"What is it?" Heather asked, her face turning into the same odd expression Jasmin wore.

"Are you noticing something?" Jasmin rejoined, still staring into Nathan's eyes.

"What?" Danny called out.

"I don't know, but I feel-- and when I turned to look at Nathan--"

"What is this?"

"Jasmin, maybe it's the light, but you seem--"

"WHAT?" Danny reiterated.

"Heather, it's happening to you too." Nathan pointed.

"What's happening here??" The urgency in Jasmin's voice increased a little.

"I'm not sure. Hey-- !"

"This is weird."

The right strap of Heather's bikini top slowly slid down her right shoulder.

"Something is different."

The irritable chills came faster.

"Jasmin!!" Heather screamed.

Nathan's soaked swimming trunks sank a little lower on his waist.

Danny felt the tingling cold feeling run down his neck. Were his trunks getting falling?

"I don't feel right."

What the hell is happening to us??"

"Jasmin, you look... you look... younger!" Heather squealed like a bad horror movie extra.

"That's impossible!" Nathan shouted so loud it echoed off the surrounding canyon of trees. "This can't happen!"

With that, Heather noticed everyone's height becoming out of proportion. Nathan, by far the tallest of the clan, now seemed closer to Jasmin's height, who seemed closer to her height, which was closer to Danny's height. She watched the midsection of Jasmin's one-piece start to bunch up, an assemblage of material growing larger as Jasmin grew shorter. Soon, the bottom half of her bathing suit hung like a soggy "V" between her thighs.

"No! Stop this!" Heather yelled, the lower portion of her own swim suit beginning to slide. She no longer felt the burden of her breasts, as her top became increasingly useless, the shoulder straps gripping her upper arms. In panic, she pulled her pulled the lower portion of her bikini taught and tied the rest of the material into a knot.

Nathan's goatee had all but disappeared and he'd shrunk to two-thirds his original size. Clinging madly to his swimming trunks with one hand, he grabbed Jasmin's arm with the other. Spinning her around to face him, he muttered, "Oh my god."

Danny was fighting the same battle as his mates, though his changes were less dramatic than those around him. Only having stepped one foot into puberty, Danny was simply retreating to an earlier part of his childhood. He didn't know what to feel.

Heather's bikini top finally slid -- as if she were undressing -- down to her stomach with the straps still dangling around her arms. The two protuberances of her sex glistened in the sunlight. Her breasts now only nubs, she screeched some incomprehensible shriek. She yanked the top back up and did the same thing she'd done with the bottom. (Get out of here, you little perv!)

"Look at him!" Jasmin wailed, pointing a finger at Danny. Danny, to any reasonable third party, would have been judged a third-grader now at best. All hints of his fourteen-year-old status had been washed away with the ripples of the lake. And replacing them was a scrawny kid with a conspicuous row of freckles stamped on his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. Nathan looked to be about Danny's old age. And Jasmin was hovering somewhere around her early teens.

"How can we stop it??" Jasmin yelped, as the area where the top of her bathing suit came to a point moved closer toward her belly button. Her breasts, like Heather's, were gradually creeping back to an earlier time. The modern, adult look she'd crafted was all but a memory as her face kept recreating itself in younger and younger form.

Heather's regression persisted, flattening her chest like two mounds of Nesquik sinking into milk. She kept furiously retying her slackening swim suit, only once letting the bottom slip. Her top was now shockingly unnecessary. Jasmin suffered the same fate, as the cups in her suit were growing more and more unessential.

The raft rocked like a carnival ride, splashing around the edges and causing undulations to spread around it like the concentric circles of a record groove. The sun sat happily in the sky, gazing down upon the amusements below. The shrieks and screams did nothing but reverberate off the trees and slopes above. (Man, it must be out in the boondocks!) Not one call for help reached anything but dead rocks or swaying branches.

"Do something!" Heather's face contorted in a way it never had before -- probably a reaction to her new voice.

