The shrieks of young Neopians rang out around the campfire. Kiveo, a Red Kiko, gave a villainous laugh as he saw their reaction to his scary story's grand finale.

It was another ordinary night at the Kiko Pines campsite in the woods near Kiko Lake. This was Kiveo's first year here with the job title of "Camp Counselor", and he couldn't be more ecstatic about it. He himself had spent the summers of his youth coming here, and he always left with fond memories of roasting Sausages over the fire, splashing in the lake after a hot day, exploring the woods, and making new friends.

He chuckled to himself as he closed a very worn copy of "Scary Neopian Stories", a book that stayed at the camp and had been there for generations. The antique and tattered look of it added to the scary ambiance, he thought.

"Can we please get another story, Mr. Kiveo?" A young Lupe asked from across the way, with big pleading eyes.

"Sorry guys, you know the drill. It's bedtime at ten," he said apologetically. He was met with a resounding and disappointed "aww" from the crowd, and so Kiveo reassured them that he would find an extra scary one for tomorrow. Pleased enough with that answer, the group then began to disperse, gathering belongings and heading towards their respective cabins.

Kiveo looked down at the book in his claws-- this was the first time he'd ever held it himself. He began to skim through the book, finding some familiar stories like "The Swamp Witch" and "The Crazed Ghostkerchief" that the Counselors of his youth read in the past, some unfamiliar ones like "The Curse of the Raspberry Pie", and then..

"Wait a minute.." Kiveo's brow furrowed as he noticed something odd in the pages.

With each story, a random word or letter was crudely underlined with pen. At first he thought maybe one of the young Campers got their paws on it and doodled, but the more he flipped through the pages, the more it began to actually spell something out...

The Kiko spoke aloud as he flipped through the crinkled pages of the horror anthology, his pace hastening as the sentence continued. A chilling gust of wind helped guide the pages forward, and Kiveo's brow furrowed as he tried to make out the text beneath the evening's twilight.

"...lies...the...secret...of..."

Kiveo paused as he flipped the final page of the book, revealing naught more than an empty white sheet. Squinting, the counsellor could make out the frayed edges along its rim.

"The final page has been torn out..." he concluded to himself, mind lost in a plethora of thoughts. Beneath the ripples? Could it mean the camp's lake? And what secret?

Kiveo let out a small chuckle as he dismissed his thoughts. It was clearly just a prank from one of the kids, he pondered, before a sudden urge of apprehension swelled within him. "Those kids better not be playing by the lake this late!"

Without a second thought the Kiko made his way toward the waters...

Kiveo looked around at the uninteresting sight, then called out. "Night call! Is anyone out here?!"

Nothing. But of course, that didn't mean it was actually nothing. If these kids were pulling a prank, all they had to do was play the long game until he moved into their inevitable trap.

Well, if it was just a prank, Kiveo supposed there wasn’t much harm in directly approaching it. With the pranks of these kids, the worst he'd get was a little messy, maybe even a little jumpy. At least he'd know the kids were out late at night, and he could deal with them then. He made his way towards the dock.

Burble...

He froze as he approached the docks. There was something from the water.

plish plish plish plish

The rocks. It was coming from the rocks. He turned to face them. Maybe an aquatic kid was hiding under there; maybe they were responsible for the journal's cryptic message. But whether it was the dark of night or the murkiness of the shadowy waters, he couldn't see anything.

He took a breath. Now or never. He approached.

Buuuuuurble...

He saw it this time; the bubbling among the rocks. Was it just the foam formed from the eddies around the rocks? But some of the bubbles were from the central areas. And he thought he could see something below... But it certainly looked nothing like a camper.

Kiveo went to the treeline just long enough to grab a stick before returning to the rocks. Just because he didn't see one of the campers didn't mean it wasn't something placed by a camper, but on the off chance it wasn't, he wasn't putting his fingers in there. He went onto the dock and moved towards the end so he could reach the rocky area. He placed the tip of the stick within the centre of where he saw the bubbles.

And for a moment, the stick stayed there. Calm, undisturbed, the waters placid around it.

