I knew the trip was cursed the moment Kai said, "You need this, bro," like forcing me into the Canadian wilderness was some kind of intervention. But here I was, two hours into this wholesome bonding experience, my Vans destroyed by mud, watching my phone battery drop to 23% while my best friend led us deeper into nowhere.
"Wyatt, you're walking like you're on the verge of death," Zara called back, grinning over her shoulder. She had this way of moving that made hiking look effortless, all bounce and energy. "It's really not that hard. You gonna make it, or should we call you a stretcher?"
"I'll make it," I said, "but my will to live is back at the parking lot."
Sun laughed, that bright sound that made everything seem less miserable. "Come on, Wy! The view at the top is supposed to be incredible. Priya showed me pictures—"
"Priya also said this was a 'moderate' hike," I snapped back, wiping his forehead with a red bandana. "This is not moderate. I swear we've been going for 6 hours now."
"Don't be dramatic, it's only been one. It's moderate if you at least work out more than once a semester," Kai said without looking back, adjusting his stupidly organized backpack.
An hour, I thought. Sixty whole minutes of pretending I'm the kind of person who goes outside. When can we get out of here so I can. . . what? Going back to my dorm room and staring at the ceiling?
The group had naturally split into its hierarchy. Kai led the expedition like he led everything—confident, prepared, probably had a backup plan for the backup plan. Priya walked beside him, phone out despite the shitty signal, her dark fingers swiping through what was probably emergency protocols or weather data. She had this look of concentration, bottom lip caught between her teeth.
Behind them, Sun practically floated over roots and rocks, stopping every few minutes to wait for the rest of us with fucking smile that looked so bright it was almost burning my eyes. She'd linked arms with Diego at one point, asking him about his business classes, genuinely interested in marketing strategies or whatever.
Zara bounced between groups, throwing commentary at everyone, her laugh too loud for the quiet forest but not in a bad way. More like she was determined to make this fun through sheer force of will.
I was dying in the middle, trying to remember why I'd agreed to this. Right. Kai. He made me come with me on this fuck-ass hiking trip because except when I come out for classes, I barely interacted with other human beings, and to be honest, even when I'm outside I still barely talk to people. Only Kai since he's my friend and dorm mate, and myself.
So he made me come, because apparently that shit isn't good for your mental health or something, and I didn't want to disappoint him. So here I was, trudging through with this stupid backpack with people I didn't even care about.
And then there was Levi too, trailing at the back like he wasn't sure if he was actually invited or just tolerated. He had this hunched posture, like he was apologizing for existing. Every time he opened his mouth to add something, the conversation would sort of... deflate.
"At least the weather's perfect," Sun said, her voice bright with optimism.
The first raindrop hit my forehead exactly three seconds later.
"You jinxed it," I said.
"I didn't—oh." Sun looked up as the sky opened. "Oh no."
The rain went from suggestion to biblical flood in the time it took me to blink. One moment, light drizzle. The next, someone had apparently pissed off a water god.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Zara shrieked, but she was laughing, pulling out her phone before realizing it was getting soaked. "This is insane!"
Kai was frantically checking his weather app, which was useless considering we'd lost signal twenty minutes ago. "This wasn't in the forecast. It was supposed to be clear all week—"
"Technology has failed us," I announced to no one except just to vent out my frustrations. "We're going to die out here, and they'll find our bodies in three weeks when some other idiots decide to 'experience nature.'"
"No one's dying," Priya said, shooting me an annoyed look, her voice cutting through the noise with that practical tone that meant she was already thinking of what to do. "But we to get out of the rain. Now"
'No shit.' I thought.
The trail had transformed into a river of mud. Diego slipped, caught himself, cursed in Spanish. Sun grabbed his arm to steady him, somehow still smiling through the downpour.
"There!"
We all turned. Levi was pointing through the rain, his voice cracking with effort to be heard over the storm. For once, he'd actually spotted something useful.
