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Catastrophe on Island Remembered
Two Survivors Still Missing

After years, mystery and rumors still surround the fiery catastrophe that erupted on a private island on an unnamed lake outside the village of . The only two survivors, an unidentified young man and a young woman, remain unaccounted for despite repeated attempts to locate them. The debacle claimed the lives of all twelve guests—including, it has been claimed without authentication, defrocked Cardinal , missing since the notorious scandal involving of and the from sent him into undisclosed exile. Unverified accounts, all that remain, assert that he was the secret owner of the island bought under a false name. Whether the fire burst out in a natural way or was set by someone on the island is unknown at the time this account is being written on the supposed anniversary of the tragedy.

The fire ravaged a section of the house where all the guests convened, entrapping them. Some broke out by shattering windows and tried futilely to reach the lake. “Fire must have spread with the speed of a demonic creature,” according to Captain (now deceased), the first official responder to the fire. Access was impeded by the location on the lake and by the attempted and blocked influx of the curious rowing to the island alerted by flames seen miles away.

Despite the ensuing chaos and futile attempts by firefighters to reach the conflagration, Captain was able briefly to question the two young witnesses apparently employed on the island and therefore quartered in a part of the house left astonishingly unaffected by the fire.

In his hurried report of his encounter with the two survivors, Captain maintained that “the boy and the girl appeared surprisingly composed though on reflection they were in a state of shock, staring down blankly. The only explanation for the fire the girl was able to convey, in words I wrote immediately and exactly lest I forget, was that ‘gray fog thick as smoke would not lift, heating the shadows.’ The boy added his own babbled words, declaring that ‘it was the heat of the dark clouds that turned into flames as if the lake was on fire and burning smoke was racing away.’” The fact that Captain was himself in shock may explain his confused recollection, which some have questioned.

Attempts to locate the two witnesses after years have been as unsuccessful as have the attempts to verify the names of the reputedly wealthy guests, although from time to time a guarded name surfaces. It has been conjectured that any investigation has been thwarted by powerful persons in high places in order to avoid an even greater scandal.

The Great Fire on the Lake, as it is now designated, has remained as mysterious as on the day it burst into tragedy.

Gossip persists that before the fire, rituals and practices among the selected guests were violent and vile, “unholy rituals.”