Morning light softened Manhattan's edges, but it never made the city gentler. It only made everything visible—every crack in the sidewalk, every face in a hurry, every story that preferred to stay buried.
Maya hadn't slept.
She sat at her tiny kitchen table with her laptop open, the glow of the screen turning the apartment's pale walls a tired shade of blue. Outside, traffic hummed steadily, the familiar sound of a city that refused to pause for anything, least of all a missing maintenance worker and an unexplained footprint.
She typed two words into the search bar.
Crystal Lake
At first, the results looked like what you'd expect: camping blogs, tourist photos, fishing forums. But the deeper she went, the stranger it became. Archived news reports. Unsolved disappearances. Articles that used phrases like urban legend and isolated incidents a little too often.
And one name that kept appearing between the lines:
Jason Voorhees
She stared at the screen.
Most of the sites dismissed it as folklore. A story told to scare teenagers. A mask-wearing figure tied to tragedies around the lake decades ago. Nothing confirmed. Nothing proven.
But there was a pattern.
There were always witnesses who claimed to see something near the water. Something silent. Something patient.
Maya leaned back, rubbing her temples. She didn't believe in monsters. She believed in negligence, coincidence, and the human tendency to fill gaps with fear.
Still…
Her phone buzzed again.
Officer Park.
"Hello?"
"I didn't imagine you'd ignore that call," Park said. Her tone was steady, but there was tension underneath it now, like a string pulled too tight.
"I've been reading," Maya said. "Crystal Lake isn't exactly reassuring."
"No," Park replied. "It isn't."
A pause hung between them.
"Meet me," Park said finally. "There's someone you should talk to."
The address led Maya to a quiet residential block in Queens, far enough from Manhattan's chaos that the air felt calmer, but not peaceful. The buildings were older, their brick facades faded, windows watching the street with the detached curiosity of people who'd seen too much to be surprised anymore.
Park stood near the entrance of a small apartment complex, hands in her coat pockets. She looked different in daylight—less like an authority figure, more like someone carrying a weight she wasn't sure she wanted.
"You came," Park said.
"You said someone remembers," Maya replied.
Park nodded and gestured toward the door. "He moved here five years ago. Keeps to himself. I had to pull favors just to get him to agree to this."
They climbed the stairs in silence, the sound of their footsteps echoing softly in the narrow hallway. When Park knocked, it took a moment before the door opened.
The man who answered looked older than his age, his hair streaked with gray, eyes tired but sharp. A faint scar ran along his jawline, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.
"This is her?" he asked.
Park nodded. "Maya Herrera."
He stepped aside. "Come in."
The apartment was sparse—clean, but almost empty. No decorations. No clutter. Just the essentials. The kind of space built by someone who didn't want reminders.
"My name's Aaron Feldman," he said, sitting across from them at the small dining table. "And I already know what you're going to ask."
Maya leaned forward slightly. "You've been to Crystal Lake."
Aaron gave a humorless smile. "I lived there."
Silence settled heavily in the room.
Park didn't interrupt.
Aaron folded his hands, staring at them for a moment before speaking again. "You don't forget a place like that. You leave, but it doesn't leave you."
"Do you believe the stories?" Maya asked carefully.
Aaron didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached into a drawer beside him and pulled out a small, worn photograph.
He slid it across the table.
It showed a lakeshore at dusk—trees silhouetted against the water, the surface perfectly still. At the edge of the frame, barely noticeable, stood a tall figure half-hidden in shadow.
Maya's breath caught.
"That was taken the year before I left," Aaron said quietly. "People said it was a trick of the light. A smudge on the lens."
"And you?" Park asked.
Aaron's eyes hardened. "I know what I saw."
The room felt colder suddenly, the air pressing in.
"Last night," Park said, "we had two disappearances. Both near water. Both unexplained."
Aaron leaned back slowly, his expression shifting from skepticism to something far more serious.
"He's moved," he said.
Maya felt a chill run down her spine. "You're talking like he's real."
Aaron met her gaze. "You don't survive that place by believing he isn't."
The words hung in the air, heavy and unshakable.
"Jason doesn't hunt the way people think," Aaron continued. "He doesn't chase chaos. He follows patterns. Water, movement, places where people assume they're safe."
Maya thought of the footprint. The gate. The river.
"What happens when he leaves the lake?" she asked.
Aaron's voice dropped to almost a whisper.
"He doesn't stop."
Outside, the afternoon sun glared off passing cars, the city carrying on as if nothing in the world had shifted. But Maya felt it now—that subtle change, like the moment before a storm when the air turns electric.
Park walked beside her toward the curb.
"You believe him?" Maya asked.
Park watched the traffic for a long moment before answering. "I believe something came out of that water. And I believe it's still here."
Maya nodded slowly.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, fading quickly into the city's endless noise.
For the first time since the terminal, she realized the fear wasn't sharp anymore. It wasn't panic.
It was anticipation.
Like the city itself was holding its breath—waiting for something it didn't yet understand.
And far below the streets, where tunnels carried the sound of trains like distant thunder, something moved with steady, patient steps.
Not lost.
Not wandering.
Learning.