🪙 Gold Coin: Last Call at Willow Lake

🎙️ Introduction — The Nightly Storyteller

There’s a strange kind of magic in friendship, isn’t there?

We cling to it—laugh in its warmth—pretend it’s unbreakable. But time has a way of testing what we think will last forever.

And nature…

Nature doesn’t care for our promises or our memories. She keeps her own balance—always watching, always waiting.

Sometimes, when we take too much… she gives something back. Something that crawls out of the dark water when no one’s looking.

So gather close, friends.

This is what happened the last night five friends spent together at Willow Lake…

and the price one of them paid for picking up something that didn’t belong to him.

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The air smelled like pine, gasoline, and wet earth as Mateo’s truck crunched down the narrow dirt road toward his family’s old lake house. The summer humidity clung to the skin, thick and heavy, carrying the faint electric taste of an oncoming storm.

Jesse leaned out the passenger window, grinning as the trees opened up to reveal the still, glassy surface of Willow Lake. “Last weekend of freedom, baby!” he shouted, laughter echoing across the water.

The group tumbled out with coolers and Bluetooth speakers, blasting songs from their high school playlists. It was the kind of golden evening that almost made you believe time could stand still.

Before heading inside, Jesse stopped at the run-down gas station by the road to grab sodas and chips. As he paid, something gold glinted by his tire—half buried in an oily puddle. He bent down and picked it up. A coin. Etched with strange, curling symbols and a faint image of a weeping willow.

“Lucky find,” he said, flipping it once before slipping it into his pocket.

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By nightfall, the lake house buzzed with energy and nostalgia. They swam under a sky smeared with orange and violet, teasing each other about leaving for college. The water was warm and thick with the scent of algae.

Lila brushed her leg against something near the weeds and hissed. “Ow—probably poison ivy.” But when they came back up to the dock, her skin had already begun to redden and swell unnaturally. Mateo offered to drive her to the small clinic down the road while the others stayed behind to keep the fire going.

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Devan and Kara prepped burgers on the deck, the smell of raw meat and lighter fluid hanging in the humid air. When they turned to grab buns from the kitchen, they heard a metallic clang behind them.

The tray of burgers was gone.

The metal cover lay ten feet away, dented—like something had thrown it.

They laughed it off. “Raccoons, maybe,” Kara said, though her voice trembled slightly.

They tried again. Same thing. But this time, Devan caught something—a ripple slicing across the water’s black surface. Wide. Too wide.

“Maybe a fish,” he said, forcing a smile. But the woods felt suddenly still—no crickets, no frogs, no wind. Just the soft slap of water against the dock.

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Later that night, Devan went out alone to check the boathouse. His flashlight beam cut through the fog rising off the lake like breath from the earth. The air was thick with the smell of mud, iron, and decay.

He rounded the corner and froze.

The second tray lay crumpled like foil. Deep gouges shredded the wooden wall—long, hooked, uneven marks.

And on the ground, glistening in the beam, was a smear of thick greenish slime that smelled like rotting mushrooms and gasoline.

He stumbled back, gagging. Somewhere in the dark water behind him, a low croak echoed—not the chirp of a frog, but something bigger. Wet. Hollow.

He ran back to the cabin, breath ragged. “Jesse—what was that coin you found?”

Jesse blinked, half-drunk and half-asleep. “What coin?”

“The one at the gas station.”

He pulled it from his pocket. The gold looked duller now, pulsing faintly as if reflecting light that wasn’t there.

The moment Jesse touched it, his face drained of color. “I heard something,” he whispered. “Like… croaking.”

The sound came again—this time inside the house. Slow. Rhythmic. Dripping.

The kitchen lights flickered, the smell of wet soil filling the air. From the shadows by the screen door, something heavy shuffled forward.

Its shape was wrong—limbs bending where they shouldn’t, eyes glinting with the dull sheen of gold. Water dripped from its mouth in slow, steady taps. A gurgling sound bubbled up from its throat—half croak, half whisper.

> “Lucky find,” it echoed. Jesse’s own words.

Kara screamed as it lunged, its claws—webbed and slick—grabbing Jesse by the face. Blood sprayed across the counter in a mist of steam. The creature dragged him backward, out the door, into the lake. The water swallowed him whole.

Devan and Kara backed away, trembling, the coin still clattering on the table, spinning on its edge before falling flat.

It gleamed once. Then went still.

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The next morning, Mateo returned with Lila, her leg bandaged and pale. They found the lake house empty—chairs overturned, walls scratched, a metallic smell thick in the air. The only sound came from the dock.

The water rippled gently. A single gold coin floated there for a moment… before sinking beneath the surface.

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We’re just getting started—and things are about to get dark.

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