Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 5 True Scary CAMPING Stories

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

These are 5 True Scary CAMPING Stories Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ ►https://www.reddit.com/r/Thetruthishere/comments/lz09du/when_i_was_in_the_army_a_true_story_from_fort/ ►https://www.reddit.com/r/Thetruthishere/comments/ltz0zg/three_of_us_witnessed_an_ufo_6_months_later_i_was/ ►https://www.reddit.com/r/Thetruthishere/comments/qdro6z/i_met_them/ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:00:18 Story 1 00:10:37 Story 2 00:17:48 Story 3 00:38:45 Story 4 00:56:35 Story 5 Music by: ► Myuu's channel http://bit.ly/1k1g4ey ►CO.AG Music http://bit.ly/2f9WQpe Thumbnail art: ►Just Creepy Business inquiries: ►[e-mail] #scarystories #horrorstories #camping #deepwoods #forest 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. This event took place around 1992. I was just a young man in the military stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.

Those of you who are familiar with Fort Hood will know what I'm talking about when I say North Fort Hood. For those who aren't familiar, let me try to explain so you'll better understand why we were where we were when this happened. Fort Hood is a very large military base, probably one of the largest by land area in the United States. The main base, where you find all the buildings and motor pools full of vehicles and so forth, is simply called Fort Hood. On the south end of the overall land that comprises Fort Hood, and just outside its gates, is the town of Killeen. Most of Fort Hood is wilderness, training areas for soldiers and a large impact area for the artillery units that have to train with their cannons.

At the far northern end of the base, there is a small complex called North Fort Hood. It takes about 30 or 40 minutes to drive from the main base up to North Fort Hood. In the early 90s, there was not much in the way of buildings or infrastructure at North Fort Hood. The unit I was assigned to had to calibrate a piece of equipment, which required it to be set up and left in place for about a week while the calibration took place. I'm not going to get into the details about this equipment, as it's not vital to the story. What's important is that we had to set this equipment up at North Fort Hood during the process. During the day, some soldiers were there working on calibrations, but at night we obviously

weren't just going to leave this expensive equipment unguarded, so every night we would leave two soldiers with the equipment to keep an eye on things and make sure nothing happened to it. It was very easy duty by every measure. There was a tent to stay in and plenty of food. Soldiers who stayed the night got the next day off. Basically, we would sit in the tent, play cards or some other game, and just keep an eye on things. It was basically camping. I volunteered to take a Thursday night as my turn at guard duty because I had vacation, leave time, starting the following Monday. My rationale was simple. Take guard duty on Thursday night, get Friday off, and start my leave time early. It was myself and another young soldier who was a friend of mine. We were both just kids.

I had just turned 21, and I believe he was 19 or so. Keep in mind that this was 1992, so. So while cell phones did exist, they were by no means as prolific as they are now. It was pretty rare to see someone with a cell phone, and if you did, it was usually in a big leather carrying bag. We called them bagphones, and they were very expensive. Needless to say, neither of us had a cell phone. Why is that important? Because we were dropped off for guard duty around 5 p.m., everyone else left, and we had no vehicle or way to communicate with anyone. We were entirely alone if anything happened. And of course, we weren't expecting anything to happen. It was, after all, very easy duty. Watch the equipment, play some cards, eat some chow, no problem. We were sitting in the tent when the first winds

started to pick up, and I noticed storm clouds moving in from the west. Whoever had set up that hex tent apparently had no interest in doing it properly, because as the winds got worse, the tent leaned as though it might fold at any moment. Clearly, we were about to get hit with a pretty severe thunderstorm. Anyone who has ever lived in central Texas can tell you that storms there can blow up quickly and be pretty violent. Fortunately for us, there was a deuce and a half truck there with a shelter on the back. For those who don't know, a deuce and a half is a large six-wheel drive truck. If you want an idea of what they look like, you can Google M35A2 truck. This particular truck had a shelter on the back, and that is where we retreated to in order to get out of the path

