Campfire Stories

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My friends and I went camping. We go every year, it's pretty much tradition at this point. We always find a nice spot way up in the woods, and spend a few nights there. Another thing we did, that became tradition was campfire stories. But not just any campfire stories, scary campfire stories, and I won every year. Now it was just me and three friends, John, Grayson, and Natalie, so the story telling tended to go quickly. This year, John went first. He told us this story about some guy who was haunted by a ghost girl. Apparently, she'd follow him around everywhere he went, tormenting him. She ended up drowning him in his own pool. Natalie went second. She told us about some babysitter, who was so crazy she ended up cooking some mom's kid, and to make things even worse, she fed the kid to the mom. Talk about gross. Now Grayson, decided to do some research before telling his story. He said that there was once a guy, Luke something, who dressed as a clown in some park. Apparently a bunch of teens kept messing up his show so he killed them and then himself. Now he haunts the park, and any teenagers that go to the park after midnight are killed by the spirit of this clown. Now all my friends had taken their turns and it was just me left. The stories they told weren't bad, but I had to come up with something that'll knock those other stories out of the water. And then it hit me. This is the story of The Gold Man. Legend has it, the very place we all are sitting right now, use to be a gold mine. People all across the world would come here to try and find gold. Many of the travelers killed others just to try and get more gold for themselves. However, after multiple examiners checked, the gold turned out to be fool's gold, also commonly known as pyrite. All these travelers got extremely upset that they traveled here for nothing, but couldn't do anything about it, so one by one they packed their bags and headed home. All but one. This one guy, Adrian Gray, believed that there was truly gold down there, so ignoring all the bodies, he continued to dig through the mine to find real gold. Sadly, one night, while he was mining what he believed to be real gold, the mine collapsed, trapping him there forever. Now his thirst for riches was so strong, he ate the dead travelers that were in the mine with him, just so he could have the energy to keep mining, but not his way out, no, but for more gold. The gods cursed him, turning him into gold. But even so, he could still move, in search of gold. After so many years he finally escaped the mine, and now kills anyone he sees, for he thinks they're after his gold. My friends looked at me and laughed. They told me my story made no sense, that he shouldn't be able to move if he was turned to gold. Everyone, but me, ended up agreeing that John told the best story. I couldn't believe it. I told the best story every year, how could they laugh at my story. It was perfect. They had no idea what they were talking about. Midnight rolled around quicker than anyone saw coming. So we decided that now would be a good time to go to sleep. We got into our tents and went to sleep. I woke up that morning to all three of my friends dead. They each had been stabbed multiple times with a pickaxe. I called the police and told them that someone murdered my friends. Cops showed up and started asking me questions, they thought it was weird that my friends were dead and I was left unharmed. I'm pretty sure they believed I did it. An ambulance came and took away my friends, I saw their lifeless bodies being carried off. I'm pretty sure everyone thinks I did it. Not like it matters, they'll never find the pickaxe I used, and they won't have enough evidence to convict me. Not like they should convict me, all three of them deserved it, and now they'll live on, as victims of The Gold Man.

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