The flicker of the campfire illuminates our circle of rapt faces, the wood popping and crackling in the dark as Dexter brings his tale to a climax.

"Terror!" he yells with the gravitas of a Shakespearean understudy. "That's how it reigns." He eyes each of us in turn, flicking his dark curtains away from his face and lingering a fraction longer on me before I avert my gaze. "It crawls from the lake, stalking and snaring anyone who dares venture too close to its shore. And then POW," he snaps his fingers, making me jump. "Gone. They're never heard from again."

Silence, save for the wildlife beyond the fringes of the clearing that contains our haphazardly positioned tents.

Niamh spins her attention over her shoulder at a scuffling near the tree line shrouded in the gradually enveloping mist. She turns back to the fire. "Thanks, Dex. Miles from anywhere with the lake so close. Just thanks."

To her left, Baggie grins, takes a swig from his beer and wraps a tattooed arm around her shoulder where platinum tresses cascade. "I'll protect you from monsters, girly."

She shrugs him off. "Yeah, wave your micro dick. They'll run a mile laughing."

Baggie's the only one who doesn't find that amusing. "Least I'm not makin' eyes at Major Thesaurus over there."

"Hey!" she whirls to face Baggie. "Leave him alone."

"Awww, protective much? Can't fight his own battles?"

"Drop it." She glares. "You know how he is."

Baggie stares back. Tilts his head a few degrees until his neck clicks, then bursts out laughing. "Banter, baby. He knows I don't mean it. Right, X?"

I lift my gaze from the dancing flames to meet his, then dart them back to the comfort of the fire. "My name," I pause, "is Xander."

"Then your folks shoulda learned to spell in this country. Used a Z." He makes a theatrical snoring noise. "Zzzzzzander." He guffaws. Drains his can and throws it in the fire where it spits and fizzes as the print blackens and metal curls.

"They could spell just fine. Xander is phonologically consistent with other words. Such as xenophobia, with which you're intimately familiar."

"Well ain't you just the life and soul."

I seethe but take a deep, practised breath. "When you have something so uniquely wrong with you that it doesn't even have a name, get back to me."

Baggie pulls a face. "What… everrr. I'm getting another beer. Anyone?"

Nine shakes of heads. Dexter's the only one who says yes, and claps his hands together as Baggie leaves the crude circle of fallen tree trunks we've laid. "If nobody else has a good story, mine stands as best. And I get to choose what we do tomorrow."

I continue staring into the flames. "It's a myth."

"What?"

"Your story's a myth."

"The fuck it is. It's legendary, passed down for generations."

I hold a marshmallow out ahead of me between thumb and forefinger, the lick of the fire intensifying against my skin. Almost welcoming in its power. To burn. Destroy. Consume the very oxygen upon which we rely, for its own selfish gain. "Have you ever played Broken Telephone?" The marshmallow deforms, pain registering in the tips of my fingers. "Stories whispered from person to person are rarely retold accurately. Everyone puts their spin on it." I withdraw the bronzed goo from the fire and pop it in my mouth, sucking fingertips to soothe them.

"So you're saying it's a hoax?"

Heat registers as I swallow. "It's probably based on some ancient truth that's been warped over time. The creature may be benign. Merely curious."

Dexter snorts. Says nothing.

Dani picks up our fire stick and pokes the flames, her nose ring glinting beyond the partial shadow cast from the dark wave of hair obscuring half her face. "How do you explain the body count?"

I watch her slender fingers around the stick, gripping it. Squeezing. The memory clears when I shake my head. "I can't. But who can? I have books on it. No bodies have ever been found. Only fragments of clothing. Don't you think that's… strange?" I glance around the circle. "Something isn’t right. How can thousands of people just vanish? I'm dying to know what's really going on out there."

Niamh tuts. "Jeez, do you guys not want me to sleep tonight?"

"Merely speculating."

Baggie returns and tosses a beer to Dexter. They bounce their cans at arms' length three times in unison and simultaneously pop the ring pulls. Baggie slurps the froth from his can and belches in Niamh's direction.

She scowls. "If it's sacrificial, I have a nomination."

Baggie flips her the middle finger as the embers spark under Dani's prodding.