of the approaching storm. Before anyone asks, I should note that we couldn't drive the truck away from the campsite because it was needed for the calibration, and we wouldn't abandon our post anyway. This falls under the first general order, and anyone who has ever been in the army knows what I mean. We secured ourselves in the shelter while the storm passed, and it was a typical Texas frog strangler, to be sure. Miraculously, the tent did not blow over, and I was surprised by that. Still, we decided to stay in the back of the truck until dawn, as we had already moved one of our cots inside. We finally lay down at about 10 p.m. and it was very quiet. This is a very remote area, and while we were in a clearing next to a runway, there were

no buildings nearby. All around this airstrip was just woods. Today there are buildings there. I've looked at the location on Google Maps, but back then, there was nothing. We had left the door of the shelter slightly open for two reasons. The shelter had no power running to it, so there was no airflow. Shutting the door would have left us susceptible to carbon monoxide. needed to be able to hear what was going on outside. We decided to take turns getting some rest,

although we'd been told we were allowed to sleep if we wanted to. We were still on base, and there was absolutely no reason to expect that anything would happen. My friend was on the cot by the shelter door, and I was on the floor at the other end. I felt like I had just dozed off when I was shaken violently awake. It was my friend, and as I sat up, he was pulling the shelter door closed and trying to put a lock on it by using the light from his wristwatch. He was obviously very upset and scared. It was the kind of fear that cannot be faked. This was primal fear. I kept asking him what was wrong, and he finally managed to tell me that something had grabbed him by the foot and tried to pull him from the shelter. My first thought was that he had dozed off

and had a nightmare. He insisted that he had not, and even stated that whatever grabbed him had said to him, we'll be back for you, then let him go as he was shaking me awake. I wasn't sure if it was a prank or not, but my gut instinct was that he was petrified. His hands were shaking as he tried to lock the shelter door, so there had to be some truth to it. I told him we couldn't leave the door closed because of carbon monoxide. I was the higher-ranking soldier, so technically I was in charge. He refused to stay by the door if it was going to be open even a little bit, so I agreed. to switch places with him. I opened the door just a couple of inches and lay down on the cot, still believing he had just had a really bad nightmare. He was on the floor at the other end of the

shelter. Within a few minutes, some pretty strange things began to happen. We heard scratching sounds on the shelter, on the sides, on the top, and on the front where the cab of the truck was. A few times the door moved ever so slightly but never opened. Needless to say by the This time, I was convinced that something or someone was definitely outside, and both of us were pretty scared. I reached to the end of the cot I was on, and pulled out the metal cross member that gives attention. Then I felt around under the cot and found a wooden handle to a pickaxe.

In the army we call these pioneering tools, but most people would know it as a pickax handle without the metal pick on the end. I handed this to my friend and instructed him that if anyone opened the door to the shelter, we would start swinging and wouldn't stop until whoever it was went down and wasn't moving. The scratching on the exterior of the shelter continued intermittently throughout the night. We made no effort to call out to whoever or whatever it was. I think we were both just in fight mode. If anyone had pulled the shelter door fully open,

I had every intention of fighting for all I was worth, and I'm certain my friend felt the same way. Eventually, it began to get light outside. and as the sky brightened, the scratching stopped. We stayed in the shelter for another 40 or 50 minutes until the sun was fully up. At that point, I said I was going to push the door all the way open, jump off the back of the truck, and if he saw anyone, he should just start swinging. So I counted to three, flung the door open, and jumped off the truck.

When you're 21, you can jump off a deuce and a half and it doesn't hurt. Now I would be far more cautious. At any rate, there was nothing, no one at all. We looked around the truck and the camp. Nothing. What I noticed immediately was that while we were leaving boot tracks in the still wet ground, there were no other tracks around the truck. I began to look for loose items on the shelter that might account for the scratching sound,

but there were none. I didn't know whether to feel relieved or still be on edge. We packed up our gear, and about 30 minutes later, the relief NCO arrived in a high. Humvee. He wasn't even fully out of the truck before we were putting our stuff in it to leave. He laughed and remarked that we seemed really ready to go. We never told him a thing. In fact, we never said anything to anyone in our unit about what happened. We probably should have, but I think we were afraid we would be laughed at. At any rate, I got behind the wheel of the Humvee,

