And none of you will believe me. I spent the last five years in a hospital with everyone

telling me I couldn't possibly have seen what I saw. Maybe I didn't. That's why I'm

writing down what I think I saw. My new therapist says that writing this out might be good

for me. I like my new therapist. They've made me feel human again. They made me realize

it wasn't my fault. Whatever it was. Maybe once I've written it out I can figure out

what really happened. Obviously I'm changing names for people's privacy and my own protection.

Some people still believe I had something to do with what happened. It was a camping

trip. Some old friends of mine from high school and I were all avid campers. We aren't

super hardcore or anything. We just enjoy a few days intense around a fire with beer and

other substances, catching fish, cooking hot dogs and pretending to be survivalists. Most

of us, rads of college and starting careers. One of us was working on a doctorate. First

there was James and his girlfriend Dora. He was my oldest friend. We'd been pals since

middle school. Of all of us, he was the one with actual camp and experience. He'd been

in Eagle Scout and I was applying for jobs as a fire stranger. He was the one who got

this trip together. There was Edgar. He was never the brightest, but he was a good friend

to us. He'd been a bit of a jock me dead in high school. When we met him again, he had

a well-paying job, a wife and a daughter. We all laughed about that since we used to tease

him for being a doofus and there he was with money and a loving family already. Then

there was Caitlin, the girl who laughed at everything. She'd joined our little circle of friends

after a bad break up in high school. We'd all had a huge crush on her and hoped to be

a rebound thing, but she just wasn't into us like that. Thankfully we all stayed friends.

Somehow we followed a friendship more than romance. That's rare among teenagers. She

...