I watch the perfect curve of her lips part, the same way they do when she begs, looking up at me from all fours with that ravenous expression before engulfing my hardness. "Has anyone lived to tell?"

Dexter shakes his head. "Not that I know of. Imagine that. Being torn limb from limb and eaten till there's nothing left. Not a trace. Not even a hair that forensics can find."

"Makes you wonder why people go looking if they know the risks."

I hold her gaze a few seconds. "Knowledge. Truth. Recognition. Perhaps they're lured by promises of something greater? Who knows what happens after. Might only be the beginning."

Dani's eyes widen. "Now that would be a tale worth telling."

"Wouldn't it just."

The fire fizzes, ash particles dancing above it. Cameron stands and stretches, more like a broken ironing board than a math major. He runs his hand through neat Afro curls. "I got no better story. So what're we doing tomorrow, champ?"

After chugging a mouthful of beer, Dexter points. "Today's a warm-up. I say we hit Mount Drennan. Forecast's good."

Murmurs and nods all round, including Cameron. He cocks his fingers and fires at us. "See you bitches in the morning then. Seven sharp." Ambling into the encroaching mist towards his tent, his silhouette fades before the zip raises and lowers amid the swish of polyester.

The conversation flows, mainly debating various aspects of Dexter's beast yarn, the group peeling off to bed as the eerie mist rolls inward and threatens to shroud the fire itself.

I leave Baggie and Dexter talking shit, ever louder, and head towards where I think my tent is. The thickness of the mist is disorienting. It's not a uniform density, swirling and shifting like a thousand intertwined tendrils, and I swear it offers resistance against my leg as I pause in the gloom, lost. I shrug it off, but it's persistent, crawling across my feet. The cold penetrates my leather walking boots and a full-body shiver ripples through me.

Steeling, I turn left, then right in the greyish soup and pace in unsystematic directions until the shape of my tent mercifully materialises.

Undressing to my underwear and crawling into my sleeping bag, I only doze, despite being physically tired after the hike. Thoughts rage. I can't sleep even after the two jocks call it a night.

The trees rustle above the mist outside, hundreds – maybe thousands – of creatures of varying sizes sleeping or hunting beyond our little camp.

Hunting.

Maybe that's what the Bayswater Beast does. Slithers or crawls or… whatevers around the shoreline, searching for prey. The lake's only a few hundred feet away. Perhaps the beast prowls inland. Kills, then carries or drags the victim back to the lake. What happens then is anyone's guess. But with no DNA remains, it has to be gruesome, yet methodical.

I wonder, not for the first time, what it would be like to go with it. To find out for sure, even if it meant never returning. To become a footnote in a new edition of one of my books. Or have a whole chapter to myself. Immortalised.

I know what Niamh would call it. She'd say I was giving up. Leaving everything behind. The illness. The uncertainty. The cocktail of pills and injections that dull my senses when my behaviour grows too much for those around me to cope. Stuff that makes me normal, whatever that means. I rebelled today. Took nothing. Paid the price in elevated cognition; those left-brain thoughts untempered by right-brain compensation, threatening to consume me during the walk. But I resisted. It felt good to take control for a change. Alive.

A rustling outside the tent freezes my tumbling consciousness. I focus, listening, blood pressure spiking, thumping through my veins in the quiet as the zip begins to inch north. My mouth goes dry and nothing comes out, despite trying. The zip climbs. Accelerates. I manage to croak, "Who's there?"

The zip speeds up again and Dani peeks in. "Shoosh, dummy. You want them all to find out?" She crawls through the flap and squeezes alongside me in the cramped confines.

"Christ, Dani. You scared me witless. Those stories had my imagination in knots already. Especially–"

She silences me by leaning forward and fastening her lips to mine. Mint and the citrus lip-gloss she favours fill my senses as her tongue peeks into my mouth and slithers against mine. I respond, reaching to cup her cheek as the kiss heats.

When we disengage, I sit there dumbstruck a moment as she toys her tongue across her upper lip, nuzzling my hand, then reaches down and whips off her cami top. Flicking her hair from her eyes, the diffused moonlight catches her needy expression and erect nipples with equal draw.

Her whisper arrives when her hand clasps mine and guides it to her bare breast. "This was about where we were interrupted, right?"

I enclose her warm mound. Explore. Grasp the nipple from beneath my palm and squeeze. Her sigh fills the tent.