Just as he was about to pull out the stick, he heard a crunch...

“What is in these waters?!” Kiveo wondered aloud, his voice a quivering mumble. He turned on his heels and sprinted for camp.

Moments later, he burst through the cabin door of the camp counsellor’s lodge, gasping for breath.

“There’s… something… in the… lake!” Kiveo managed to wheeze out.

“Yeah… There is. There’s water and aquatic Petpets and rocks and–“ a Disco Kiko said from the top bunk as a snide grin slid across her face in her own amusement.

“Ha-ha, very funny, Deidre,” Kiveo said to his counsellor counterpart, having mostly caught his breath. “No, there’s something else. Something more sinister.”

“You’ve been reading too many of those ghost stories to our campers and now you’re starting to believe them yourself,” she said, still not believing him. The Disco Kiko jumped from her bunk and approached him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Alright, then explain this!” Kiveo said, smacking the wet, broken stick on their shared desk table.

“That, my friend, is a stick,” Deidre sassed, erupting in laughter.

“Fine. I have no other choice but to show you!” Kiveo replied in a huff as he grabbed her arm. “Come on!”

Against his better judgment, Kiveo returned to Kiko Lake, his colleague in tow. As they were hurrying towards the shoreline, the Red Kiko frantically explained the underlined words and letters in his copy of “Scary Neopian Stories”, and how he had originally thought it to be a trick from a mischievous camper.

As they approached the rocks, Kiveo finished by saying, “… and you’ll see why I think it’s something far more evil than tha–“

But he stopped mid-sentence and the two camp counsellors paused. There, where the Red Kiko had placed his stick in the water, was…

It floated slowly along with the gentle waves, and as it got closer Kiveo reached over and carefully pulled it out.

Under the light of the stars he could see it was a page ripped out from a book - his book of scary stories to be exact!

“Deidre! This was what I just told you about! The secret underlined message! And here’s the last page! But why…” Kiveo couldn’t understand why it was here now. Was this from the creature that had bit off part of his stick?

Though parts were torn and smudged, he could still see the underlined letters which spelled out…

He did not need to reference his book of scary stories to connect the phrases together; the message was eerie enough that it was already engrained in his memory.

"You were not kidding," Deidre said with a low whistle.

The lake began to gurgle loudly, sapphire bubbles rapidly foaming to the top before dissolving abruptly, giving way to a swirling whirlpool that pulled towards the depths of the lake. The co-counsellors gasped, eying the midnight blue vortex of churning water with a mixture of awe and horror.

"Woah," Deidre murmured. "I've never seen anything like that before!"

The Kikos waddled over to a row of rocky boulders on the edge of the lakeshore to give them a better view, the additional height allowing them to absorb the sight of the whirlpool in its entirety.

The aggressive, rapidly moving water in the centre of the lake was a stark contrast to the cresting waves that lapped the shore, gently touching their dangling feet.

"I bet the so-called underwater monster caused that," Deidre enthusiastically theorized. "To scare us away!"

Kiveo scrambled backwards to the top of the rock, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the mysterious lake.

"Well it's working," he muttered, anxiously gazing at the disturbed lake, so different than it's usual calm stillness.

The Disco Kiko elbowed her friend. "I think we should investigate."

Kiveo may have been the expert campfire storyteller, but Deidre was the one who feared nothing.

"What exactly are you proposing?" Kiveo braced himself for Deidre's chaotic idea.

The Disco Kiko nodded towards one of the Kiko Pines kayaks, docked at the marina.

"We could borrow a boat and check things out for ourselves. Get to the bottom of this mystery..."

The two Kikos headed over to the marina. “Are you sure you want to do this? Deidre asked.

Kiveo nodded enthusiastically. “I know I won’t be able to sleep until we get to the bottom of this. Let’s go.”

They hopped in a kayak and started paddling out. A group of Goldies swam furiously past them toward the dock. They were swimming away from the pull of the whirlpool. It was dark, but Deidre could see the Red Kiko’s fearful expression lit up by the moonlight. She tried to keep a brave face on for her friend.