Jasmin sat down on the rough, unfinished wood. The sides of her bathing suit lay like flaps to either side of her. Her legs no longer at the right circumference, the holes at the base of her one-piece now showed far more than was intended by the manufacturer. Danny noticed a large tear running down her left cheek, or was it water? A collective moaning emanated from the wooden craft.

"Is everyone OK?" a thirteen-year-old Nathan prompted, just as his waterlogged trunks slithered down his skinny legs. Picking them back up, he couldn't help but recognize his genitals, now on par with any normal seventh-grade boy's. That bald, glabrous look of youth. Looking around, it became obvious, sadly, that he was still the oldest.

Danny watched as the final remnants of Heather's pubic achievements faded away, and her bust sank back into her chest as if being depressed by something. The bikini top, just a mess of hastily-tied knots and barely suspended by her thinning shoulders, drooped woefully, as if it knew how meaningless its job now was. In his mind, Danny kept trying to match up this picture of Heather with old yearbook photos he'd perused. Yep, right around fourth grade, he imagined. Only without the frizzy hair.

"No, no! This doesn't happen!" Jasmin pleaded with herself, as she curled herself into fetal position, noticing how her boobs no longer rested against her knees.

"There's got to be someone!" Nathan yelled at the top of his lungs, but his cracking voice didn't carry the same soulful resonance that it used to.

"Is this going to stop??" Heather cried, joining Jasmin on the floor of the floating asylum. Her butt growing too small for her bikini yet again, Danny caught another glimpse of what he'd seen that morning -- only this time she lacked the nice curves of a developing teenager. By now, his big sister would have a hard time passing for a middle school student. Danny's chills ceased. Then Heather's stopped.

Confusion still permeated the inhabitants of the raft. Jasmin and Nathan went on growing younger. The cold sank into their flesh as the years ticked backward. When all was said and done, a silence drifted over the lake once again -- that same dreary silence that welcomed them. The foursome, some sitting, some standing, surveyed themselves and their waterlocked position. Garbled cries were the only sounds. The raft swayed gently back and forth, creaking as it did. The loss for words was universal. The hot sun eventually dried the swimmers' faded bathing suits. The four children stayed quiet for awhile, trying to silently reconcile what happened. Jasmin was the first to talk:

"Well, I-- Heather, Nathan? Are you all right? Danny?"

"I'm OK. I think," Danny uttered, ashamed his voice sounded so much like Jasmin's now.

"What happened?" Heather still demanded an answer to that perplexing question.

"Do you think it was the water?" Nathan asked, "Or some weird Bermuda Triangle type thing?"

"I have no clue."

"I want to go home."

"Well, if it was the water, then how are we going to get back to camp?" Nathan deduced.

"Oh my god, how are we going to get back to camp??" Heather said, in the same loud, distressed tone she used with Danny that morning. "We're in the middle of the lake!"

"Don't panic, Heather.."

"What do you mean 'don't panic'? " she followed, "there's no way to get back over there without swimming!"

Nathan raised his hand to his chin, as he always did while submerged in deep thought. He paused, though, when he felt only smooth skin. "Well, swimming all the way over to the raft made us how much younger?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know!" Heather pouted.

"No, this is important," Nathan continued, "if no one can hear us and this keeps up, we might have to swim back."

"But we can't!"

"Jasmin, how old would you guess I am?" Nathan pulled himself around to face Jasmin.

A moment of disbelief followed.

Shivering (not from the cold), Jasmin hesitated. "Nine or ten maybe." Nathan shivered at that.

"OK, and Jasmin looks around eight," Nathan said, but after seeing Jasmin's disappointed expression, he added, "and a half."

"And Heather looks about the same age as me then," Jasmin noted.

"Yes, and Danny maybe seven?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

Heather burst out crying again, still wondering if it were physically possible for Jasmin and herself to turn into eight-year-olds.

"We have to think about this, then," Nathan took on his usual position of default leader. "Prior to this, I was nineteen. Jasmin, you were seventeen. Heather was sixteen, right?"