Leaning into her, I nibble her neck with lips, then teeth. Work my caresses to her ear. "Not quite."

Dani tips her head back as I bring my hand to her other soft peak, massaging both. Her breath leaves her body and she tenses as I split my touches. One hand slithers down over her taut abdomen beneath the waistband of her panties, tucking into the already wet folds I find. The other glides north and curls her neck, applying faint pressure across her throat. "This is closer to how we were."

Rocking the base of my finger against her shiny clit, my cock hardens in my underwear at her muted inhalation. I tighten my grip a fraction. Dip an exploratory fingertip into her entrance.

I rise to a higher kneel and bring my lips down on hers. The back of my head brushes the tent skin as we kiss furiously and I sink my finger deeper, curling it in and out of her drooling slit.

Leaning back, she rests on her outstretched arms, presenting herself to me, breasts upturned for my abuse. I nibble then bite the caps in turn and she hisses. "Harder."

I comply. The firm cherries rise with each graze of my teeth and I slither a second finger inside her. Dig deep, rhythmically with her escalating moans.

"Shhh," I warn.

Her eyes snap to mine, burning with intensity. "Make me."

I tighten my grip on her neck and she nods slowly, my buried fingers greeted with a fresh drizzle of nectar that flows beyond to stain her underwear. She draws her knees up and flops her legs open, folds spreading for my invasion. Her eyes never waver from mine and I swear they flash emerald in the gloom. "Tighter."

Digging my digits deep, I fill her silky insides, thumbing my way to her clit to increase the stimulation, pinching her pussy through its front wall. I rock my wrist and she grinds her hips against me.

As I squeeze her delicate neck, Dani throws her head back and gasps, "More. Make me yours."

Despite my reservations, I clamp her throat more firmly, fingering her hard without restraint. Her eyes roll, gurgled appreciation bursting moments before her thighs clamp shut around my hand and she freezes.

She quivers in my grip and I hold for a slow three count before losing my nerve and releasing, lungfuls of air rushing into her heaving chest. Her thighs shake as whatever dark needs she harbours become untethered. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't arousing.

When her sticky thighs free my hand, I withdraw and she breathes a laboured, "Thank you," as she uprights.

Grabbing my wrist, she brings my drenched fingers to her mouth and sucks her essence. Inhales deeply, pressing her other hand to my shoulder and overpowering me.

Pushing me backwards against the Therm-a-rest, she straddles my hips, reaches down to tug our underwear aside and sinks her slippery channel around my raging girth that springs free.

She's tight and hot. We remain stationary a moment, flexing internally, my fingers in her gently suckling mouth, cock buried in her glossy insides. Nothing but us in the canvas bubble that reeks of sex.

Dani's hips move first, rolling back and forth to make me repeatedly fill and almost vacate her exquisite pussy. My fingers stifle her moans, free hand gravitating to her waist, then her breast to squeeze in sync with her purring around my fingertips.

Raw need tumbles from her, unmetered. Every gasp, every flash of her eyes to mine, every indent of her fingers across my shoulders, cheeks and neck reveals fragments of the real Dani churning beneath the fiercely private enigma she portrays. It's magnetic. I adore watching her fall apart.

The excitement ramps fast – too fast – and I begin to lose control, groaning under my breath while the beauty on top of me rides hard, chasing her second orgasm. The rapture in her face overwhelms me. I stiffen, suck air through my teeth, and pump my seed deep into her spasming heat, clutching her incredible curves when she releases my fingertips.

Time ebbs as our hearts slow.

Still joined, I sit and we hug, stroking energised skin until our breathing normalises and my softening cock slithers out, pursued by sticky trails of our come.

We disentangle and lie side by side, holding hands. I caress the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. Turn onto my side and trace her contour, from thigh to breast, and up to rest against her neck.

"Why do you like that?"

Her larynx vibrates beneath my fingertips when she answers. "It's empowering. Existential."

"It's dangerous. For the record, I’m not entirely comfortable with it."

She swallows, throat rippling under my touch. "But you understand it. The trust placed in something outside your control. To yield to it." She turns her head to me.

