The Summer of 1998 and the Cicada Emergence

• 🦗 In Missouri, the summer of 1998 saw the emergence of Brood IV periodical cicadas, an event that occurs every 17 years.
• 🎬 A group of five friends—the narrator, York Rager, Eric Navaro, Laramie Williams, and Marissa Delaney—were 13 years old and decided to film a horror movie.
• 🏚️ They chose an abandoned farm, known as the Hinsley place, as a filming location due to its eerie atmosphere.

Disturbing Observations at the Hinsley Place

• 👤 During their first visit, the friends encountered a reclusive, older man on the property who appeared worried rather than angry.
• 🏠 Subsequent visits revealed the man was boarding up his windows from the inside and digging a trench, suggesting he was trying to keep something out.
• 👂 The narrator began to notice a strange, low-frequency pulse beneath the cicada drone, causing physical discomfort and headaches.
• 😟 A pervasive feeling of being watched, larger than just the man in the house, began to affect the group.

The Night of the Disappearance

• 🎥 The friends decided to film at the Hinsley place at night using the camcorder's night vision mode.
• 👽 While filming, the cicada sound shifted to an intense, pulsing rhythm that caused their muscles to seize up.
• 👤 A tall, angular, multi-limbed entity emerged from the trees and approached the old man, who offered it a bundle of raw meat.
• 😱 The entity then dismembered the man, pulling him apart into pieces, while the cicadas returned to their normal sound.

Aftermath and Lingering Trauma

• 🏃 The surviving friends fled the property in terror, dropping the camcorder.
• ❓ The next day, the narrator retrieved the camera; the footage was mostly unusable, but the audio captured the disturbing cicada pulse.
• 💔 The incident shattered their friendships, with York's family moving away and the narrator and Marissa drifting apart.
• 😔 Laramie Williams was officially presumed to have drowned in a creek, but the friends knew the truth of what happened in the woods.
• ⏳ The narrator continues to be haunted by the event, especially with the return of Brood IV cicadas in 2015, and hopes Laramie's end was quick.