He assumed no answer meant "yes."

"And Danny, how old were you exactly?"

"Fourteen," Danny shrugged.

"OK. So we're all about half the ages we were before. That means, in the time it took us to swim from the shore to the raft, the water caused us to get younger by about half."

Jasmin interrupted, "Then that means we can't swim back because we'd all be too young before we reached the edge."

"I am not going back in that water!" Heather restated her opinion.

"But if it's true that how long you stay in the water affects you, then maybe if we swam as fast as we could? I mean the water didn't take effect until we reached the raft, so maybe we could make it." Nathan asserted.

Jasmin cut him off again. "But even if we got to the shore, by the time we got to the car, we'd be like toddlers! No one could even reach the pedals to drive the car!"

"I am not going in there!" repeated Heather.

"Plus how do we know," Jasmin persisted, "what will happen to us, I mean our minds, if we get even younger??"

"Well, obviously, I know as much as you do," Nathan replied, peering over the edge of the raft into the swirling blue liquid.

"And since we've gotten smaller, we won't be able to swim as fast we could."

"Well, I've got the best chance since I'm the oldest," Nathan said, mesmerized by the beauty of the whirling water.

"You can't be serious," Jasmin barked. "We don't know what will happen. I mean, we've run across a fountain of youth here!"

"But what choice do we have? You saw before -- this place is deserted."

"NO! Don't go!" Jasmin yelled in the highest voice she'd ever yelled. "That's crazy! You'll turn into a little boy! Or maybe a baby! You don't want to be a baby, do you Nathan?!"

"I don't want to be a baby!" Heather snorted.

"Of course not, but if I get over there, maybe I can call for help."

"But you'll be lucky if you come out the other side a kindergartner!"

"I have to," Nathan said plainly, growing more and more hypnotized by the lake. Did it have a power?

"No, you don't!" the pretty second-grader screamed. "Stay!"

"Well, who knows? Maybe it wears off," Nathan proposed.

"Maybe it doesn't."

"I'm sorry, but I have to try this," Nathan said, leaping into the shimmering lake. Immediately, his trunks slid off in the water and bobbed at the surface. Nathan had no time to turn back for them; this was a marathon.

"No!" Jasmin tried to grab him, but only got splashed a bit on the arm.

Nathan didn't get ten feet from the raft before the chill zapped through his body. It must be working faster now. The three others watched from the raft, only seeing the murky outline of Nathan's nude body frantically paddling toward the distant-seeming shore. Nathan could detect the changes starting already -- much faster than the initial ones -- but he kept plowing forward as fast as his nine-year-old appendages would propel him. The shore crept closer and closer as he tried to make out the blurry images ahead. His hands felt small in the water.

Meanwhile on the raft, Jasmin, preoccupied with Nathan's safety, declined to notice her own. The splash on the arm seeped into her radiant brown skin and she felt a tiny cold spell coming on. "Oh, shit!" she cried when it registered what was taking place. Quickly, wiping it off, she impatiently waited for the indefinite chill to subside. She grasped Heather's shoulders and dug her nails in.

"Do you see anything??"

"What?"

"Do you see anything? Changes? Am I getting younger?"

Face to face, Heather observed Jasmin's face as closely as she could in her shocked state. Sure enough, Jasmin was showing signs of decreasing age, though not dramatically. Her nose upturned a bit more and slightly fatter cheeks, Jasmin looked like she'd lost a year maybe, placing her around the same age as Danny. The changes halted almost as soon as they had begun.

The two girls hugged each other, both noticing how fast the other's heart was beating.

"Nathan!"

They could see a kind of pink dot moving closer to the edge. But was that him? Crawling up onto the shore? The distance made it hard to gauge. Yes, it must be him, they agreed, but how old was he? They squinted their eyes. He was waving to them, waving like victory!

"He made it!" Heather exclaimed.

"He's gotten younger," Jasmin became suddenly solemn.

"I can't really tell. He looks shorter."