I nod in the near dark. Exhale. My whole life is, in many ways, out of my control. Everyone doing their best for me. Family treating me like I'm antique china. A pincushion for specialists to publish academic papers on the miracle boy for advancing their careers. It's arguable whether any of the blood that circulates my body is my own: I'm the expensive sum total of selfless donors. Where do I begin and they end?

It was a fight to get my parents to agree to let me go away for the trip. What if I fell? What if I seized? What if I needed treatment?

In the end, Niamh convinced them. Said she'd look out for me, and they trust her. Always have, since we grew up together and she's my best friend. I haven't told them about Dani, though. She's too wild. Too unpredictable. Too selfish. Too everything. We have a connection: an understanding. And she treats me like I'm normal. Like I matter.

She props herself on one elbow. "You know what you were saying earlier. About the beast's motives?"

"Yes."

"What does it take to become a legend like that?"

I reach out to stroke her hair from her eyes. "A story larger than life, I expect."

She smiles. "Like yours then."

"Hardly. I'm no legend."

"In some ways you are. People write about you. Study you."

"Not for my benefit, despite what they claim."

She chews her lip, looks as if she's not going to speak, then does. "What's it like? Being you, I mean."

It's a loaded question and I half-shrug. "I'm used to it. Adapted to not knowing if I'll die tomorrow, next week, next year, and accepted the invasive medical procedures when my iron levels tank. The finger-pointing and banter as Baggie calls it doesn't help. It's only name-calling, sticks and stones and all that, but it wears me down. Some days I don't want to crawl out of bed. Ever." I grimace but she doesn't see. "At least being Major Thesaurus is a promotion from Captain Seizetastic."

Dani leans in to press her lips to mine again. Warmth spreads from the contact point to my chest, like she's transferring her essence. It remains even when she draws away. "You know it doesn't bother me, okay? Being with you's liberating. Something about the way you treat life: like it's both a curse to be desecrated and a gift to be cherished. It's intoxicating. I could get lost in you. With you."

She always says the most amazing things. I melt a little inside. "Same here." I swallow. "I have a confession. On those days when I don't want to get up, you know what makes me do so? Every. Damn. Day." I pause. "Thoughts of you. Your smile. Your trust. Sharing your zest for adventure."

I swear she stifles a sob.

We lie in the stillness, just existing. Her fingers brush my inky hair. "Do you ever think about… how much–" the words seem to die in her throat, "–how much time you have left? What it all means?"

"At first, yes. But after the denial and anger fade, inevitability takes root. It doesn't lessen the injustice and pain, but the acceptance is like..." I search for the right word.

Dani intercepts: "Emancipation?"

I think a moment. "Yes. Emancipation."

The silence drifts. Even the wildlife seems to be holding its collective breath before she sighs, grabs her top and sits up. "I'd love to stay, but I should get back. If the girls find me gone, they'll join the dots, and your folks'll find out and then­–"

"They'd shit kittens."

She pulls her top on to cover her magnificent breasts. "You and your mixed metaphors. God you're adorable."

"All part of the charm."

Reaching out, she unzips the tent and I'm treated to her taut bottom wriggling through the flap and disappearing. I scooch forward and her face appears in the gap again. We steal a fleeting kiss and she skips off, vanishing quickly from view.

I sit with the tent open a little, gazing into nothing. The mist mutes the world outside. It's eerie how little sound there is. Silvery shards of moonlight bounce from the swirling particles, a soft diffuse glow permeating the gloom. I watch shapes form, morphing from individual droplets to fingers to spheres to ethereal limbs that solidify then drift apart. The clearing almost seems alive.

Alive.

A thumping begins in my head. Low-level at first, then with increasing intensity until it builds to a degree that makes me wonder if not taking the meds was a bad idea. That's my last coherent thought as the floodgates crash open and the voices start. Faster than usual, they swamp me with questions that have no answers, streaming through my brain. Whispers and shouts clamour for equal attention and I snap my hands to my ears in an attempt to drown them out. It only amplifies the chaos, originating from inside with nowhere to vent.

My mouth drops open when tendrils of mist fold the tent flaps apart, shifting shape, somehow solid, liquid and gas at once. It's beautiful yet terrifying enough that I emit a partial scream, silenced by a plug of impenetrable vapour entering my mouth. I lunge to tug the invader jamming my airway to no avail. There's nothing to grab, merely ever-changing silvery droplets that repeatedly cling to my forearms and fall away as I scrabble uselessly in the canvas cocoon.

