This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Canary_Canvas on 2026-05-24 07:02:35+00:00.

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It was a week after graduation.

We arrived at Silent Waters Camp Grounds excited and in a rush to set up our tents and start our vacation sooner. There was a campfire we gathered around to tell scary stories and get drunk.

On the fourth morning at around eight AM one of the park staff was nearly finished his patrol when he noticed our campground deserted.

Our tents along with our cars were missing. Tire tracks led towards the tree line that cut off a few meters ahead of the lake.

Eight days later myself and Nathan stumbled out onto the road in front of a passing car. We were a hundred miles from where we had started.

We told the police almost everything.

We told them we had brought more than just alcohol. I told them that I had shot a deer. That we had heard people screaming in the woods and they had stalked us for days afterwards.

However I never mentioned the scars on the deer. Nathan still hasn't told me what he saw in the lake. I had no intention of ever telling this story but it's much harder to stay in silence with no one to share it with.

Years went by. I moved somewhere warmed and with more desert than trees.

Nathan and I had stayed friends but I hadn't seen him since moving out of state. He never moved away. He said it was because he didn't want to learn the good fishing spots somewhere else.

He called me last week and told me his wife had talked him into going camping. His daughters had been begging him to teach them how to fish. When he told me the name of the park he was staying at, I asked him if he was crazy. If he didn't remember what had happened to our friends.

He was quiet for a while and sighed loudly. He said he didn't want one bad acid trip to stop him going camping with his family. I asked what he meant.

"We were high, Jes. We ran into the woods in the middle of the night and the others stayed lost."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was yelling when I asked if he really thought that was all that happened to them. He snapped and raised his voice when he said,

"Do you really think an urban legend came to life and ate our friends?"

He softened his tone and continued,

"It's okay to move on."

I hung up.

If I'm being honest I was worried for him but I was too angry to notice that for days. I wanted to call him first thing monday morning but I had nothing nice to say. It wouldn't have mattered. His family went missing sunday evening. He was never found. Neither was his wife and eldest daughter.

Their youngest was found cowering in a patch of overgrowth clutching a fishing rod. All she would tell them was,

"The lady took them swimming."

I think there's something living in the lakes of Silent Waters National Park. I'm not brave enough to go back. I'm going to write down what I remember from that night in hopes it's enough information to help someone braver than me do something.

Isaac had slept in that morning. He woke up to the rest of us honking our horns outside his house at sunrise. His mom shouted at us to shut up from behind him as he ran outside and into his car following us driving down the road.

Jason and Daisy led the way in his brand new red pickup his parents had got him. Nathan, Issac and myself drove our own, less expensive cars behind them.

We parked and following a trail from the car park we soon found ourselves in a large clearing with a firepit to one side. The tree opened up further to the left and we would find a lake about a hundred meters that way.

After setting up our tents the sun was high overhead and we went swimming to wash off our sweat. Daisy refused to join and sat down on the edge watching the rest of us. After some attempts at convincing her to get in, Isaac splashed her with water. This upset her and she stormed off after yelling at him.

Later that night she snuck into his tent and poured water on him while he was asleep. She denied ever doing so but Issac claimed to have seen someone with long hair run out of his tent. She was the only one of us with hair past their shoulders. I kept mine short so it wouldn't get in my eyes while hunting.

Nathan and Jason caught fish for dinner. The pair worked well together at preparing and cooking their catch. It was the first and only time I ever saw Jason get his hands dirty.

That night around the campfire he asked if anyone had heard of the quiet people. He told a story about when the first settlers roamed these mountains they found a race of tall human-like people that wore no clothes. Leaves never rustled in their path and twigs that snapped underfoot made no noise. They glided through water silently and with great speed.

They were an odd people. They ate animals while they still lived and rarely left the waters of the many lakes on the mountains. When they moved their mouths to try and speak not even their breath could be heard.

He continued saying they captured one of the beasts and after a day its skin had dried up and flaked off like scales. It didn't live long after that.

When the story finished Nathan laughed.

"So fish people creep around the woods, what if we caught one earlier?"

Isaac joined him laughing and soon Jason was arguing with them over how he would prove the quiet people were real.

Eventually the boys calmed down and we all went to bed.The next morning Daisy complained of the cold in her tent. Jason whined about how uncomfortable the ground was to sleep on. They slept in his truck after that. Eventually I had heard Jason complain about his sore back one too many times and decided to go hunting.

Isaac offered to join me and we set off together. He wanted to set up snares and try to catch a rabbit but after half an hour he got bored and left me.

I listened to the birds chirping and the wind slowly shaking the branches overhead while I walked deeper into the woods. The air smelled fresh and the silence was welcome.

I went off the trail into the thicker patches of the woods. Eventually I found a deer bed in a small clearing.

I hid myself behind a patch of dense overgrown bush and waited. An hour later a large buck trot into the clearing. It was missing fur in patches along its hide. It checked its surroundings and I held my breath. It looked to its left and then to its right where I was hiding. It looked directly at where I was hiding.

I don't know how long I lay there holding eye contact with the buck through my scope. It never looked away as it crossed the clearing and lay down.

It shook its head and looked away for a second.

I took a sharp breath and pulled the trigger.

Its body shook with the force of my bullet passing through its chest. It didn't move. It's head snapped back to look right at me.

When it finally slumped over to the side I sprang up and got closer. Its chest was still heaving as it gave its last wet and gargled breaths. The missing patches of fur revealed chunks torn from the side of the animal. Its back was covered in bite marks. Some were still bleeding but most had scared over.

I left the buck there and ran back to camp.

When I told them what happened they were skeptical. Nathan was the first to see me stumble out of the forest at top speed and ran over to me.

When I had calmed down enough to explain he dismissed it. He asked if it couldn't have been attacked by an animal. In response to this Isaac chimed in.

"My mum told me to be careful of wolves out here, they hunt deer all the time."

I wanted to dismiss it like they did but the teeth marks hadn't looked like the sharp fangs of a wolf. They were more flat and were too precise to have been done by a thoughtless animal. I mentioned this to them and Isaac laughed.

"Stop trying to scare everybody Jes. Jason's stories are more believable."

He gestured to Jason who hadn't said anything until now. Nathan and Issac walked away cracking jokes back and forth. After a moment of hesitation Jason asked,

"How many times had it been bitten?"

I remember there being twenty or thirty.

Most of them were shallow except where whole chunks of muscle and fat had been torn from bone. It looked like something had been finding the juiciest parts to bite off.

I went to bed uneasy and left my lantern on overnight. In the morning Jason and Daisy walked up the trail from his truck and straight towards me. They wanted to see the deer. We gave up after a few hours of searching for where I'd left the dying buck. I couldn't find it again.

This only convinced Isaac further that I had only been trying to scare everyone. I wanted to believe that was all I was doing.

I told myself all I had seen was an injured deer the morning after hearing a scary story and my mind was playing tricks on me.

I still can't remember that night clearly.

We all got drunk like we had the previous nights but every time I finished a drink I felt like I needed one more to relax. Issac handed me something and I took it without thinking.

Soon after we heard the screams.

They didn't echo. Each would start and abruptly cut off only to start again from another place.

There was only one at first.

Soon another joined and after a minute there were half a dozen screaming voices. Each one sounded like it came from a different animal.

Daisy was the first to move.

She sprinted towards the treeline in the direction of the car park. Jason called after her and when she disappeared through the trees he cursed and followed.

The rest of us didn't move.

We all looked at one another and without a word knew we had...

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