and my friend got in the back on the passenger side. I drove down the road away and came to a stop at the main highway that we would take to get back down to Fort Hood. At that moment, there came a clear, loud, and distinct clap of thunder. I leaned out the window and looked up. Then I looked back at my friend in the back of the truck, and he said something I'll never forget. There ain't a damn cloud in the sky, man. I believe I probably set a record for the fastest drive back to Fort Hood in a Humvee that morning. I'm not one to believe in this stuff. I think a lot of paranormal stories are just active imaginations or people making things up. But something happened to us that night, and I will never forget it.

It scared the hell out of me, and I don't ever want to experience it again. That's my story, and it is 100% true. It started in the late winter of 1978. The three of us, myself, Ronnie, and Tom, were working at an outdoor education program high in the San Bernardino Mountains. The outdoor school had taken over a summer camp for the winter semester. This camp was located in a saddle in the mountains, where they narrowed and bent from the tectonic forces that created them.

The camp was reached by the rim of the World Highway, which formed the western edge of the camp's property. The rim road ran right along the edge of the mountains, with the camp on one side and a steep drop-off on the other. The road crossed one of the many rockfalls, narrow rock-filled canyons that begin at the top of the mountain and plunge thousands of feet down toward the Los Angeles Basin. We had snuck out to the rockfall that night

because we knew the view of the city lights below would be spectacular. The Santa Ana, or Devil Winds, had been blowing from the desert, up over the mountains, and down into the Los Angeles Basin for the previous three days. These winds had scrubbed every molecule of smog out of the basin, offering a crystal clear, unobstructed view from 7,000 feet, all the way down the canyon to the lights below. When we arrived at our spot just before midnight, the scene could not have been more spectacular. Standing on the other side of the highway, in a small, paved pullout,

we gazed at the city lights spread out in front of us like a giant, multicolored carpet of glowing geometric shapes. Major thoroughfares were lit up in different hues, depending on each jurisdiction's choice of streetlights. Even at that hour, red and white snakes of traffic could be seen thousands of feet below. We could see all the way down to where the lights ended, and the Pacific Ocean lay in darkness. We stood in a loose circle, me, Tom and Ronnie, huddled together, excited about the amazing sight below us. Ronnie was the one who got down to business, pulling out one of his famous hand-rolled joints. He lit it, as per tradition, took one hit and waved it in the air while telling a story.

Following the red cherry arc through the air as Ronnie gesticulated is how I first noticed a bright, orange-ish-white light coming over the top of the mountain behind us. It backlit the peak, then quickly appeared over it, traveling down our side of the mountain, following the canyon toward the basin. We all noticed the change in brightness and turned toward its origin.

At first I heard no sound, but as it grew closer, coming down the mountain in the next canyon over, I heard a noise that sounded like what I'd imagine an object creating its own vacuum in the atmosphere would produce. It was as though the air itself was being ripped apart. There was no typical aircraft noise, just a sudden vacuum and an emptiness in the air.

The UFO was vaguely pumpkin seed-shaped, with a very bright reddish-orange glow at the thicker head of the seed and an orange-ish-white vapor trailing behind it. It came over the mountain and down the canyon, at a constant height of about 100 feet above the peaks, lighting the ground beneath it. It followed the canyon's contour, until it reached approximately 2,000 feet above the basin below, where it leveled out and traveled west toward the ocean. It dropped 4,000 to 5,000 feet down the canyon in less than 10 seconds,

passing a couple of miles to the west of us. The craft was clearly visible, vibrantly glowing as it sped west, Also visible were the running lights of a small plane flying in the same direction slightly ahead of the UFO. As we watched the blinking lights of the plane, we saw the UFO rapidly decelerate from its incredible speed down the mountain and then stop right next to the plane. From our vantage point, it looked to be at the same altitude, extremely close,