More mist enters the tent, swirling and looping to bind my legs as phantom feelers spiral up my arms, into my nostrils, cold pinpricks darting into my brain. I twist and writhe against my ghostly captive, noiselessly kicking, unable to even snort.

The voices crescendo and I barely know which way is up. My brain aches and I start to lose consciousness before the bonds snap free, my throat and nose unblock and I gasp lungfuls of damp air through the tent flap.

The voices recede to a dull murmur, then nothing. Absolute stillness; outside and within. A temporary lull from the storm.

I open one eye, then the other to peek ahead of me. Beyond the tent, the mist lifts and reforms as a path illuminates, a hoary trail that leads into the trees. My head is clear. Only one thought remains prominent, pounding inside, metronomic like a church bell's chime:

Follow.

I don't even question the logic. Crawl. Stand. Then walk. One bare foot after the other travels the path, winding through the canopy of trees, uncaring that my soles are scratched and scuffed by bark and twigs, descending towards the edge of the lake.

After the violence of its intrusion, the mist that guides me appears somehow encouraging. There are no more voices. I'm calm. Centred. Balanced, with clarity I've not felt in over a decade. Maybe longer. Like my entire neural network has somehow been rewired or cleansed.

I stop short of the lake itself, the mist adopting a bluish tone beneath the full moon, wisps taking shape above the water. The form becomes vaguely human. At least above the waist. Long shimmering hair and beauty incarnate. Voluptuous, curvaceous, womanly. From there down, the shape is more nebulous. Indistinct fragments of appendages, like the earlier manifestation that occupied the clearing.

She glides forward and reaches the shore. Approaches me up the bank, as if riding a cushion of air. I hear her voice, though she doesn’t speak. Mellifluous and alluring, she whispers nothing to fear and I believe her.

"What do you want?"

Her voice reverberates in my head: We seek the souls of the dying. Offer salvation. Join us.

"Why?"

To live forever among us.

"What's the catch?"

You must surrender to me. Completely. Reach the highest consciousness to make the transition.

I blink. "What about­–"

Let me show you.

Her front two feelers slither across my bare abdomen, encasing me. Two more caress my fingertips and snake up my arms. Initially, each tendril is cold, then warmth flows through from the touch points to my chest, just like Dani's kiss. My thoughts are transported, eyes fluttering, soaring back through the forest carried by the mist, swirling through our tents, somehow connected to their occupants through the ether, hopping from synaptic pathway to pathway, centring on one mind. The flashes of lightning arcing between wavy grey channels, pulsing, firing, and misfiring are breathtaking.

I see it all. And everything becomes so clear I almost cry out that I missed the signs. Colour drains from me, stomach churning.

The vision collapses. I open my eyes, gaze across the lake and know what I have to do.

The spirit seems to breathe on my behalf, inside me. Her voice drifts:

Choose.

The decision is instant. My moment. My chance to finally understand the myth and become part of it. To shed the pain and uncertainty of life. Transcend.

I rotate my palms towards the lake and inhale. Waiting.

The tendrils around my tummy tug downward, pulling my underwear with them, my naked body presented to her. She strokes my thighs in unison, cold then warm. Her face floats in front of my vision, partially translucent, the far side of the shore visible through her captivating eyes.

She brings more of her lower body in to touch me until it's impossible to count how many places she holds. She seems to caress my entire being. Each brush is charged with power and need, yet is barely a whisper against my skin. Droplets of mist are deposited, turning to rivulets that drizzle down my body. It tickles, caressing the hair follicles, and my body responds to the stimulation.

I begin to rise, blood diverting to my groin, thickening me, the head swelling until I'm fully erect before her. Flecks of cold dapple my cock, then heat as she wraps my engorged shaft, looping one appendage around and around until I'm fully encased.

Our eyes lock and I see the trees behind me reflected in flashes of coral. My gaze drifts and I realise her torso is unclothed, her breasts full and firm. My length is at attention, partially visible through the dancing vapour that grips me. Her misty tentacle ripples from the base of my cock to its tip in a gentle rhythm and I gasp. It's exquisite. Perfectly synchronised with my arousal, the blood surges in and engorges the flared tip.

