building shook as the bear slammed against the wall, snarling and growling as it forced it’s massive paw inside. It’s claws raked the floor, screeching like a thousand nails on a chalkboard. Natalie covered her ears, sobbing as it roared, furiously trying to get to them, but unable to push it’s enormous bulk inside.

“It’s all right, we’re safe here. We just need to wait for help to come.” Zoe shouted over the noise. The bear roared it’s earsplitting, shrieking bellow as it backed up and slammed against the building again, over and over, shaking the building with each manic, furious bodyslam.

Natalie could only hope that the building would hold as she curled in on herself. Then again, if it did get inside, at least she wouldn’t have to live with herself anymore. The wide, terrified eyes of the other Ursa Minor girl who was crushed in her cabin, the echoing screams of the campers and staff they had left behind, the cabin in Orion being pulverized during their panicked flight, the noise of the boy’s bodies being trampled on the field, and the knowledge that she might have been able to save them had she not hesitated from her own insecurities.

So much death, and some of it her fault. Death swirled around her, and she was the whirlpool that sucked everyone down.

The demon bear’s furious roars pounded her mind into oblivion as she drowned in despair.