A couple of hours after drinking the water from the lake, Michelle wasn't feeling so hot. She had a general ache throughout her body, not unlike how she felt before she came down with the flu a few months earlier. "Gosh,"she thought to herself, "Maybe that wasn't such a great idea."
She briefly debated telling the others about what she'd done, and how she wasn't feeling the greatest. Logically speaking, she knew she ought to get to an emergency room to have them run some tests, just to be safe. She remembered hearing odd stories from classmates in her high school days about toxic dumping in the lake, mutated fish, and weird animals wandering the area, but she hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary the first day they'd spent here, and she'd gotten careless, wanting some of the fresh water of the lake.
She talked herself out of telling the other three, not wanting to ruin their "lost weekend" due to her paranoia. Her boyfriend Mike had wanted this camping trip so badly; she knew he'd be disappointed if they left early, no matter what he told her to the contrary.
Her roommate Shelby, and Mike's brother Tom would probably mock her incessantly, and not let her live down ending the weekend early. Shelby was one of Michelle's closest friends, but a very active and party-minded individual. She'd been spending most of the day swimming and playing grab-ass with Tom, drinking Jack Daniels and smoking weed.
So Michelle decided to hide her condition from the others, determined not to ruin their fun. Instead, Michelle decided to relax by reading a book as the sun set. But in the back of her mind, she felt a sense of foreboding as the night crept in, a feeling she couldn't shake off. As the sun finally dipped below the horizon at 8:30, Michelle was officially worried.