and to the plane's left. After matching the plane's speed and vector for about three seconds, the UFO suddenly accelerated forward, turned left and disappeared over the Pacific toward Mexico. It went from the easternmost part of the Los Angeles Basin down toward Long Beach and out of sight in less than a few seconds, leaving behind only a faint orange plasma trail and a pilot who probably had a sudden need to change his underwear. We stood there, transfixed, staring at the empty space where the UFO had been, then looking at each other with a mix of awe and panic in our eyes. Ronnie very slowly and

deliberately crushed out the joint on the heel of his boot and tucked it into his pocket. Then we all started talking at once. What the hell was that? Where did it go? Did you see it stop next to that plane? What can do that? Nothing. That's what. That was when the panic set in.

We looked at each other and then took off running at full speed back toward our cabins. We didn't speak of it again until we could be together with no one else around. How do you explain something that sounds so crazy? We had all seen a lot of strange things in our collective lifetimes, but none of us could explain what we saw that night. We tried to figure out how to get more information, but we were stuck in the mountains five days a week, without TV, newspapers, or radio.

This was long before the Internet. That sighting became a pivot point between the three of us, something we would often discuss and try to figure out but never could. After the semester ended, we went our separate ways for the summer. Ronnie joined the California Department of Forestry as a wildland firefighter. Tom traveled to Hawaii to work at a YMCA summer camp, and I headed back to Big Bear to work at a YMCA camp there. And this is where the story gets really weird. Neither Ronnie nor Tom lived to see the end of that summer.

Ronnie was killed in the Spanish ranch fire near San Luis Obispo. Less than two weeks after learning of Ronnie's death, I heard that Tom had disappeared off the coast of Hawaii. The story was that he had been on the beach, got swept out to sea by a rogue wave, then was eaten by sharks, and his body was never found. To say that I was mentally shaken would be an understatement. Having two of your friends, who had witnessed an unearthly UFO encounter, die in such unusual ways within six months of that siding, one by fire and one by water, really freaked me out.

I kept thinking, fire, water, earth, air. For years after that, I avoided any situation, where one of those elements could kill me. That's my UFO story. I still do not know what happened that night. All I know is that it was completely mind-boggling and changed my life irrevocably. I know what happened to Ronnie

and have visited the site where he died. Tom, on the other hand, may still be alive. I have a strong feeling he might have faked his own death. But that's a story for another time. This happened to me in July this year, and I've been thinking about it constantly ever since. I'll try to sum up the experience as best I can. So I'm kind of a mentally ill weirdo.

I have BPD and CPTSD, and I'm a 24-year-old girl who lives alone in the city, just minding my own business. I have a few friends, but I'm not close with my family. It's not unusual for me to go a few weeks or months without really seeing anyone besides coworkers, especially during a global pandemic. So I've just been doing my own thing. This encounter happened during one of those few weeks' stretching. of isolation. I'm only giving this bit of exposition so people can understand my psych history, as well as my mental state, etc. At the start of July, I got this uncontrollable impulse to go

camping in stargays. I never go camping alone. I haven't been in around four years, and had no camping gear whatsoever. But I wanted to go for some reason, so I researched some good dark sky spots in Utah, found a cute little campground about four hours into the desert, and reserved the last spot available for a week from that day. I bought all my stuff the day before, and I'm horrible at planning and time management, so by the time I arrived at the campground, the sun was already going down. I had also forgotten my charger, and realized I had to make my 60% battery last until I could make it back to the city the next day. There was no service out there, so that seemed easy enough. My entire goal was to chill in my hammock chair all night and stargays anyway, so all I needed was some music for that.

I specifically chose the night of a new moon for this, so I knew I had to get my tent set up and situated ASAP before the sun went down. There were a lot of other people there, but most were families with kids getting ready for bed. I could hear parents reading scripture to their kids before bed, Mormons, and could see others reading on Kindles and stuff before sleeping. By the time everything was set up, it was about 10 p.m. Almost at once, everyone turned their lights off and went to sleep. This really weirded me out at first because it was the perfect night for stargazing. I didn't see a single other person setting up a chair to stargaze, any telescopes, or even just someone outside their tent looking up.