Through the sheets of rain and the dark press of trees, I could see it—something massive, too geometric to be natural. At first, I thought it was a rock formation, but as we stumbled closer, slipping through mud and cursing, the shape resolved into something impossible.
A mansion. Not just a house—a full Victorian gothic mansion, all dark stone and towers, sprawling across a clearing like it had grown there. Multiple wings extended in different directions, windows like dead eyes, the whole thing looking like it had been abandoned by time itself.
"What the hell?" Diego stopped walking, rainwater streaming down his face.
"Who builds a mansion in the middle of nowhere?" Zara asked, staring up at it.
"Someone with too much money and not enough sense," Priya muttered, but even she looked unsettled. "This has to be worth millions. Why is it just... here?"
'Good question', I thought, staring at the ornate carvings around the windows—symbols or decorations, I couldn't tell through the rain.
I had skimmed through a map of the trail before we started, just to check we weren't walking into bear territory or anything like that, but there were no buildings in the area.
And yet this giant-ass mansion was right in front of me.
'Why does this feel wrong?' I thought. 'Like, fundamentally wrong?'
But I didn't say anything. I never did.
We stumbled through rusted iron gates that hung open—had they been open, or had they just swung that way?—past a fountain that wasn't running but somehow I could hear water trickling beneath the rain's roar. The mansion loomed above us, all Gothic excess and dark promises.
The front porch offered shelter, massive stone columns keeping most of the rain off us. We huddled together, shivering, dripping water all over aged stone that looked like it had been here for centuries.
"This is so weird," Sun said quietly. "Like... really weird, right? I'm not crazy?"
"You're not crazy," Priya confirmed, wrapping her arms around herself. "This doesn't make sense. There's no road access, no power lines, nothing. Who lives here?"
"Maybe it's abandoned," Kai offered, but he didn't sound convinced. "Some old estate that got left behind when the logging towns died out?"
"Then why does it look maintained?" I finally spoke up, and everyone turned to look at me. I gestured at the porch, the doors. "No broken windows, no obvious decay. Someone's been here."
'Or something', my brain supplied helpfully. 'Great, now you're being dramatic.'
"Can we please just try to get inside?" Zara's teeth were chattering. "I'm freezing my ass off, and standing out here philosophizing isn't helping."
"We can't break into someone's house," Levi said, his voice small. He was hugging himself, looking more miserable than the rest of us combined. "We could get arrested for trespassing on private property."
"He's right." Sun glanced at the massive wooden doors. "What if someone actually lives here? We could get in trouble."
"It's not breaking in if we knock first," Diego reasoned, reaching for the ornate brass handle. "And if no one answers, we at least tried, right? We're not criminals. We're just cold and lost."
The handle turned before Diego touched it.
I saw it happen. The door just... opened. Slowly, deliberately, like it was inviting us in.
"Did you see—" I started.
"Hello?" Sun called out, her voice smaller than I'd ever heard it. "Is anyone home? We're so sorry to bother you, but we got caught in the storm!"
Her voice echoed into the darkness beyond the door, swallowed by space that felt too big, too empty. Somewhere inside, I could hear music—faint and scratchy, like a record player from another era.
'We should leave', I thought. At the same time, the storm intensified. A bolt of lightning streaked through the sky, flashing everywhere with an almost blinding light. A few seconds later, thunder that I swear I could feel vibrating in my bones crashed, making us all jump.
And then the rain started pouring in white sheets. Even though we were on the porch, the water still got to us, soaking our upper bodies and setting cold into us.
Sun sneezed. Levi shuddered. My teeth were already chattering. Staying outside wasn't an option.
"No one's answering," Kai said after a moment. "Maybe they can't hear over the storm?"
Another gust of freezing rain drove under the porch overhang, and the decision made itself.
"Fuck it," Zara said, and stepped through the doorway first. "I'm not dying of exposure for the sake of politeness."
One by one, we followed her into the dark.
Sealing our fate.