They were getting closer to the whirlpool. Every few seconds, the lake’s water would become more turbulent and the current would pull them deeper into the centre of the lake. The current was getting stronger much too quickly. They could see the swirling centre of the whirlpool clearly now.

“Do you see anything?” The Disco Kiko shouted over the choppy waters.

The Red Kiko squinted in the darkness. “I think I see something just below the surface. Can we get any closer?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think I’ll be able to paddle us out if we—woah!”

The whirlpool grabbed hold of the canoe and spun them around and around. The two Kikos held onto the sides of the canoe with all their strength as they circled the centre. A large green mass lurked just below the surface as they spiralled toward it.

“We’re going down!” Kiveo yelled. “And I think something’s waiting for us…”

The two Kikos gripped the sides to stabilize themselves and began to shriek, their screams echoing across the lake. The green mass in the center of the whirlpool rose with them as chartreuse claws dug into the keel of the boat, nearly cracking it in half. The creature lurking beneath the depths of Kiko Lake raised the canoe at eye level, grinning devilishly at Kiveo and Deidre as his nostrils flared and his red eyes shone bright.

The Red Kiko recognized the monster immediately. It was none other than Chiazilla, both a protector and predator of the seas of Neopia… But what was he doing in Kiko Lake?

Hoping he was on business for his former title, Kiveo cleared his throat and steadied his voice. “I’ve read tales about you! You’re Ch-Chiazilla,” he said, unable to contain the eventual stammer. “W-what are you doing here at Camp Kiko Pines?”

Still wrought with fear, Deidre couldn’t shake the look of terror from her eyes as she looked between her colleague and the creature incredulously. Either she didn’t recognize the Chia or she was in a state of pure shock.

The mighty, mutated Chia let out a bellowing roar that sent a lake-sized tsunami from the vortex to the shore. The Kikos covered their faces in horror as gobs of spit flung onto them from the great beast’s jowls.

Then, in the wake of their dismay, Kiko Lake’s Underwater Monster opened his mouth as if to answer Kiveo’s question…

How will this story end?

“I…think it wants you to open that,” Deidre whispered. Giant red eyes widened, just slightly.

Without taking his gaze off Chiazilla, Kiveo lifted the wad and gingerly began to unfold it, careful not to tear the wet paper. In the end he held a stack of runny pages in his hands. The looming red eyes had never blinked. Was it just him, or did Chiazilla seem….nervous?

There was a click, and Deidre shone her flashlight over Kiveo’s shoulder to illuminate the top page.

It was a resume.

”Objective:…counsellor…position…at…Kiko Pines Camp Grounds?” Kiveo read aloud, more bewildered with every word. “You’re here to apply for a job?!”

Chiazilla let out a growl that could have been the distant rumble of an earthquake…but somehow sounded, to Kiveo, like an affirmation.

”What are the other pages?” Deidre asked, prompting him to shuffle through them.

He half expected a cover letter, or maybe references, but the other pages were actually a series of black and white photographs. They were group shots of campers and counsellors at Kiko Pines, but they must have been taken generations ago. And in each and every one, squatting sheepishly in the shallows of the lake, with a neckerchief the size of a circus tent wrapped around its neck, was a gigantic, mutated chia…but only about a quarter of the size it was now.

Deidre gasped, and Kiveo realized right before she said it:

”The secret of Kiko Lake!” She said. “It was a secret CAMPER in the lake…you used to come here as a kid, Chiazilla!”

The monstrous Chia roared in triumph.

Kiveo swallowed, forcing down the sudden lump in his throat. He carefully folded the resume and tucked it under his arm, along with the photos. He met Chiazilla’s anxious gaze. “We’ll make sure this reaches the right person. You should hear from us within the week.”

The jaws opened once more:

”THANNNK…YOUUUU…”

The canoe was replaced in the water with surprising delicacy, and Chiazilla sank beneath the waves. Within a minute, the surface of Kiko Lake was as smooth as glass, like the monster had never been there at all.

As the pair paddled back to shore, Deidre chattered nervously, but Kiveo was silent. He was already composing a letter of recommendation in his head.

The End.