The first Volume of the Story so Far is:

1. The SRU’s equivalent to the first season of Scream the TV Series, which aired over the summer of 2015.
2. Built on a foundation laid by a pre-SRU roleplay forum that functioned as an AU of Scream the TV Series Season 1, and was active from August 2015 – January 2016.
3. The beginning of a massive continuity retcon begun in 2019 to forge a series of previously disconnected interactive Scream TV Series fanworks into a shared backstory to the recently launched Scream: The Final Retreat, the flagship game of the fledgling SRU.

I’m going to have remember that framing. It’s the most succinct I’ve ever used.

For more detailed information about the 2015 Season 1 AU that (very loosely) inspired this work, please check the dedicated page. You may think I’m being paid by the word, but I’m not being paid at all and part of this project is being cognizant how often you’re repeating yourself.

The originalVolume I was written in a whirlwind of activity from almost the immediate launch of the Final Retreat. Distinct from the Prologue and the first two chapters, which were just heavily watered down transcripts of the 2015 forum, the content of Chapters 3 – 10 and the Epilogue were written by me at a breakneck pace between April – June 2019. And unlike some genre writers, I never dipped into any [REDACTED] to keep the words flowing!

That being said, the frenetic pace meant the story moved at an unrelenting speed, with some characters being barely served at all by the narrative. Also, for reasons I still don’t understand, I chose to write the original Story in present tense. Especially jarring since I kept the parts I copied from the 2015 forum in past tense. The Story was not originally meant to be a longform narrative, either, but a sort of CliffsNotes. Beginning around Chapter 5 and crystalizing at Chapter 7, however, I began to get really invested in the narrative and it took on a more novelesque form that would fully mature with Volume II.

For years, I toyed with reviving The Story in a more complete, mature form, fully embracing it as a novel of, as I always jokingly, (?) term it, epic scope. Tolkien had his elves; I have my neurotic Obama-era teenagers. The Story so Far rewrite began in September 2025, the 10 year anniversary of the Season 1 AU. It will continue for as long as it needs.

Given the massive scope of the Volume (each chapter is a novel in itself), storing it all in one place would be murder on you, the reader, and me, the man behind the WordPress curtain. Below, please find a directory of chapters as they’re completed.

One final note…like everything else here, Volume I was and is a labor of love. I hope you enjoy visiting Lakewood as much as I’ve enjoyed escaping to it over these long years.

Contents

Prologue: Completed September 6, 2025.

Chapter 1: Completed September 26, 2025

Chapter 2: Completed February 17, 2026