Like someone drumming their fingertips on a desk, the rippling travels up and down my shaft in a smooth motion. Sometimes fast, sometimes agonisingly slow to match the heat that ebbs within me. It's a combination of the perfect handjob and the perfect blowjob, drawing up, squeezing pre-come from the tiny slit to join the droplets of water that coat and drip from me.

Two tendrils slither to my nipples and flit across them. They firm as frigid heat contradicts my senses, chest rising and falling with every breath. Another two slide up to support my buttocks, circling to squeeze the muscles. As they massage, they occasionally part my cheeks and flash across the knot between. I tense at each forbidden flutter. Try to relax.

Her mouth lands on mine. She's salty, liquid tongue pushing insistently against mine, pouring into me, filling my lungs. I panic, drowning, yet somehow start to breathe through it, water and vapour replacing oxygen.

Behind me, her tentacles peel me apart, plug me, and I gasp in watery abandon as her rippling handjob intensifies. It's truly incredible.

I'm hoisted off the ground, held aloft by nothing but aqueous limbs. Rock hard in her grip, she stimulates me with measured precision, probing my rear to send exquisite pulses through my groin. Her feelers slip and slide and pinch and squeeze my nipples, yet another snaking up my body to loop my neck and grip, just like Dani needs.

The symbolism isn't lost as my eyes snap wide and I gaze down at myself through a glassy expression. Each moment that passes, each flick and ripple of pleasure that racks my body turns my skin more transparent. The liquid she pumps into me through the powerful kiss seems to filter my veins, permeating pores from the inside, distilling my very core.

My balls tighten as she takes me over. The rippling heightens and my head flings back, hair plastered, steam-filled bubbles drifting from my mouth, gurgles of white-hot pleasure that match the churning magma beginning to rocket up my shaft. My ass winks around her embedded tendril and I scream babbling ecstasy, my come firing in pearly arcs from beneath the rhythm of her coiled grip, to disperse into the liquid air that cocoons me.

The last earthly vision as my diminishing focus shifts is of my skin turning fully translucent and I become vapour. Disperse into the atmosphere.

Become the myth.

~o0o~

The clearing is quiet, dotted with a mixture of single- and multi-berth tents. The full moon streams ever-shifting splinters of silver through the edges of rustling leaves. Dwindling fire embers glow, the occasional orange spark spitting from the array of charred empty beer cans and smouldering logs. Tree trunks positioned as makeshift seats around it are devoid of life.

The rustling stills as the mist rolls in. First at the fringes of the clearing, then spilling into it, drifting and tumbling, fleetingly forming shapes that could be arms or fingers or tricks of the imagination. It's rarely static long enough to take on recognisable structures, but it encroaches, whirls and gradually fills the clearing, enshrouding it in a dense haze.

One tent lies empty, the flap gaping open. The mist thickens around a larger tent beyond, its zip starting to rise, teeth separating moment by moment.

Its occupants slumber, blissfully unaware as the gap widens until it's fully open.

Silence, save for gentle snores absorbed by the mist that streams inside until the girl on the left, a wave of dark hair partially obscuring her face, snaps her eyes open. They widen in terror and her mouth opens to scream.

I silence it by wrapping a wispy tendril around her throat and squeezing. A second watery appendage slithers up her curves and sweeps the hair away from her temple. A third brushes her thigh, snaking inside her underwear to caress her pussy lips, still sticky with our come.

Soothing her with gentle strokes, I slip a watery finger inside her. Skim her cheek with vapour that leaves tiny beads clinging to her face. When I assert pressure on all the touch points, she tenses beneath me. Gasps. Nods once, perhaps in recognition.

I form words, mere whispers in the mist near her ear:

How long?

She swallows. "A year. Maybe two."

Why didn't you tell me?

Biting her lip, she whispers back. "It wasn't your fight. Nothing to tell."

Then how about making our own tale worth telling, for eternity?

A single tear joins the droplets on her cheek. She nods again as I flex my ethereal grip around her delicate throat and curl my way into her buttery depths.

Do you trust me?

With barely a moment's hesitation, she slides her feet up, knees steepling. Staring up, partially through me, she separates her thighs and whispers, "I surrender. Completely."