What the River Demands

Elaine returns home for the summer to a father whose indifference has always bordered on cruelty. When he suddenly insists on taking her fishing at Sorrowmere River, she does not dare refuse. She quietly starts her livestream, and the chat fills with warnings about the water, about the dead fish that still takes the bait, and about the man standing behind her.

One viewer, Alaric Vane, claims her father has struck a bargain with a restless spirit: a life for a life. Elaine dismisses him as a clout chaser, but her father's feverish excitement over each dead fish, and his rage when she tries to throw one back, are harder to explain. He needs three, Alaric says, to seal the contract.

Then her father lets slip that on this exact day last year, someone truly did die in that river. Elaine must decide whether the warnings are real before the third cast is made.