"He's a little boy."

"Are you sure?"

"I can tell. Look," Jasmin pointed at the shrinking swimmer. The naked kid climbing the rocky hill kept getting smaller and smaller. "I'll bet he's no more than three years old."

The pink dot was getting harder to see.

"Look, he's not even making it up the hill! He's probably turning into a baby!" Jasmin almost had to hide her eyes.

"What's gonna happen to him?" Danny coughed.

"I don't know... but he's still getting smaller. I can hardly see him!!"

"No, No, NO!!"

In a matter of thirty seconds or so, the dot faded to nothing. The hill lay there -- just as barren as it was when they arrived. Not a trace of Nathan, except for his bathing suit, dancing speechlessly on the smooth ripples of the lake.

Heather screamed. Danny covered his ears. Jasmin hid her face behind her shrunken hands. He's vanished! I can't believe it. He's fucking gone! The sound of silence pervaded them for the next twenty minutes. All of a sudden, a tearful Jasmin stood up...

"The water worked quicker that time," she stated, sounding just like Nathan had before. She figured, he would've wanted someone to take charge, to carry the flame, to get the others off the raft alive. I might as well pick up the torch Jasmin resolved. "And that means there's no way we can swim across. Nathan was ten years old and we're just seven and eight at the most. So we need another plan."

"I say we wait for someone," Heather interjected.

"I don't know," Danny spoke up (a rare event), "there isn't anyone around. And I'm hungry. But I don't wanna go in the water."

"I don't know how long we can last out here like this. People can go for a while without food, but not without water, and the only water we have to drink is from the lake."

Danny stared an odd way at Jasmin while she spoke. Even in all the confusion and shock, his mind drifted like the wavelets around the raft. She makes a cute first-grader. Now that Jasmin and I are the same age, maybe--

"Which is why we have to find a way to get off this raft. Now, are there any other ideas?"

More frightening silence.

"OK, then we just have to make due until somebody sees or hears us or we get another idea."

Night passed like it was on a treadmill.

As the sun cut through the morning clouds, Heather was the first to wake up. She been hoping she'd wake up to reality, but it appeared the dream still had control. Danny and Jasmin slept side by side and were now practically laying on each other. (Get out of here, you little perv!) But both were sleeping so soundly, she didn't have the heart to wake them. She figured her stomach would do that. The surreal sunrise flung a streak of magnificent red across the horizon. The lake, beautiful as ever, tossed the raft placidly back and forth; a serene but deceitful quiet wafted over the scenery.

And there, on the splintery wooden slats were her brother and best friend, fast asleep in their young little bodies. Did they dream the dreams of themselves? she wondered or did they dream the dreams of seven-year-olds? The trauma of yesterday seemed light years in the past... or possibly the future. If the effects of the water were permanent, they might have to grow up all over again. I could make fun of Jasmin's training bra this time maybe. But that was the best case scenario. The truth nagged at her; we could die out here.

Danny awoke next, followed soon by Jasmin. Both somewhat unnerved at the position last night's tossing and turning had placed them in. He could see his sister standing stolidly at the edge of the raft. Danny yawned and stretched his short arms. Jasmin rolled over, shifting the weight the weight on the raft, and--

We don't know what will happen!

the raft made like it was going to capsize. It didn't, but Heather was sent flying into the clear, golden waters.

"HEATHER!!" Jasmin's words seemed to die immediately in the crisp morning air.

Splashing as if she didn't know who to swim, Heather tried desperately to turn herself around and get a grip on the end of the raft. Jasmin couldn't get close enough to help because of Heather's mad sloshing. Danny screamed, "HEEAATTHHERRRR!!!" It was all happening in a split second. A split second eternity. Amidst the sprays of water, Danny could see his sister -- but not his sixteen-year-old sister or his eight-year-old sister. The water was eating her up, sucking the years of her life away with each agonizing second. Her bikini no longer attached to her at all, she looked like a child being thrown in the pool for the first time. Her blubbery red cheeks filling out and her arms growing chubbier and chubbier, Heather could be no more than four or five. Make that three. Danny caught a quick glimpse of her torso as she flailed: the tummy of a baby girl. Jasmin finally stuck her hand out -- unafraid of the splashes, which were growing smaller along with Heather -- but she had drifted too far. The water waltzed around her diminishing frame. They could hear the distinct wail of a baby just before she disappeared completely below the waves.

