The first time it happened, they thought it was a coincidence.

A young camper had been writing home every night. She was homesick; she’d never been away from home this long before. She borrowed a pen from her roommate to write her parents, because hers had vanished on the first day. But maybe there was something in the ink, something that swallowed a little bit of everyone who used it.

Every day, she got paler, quieter. She looked drained and ill. Then at lunch on the third day, the counselors pulled her aside. Her mother was dead, and she was flying home.

The next day, someone used the pen to write a piece of dark poetry on the graffiti wall. He was hit by a car when he jaywalked on the way to Recreation. The pen passed on to another camper, and another. Each time, it took a little piece of them, a little piece of what made them alive, and then moved on. It fed on the thoughts-turned-written-words that the kids jotted down, and it wasn’t until a counselor choked to death at dinner, with the pen in his hand, that anyone made the connection.

They drained the ink, crushed it, burned the pieces, and buried it in the construction near the elementary school. No one spoke of it, but everyone started using mechanical pencils as a silent effort to protect themselves.

Too bad the lanyards were actually at fault.