No words. Only echoes of Heather's last cry bouncing off the carved out rocks surrounding the lake. In a matter of minutes, Jasmin and Danny were left alone. Blankly staring out at the glimmering crests, Jasmin felt a surge of deep-seated fear. The lake knew they were there; it's mission was horribly clear. How many men have searched for the fountain of youth and come home failures? But maybe that was all for the best. Those who stumbled upon the restoring waters were doomed anyway. It was a clever lake, artless in its execution. And now they were stuck in a mind-puzzle that taunted them. If we were only closer to the shore. Of course--

Maybe someone will find us.

All kidding aside, no one was coming. This lake was abandoned for a reason -- now morbidly clear to Danny and Jasmin. An hour and forty-five minutes from civilization. Fifty yards from freedom. And five feet away from a youthful oblivion. The cards stacked against them, Danny and Jasmin huddled close to one another. Nathan and Heather had said bye-bye. The unlikely pair could think of nothing constructive to say, except for an occasional prayer--

(Oh, who wants to swim?)

Time passed.

"Jasmin?"

"Yes."

"Do you-- you think we'll ever get off of here?"

"I don't know, Danny... But you're fourteen. I should be calling you 'Dan.' "

"And you're seventeen. So you shouldn't even be hanging out with me."

The two children stated these things as a way of reassuring themselves, a way of remembering for fear that the reservoir of potion that surrounded them might even take their own memories away.

"What were you like when you were a kid?" Danny asked politely.

"What was I like? Well, Mom said I was pretty shy, introverted you know." (Danny didn't know.) "I didn't like playing with dolls. I just read books. How about you?"

"Me? I got into trouble a lot. Mom says I had an excuse for everything."

"So how do you feel right now?"

"Lonely. Confused."

"Well, you're not alone."

"How do you feel?"

"Well, I'm not sure how I feel. I guess I'm just amazed at how quickly things can change, ya know?"

Danny nodded, again politely.

"One minute we were having fun, swimming at this impressive lake, you, me, Heather, and Nathan, but--" She stopped there.

Hours of hush passed between them. Hunger stirred deep within their bellies. And thirst-- the thirst was growing unbearable. Trapped in a massive body of water and nothing to drink. Flashes of Pepsi commercials popped in their brains. One sip would do it. Just one sip. To distract themselves from the nagging hunger pains, Jasmin and Danny talked.

They talked about Heather, about that morning, about Nathan's bravery, about how pretty the lake was, about friendship, about their favorite Beatles albums, about being kids, and about love.

Laughing (possibly because of mild delirium), Danny admitted how embarrassed he felt coming out of the tent, and the small crush he'd developed on Jasmin in the minute it took to traverse the hill with her.

Jasmin admitted that she thought Danny was cute, in a platonic way.

Whatever the awkwardness, they promised to stick it out together. And if it meant being stranded until help arrived or their time was simply up, so be it. The odds seemed unfavorable though. And nightfall was beginning to set again. The skyline once again melted into blackness and the night-creatures commenced their evening songs. Jasmin gave Danny a goodnight kiss just for luck, and they situated themselves in the center of their new wooden home, softly wishing on every star in the sky.

The next morning Danny awoke to see Jasmin sitting Indian style at a corner of the raft. "Jasmin?" he called. No answer. "Jasmin??"

Jasmin held her hands just above the water's shiny surface, inches away from the murderous lake. It glopped and sloshed, licking its lips. Jasmin bent over to see her reflection in the lustrous face of the water. Her seven-year-old visage peered back at her, saying--

(Just one sip would do it. Just one sip.)

"But I can't. It will make me grow younger--"

(Not one sip. One sip won't hurt. Look, you're already a little girl.)

She looked and it was true.

"Jasmin. What are you doing?" Danny called out.

(Jasmin, maybe it's the light, but you seem--")

"One drink couldn't hurt." Jasmin dipped her hands below the cool surface of the lake and cupped her fingers. Bringing them up to her mouth, she closed her eyes and drank the fluid she'd collected. Ahhh, sweet water...

"NO!! Jasmin! What're you doing??" Danny scrambled to reach his only friend before she took another mouthful of the unholy water. "STOP!!"

Jasmin turned to face Danny, sparkling trickles of the water dribbling from the sides of her mouth and down her baggy bathing suit. She smiled, until she saw the worried look plastered on Danny's face. What have I done?? Shaking her head vigorously, she broke the trance and looked in horror down at her bathing suit. A line of water snaked down the frontside. Her body already transforming, she shouted:

"Stay back, Danny!"

Danny did as she said, though it pained him to be so defenseless while he watched Jasmin undergo such changes. The first thing he noticed were her buck teeth. Her proportions started altering rapidly, going from the middle stage of childhood to early childhood: her stomach becoming round and chubby, her face losing its most distinguishing characteristics, and her bathing suit becoming nothing but a tent that eventually dropped around her. Kindergarten to preschool. Preschool to toddler. She tried to speak but only a spit-filled mess came out. She soon looked like any other baby; that anonymous sameness babies can possess.

"Jasmin?" Danny looked at the infant. She'd stopped growing younger! Apparently, she only swallowed enough to make her roughly eighteen months old or so. Danny found himself thanking God that she hadn't vanished like the others. She eventually crawled in his direction; he picked her up.

"Why?" Danny gulped. "Why?" Jasmin could not form a reply.

Jasmin was an adorable baby, that same raven's hair, now curling innocently over her forehead in tight spirals. Once again, Danny felt like he was committing some kind of sin -- peeping. But Jasmin was only a lovable little baby now with nothing to hide.

At least he wasn't alone. But now Jasmin was only a tot, scrambling naked around the wooden slats, incapable of anything but exaggerated mumbles. Danny was alone. His new best friend wasn't even old enough for potty-training. Danny had reflexive flashbacks to the beginning of their camping trip. His sister. Jasmin. Looking glorious in their tight-fitting swimwear. I'm horrible for thinking this... And now, himself, a measly seven-year-old floating on a raft with Jasmin. Poor Jasmin. Reduced to infancy. It's over. All over.

He held Jasmin in his arms for the next few hours as she looked back up at him, half-bewildered and half-relieved. He didn't wrap her in the crumpled up bathing suit for fear that some remnants of the lake water might still reside on it. Jasmin didn't cry one bit.

That evening, as the sky started to dim, Danny turned his gaze away from the infant and toward the stretch of the lake. Jasmin had fallen asleep an hour ago. Nature encircled them. The whisper of the lake called--

(It doesn't hurt, you know.)

"But it takes your life away."

(Or does it?)

The winds swept by like traveling salesman, offering only a free sample of their refreshing breeze. Jasmin stirred, but didn't wake.

(How do you know your friends are gone?)

"They've disappeared."

(But so does the wind, and you know it's still there.)

The last fleeting semi-circle of sunlight appeared to be resting on top of the lake. The rehearsal of the treefrogs was under way. Danny cradled Jasmin like a prize jewel, gently rocking her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

(Peaceful, isn't it?)

Danny fought hard to stay awake. He overcompensated by keeping his eyes wide open. As quietly as he could, he stood up. The swinging raft no longer made it difficult for him to walk around. The raft was his home. And the lake his destination.

(It doesn't have to be painful.)

Extending his left foot out over the water, Danny let himself fall over the side. The lake soaked them up just as it had the others. And the raft moved to and fro as the tiny waves rippled under it.