Everyone was either already asleep or going to sleep. I gave it some more thought and figured they all probably just wanted to wake up before or with the sunrise because we were in the desert. Sleeping in wouldn't exactly be a pleasant experience when you're getting cooked alive, I imagine. I work night shift, so staying up was not an issue in the slightest. At this point, the only people I could see who were awake were myself, a family at the campground vaguely near me reading scripture

and a whole mess of people at the bathroom. My tent is located at the far side of the campground, so to my left is nothing but desert and cliff. In front of me is the bathroom, about 100 feet or so away, two other campgrounds, about 300 feet away, and more desert and sky. To my right and behind me is the rest of the campground. There's another bathroom on the far side of the campground behind me to the right, which is probably around 700 and 900 feet away.

These two bathrooms are the only source of any light in the campground, aside from a few people who are using their flashlights to come to and from the bathroom. Like I said earlier, I'm a weirdo. I won't deny that, which honestly makes telling this story to others hard. My goal out here was to grieve and move on from a lot of loss I experienced a year ago. A lot of bad stuff happened in my life, and I lost a lot of loved ones as a result. Sometimes a good mushroom trip can really help someone find a lot of closure when it comes to grief. So that was my only goal for this trip.

I ate around 2 grams and was coming up around 11 p.m. Now hear me out. You might be asking, what kind of close encounter story can be believed when the person telling it was under the influence of a psychedelic? That's a good question, and I'd say being skeptical of a person's experience under the influence of such drugs is common sense.

That being said, I want to point out that I have a gross amount of experience with psychedelics, including trips in even weirder and more isolated places than this. I've tripped on mushrooms easily dozens of times in my life, and on acid probably over a hundred times. I have kept tons of trip journals, have recordings from trips, etc. Never once has anything like this happened to me before or since. I have never seen things while tripping, have never interacted with entities,

have never had thoughts or paranoia about something being there that's not. I always have the same trips. Some textures get wavy. My emotions become full and bright, and I feel at peace in my mind for those few hours. That's it. I'm convinced that what happened to me in the desert was not a product of the drugs,

but merely happened to me while I was tripping. It would have been the same had I not been on psychedelics. But that's just my opinion. I definitely do invite skepticism otherwise. So yeah, I'm coming up and ready to stargaze. I have to pee, though, and all these people hanging out around the bathroom are making me nervous. No one else is awake that I can see now.

No lights are on or tents open anywhere around me. The only people still awake are all over by the bathroom. I eventually cave and just head over there and do my thing. No one bothers me or says anything, luckily. I start walking back to my chair. My spot is pretty close to the bathroom. If I walk from the front of it in a straight line in the dark, I will, without fail, hit my chair.

tent after about 25 seconds of walking. Because it's that easy, I don't bother using my flashlight. Plus, saving my phone battery for the drive-out is still my priority. I'm walking through the dark when I see the outline of my hammock chair, and a person standing right next to it staring at it. I freeze and stare at them. I'm super confused as to why this person is in my campsite, standing alone in the dark, just staring at my chair. Maybe they're curious about it. I don't know. It's weird as hell. I wave at them, but they don't notice, so I move a little closer, and I guess the sound of my footsteps alerted them to my presence,

because they shot their head up toward me, took around three steps in my direction, backed up about six steps, flashed a bluish flashlight in my eyes, and fast walked away from me toward another person I hadn't noticed, someone else standing in the dark about 15 feet away. The two of them stood next to each other, shining their blue flashlights at their feet.

Then they both moved around me toward the bathroom and disappeared into the women's restroom. Weird, right? I thought so, standing there all terrified like a dumb idiot. I rationalized that maybe the first person was waiting for their friend to catch up or something. I sat down and finally put on some good music in my headphones and just melted into the beautiful show playing in the sky above. It's now around 11.30 p.m. to midnight,

and there are still people messing around near the women's restroom. It's really distracting at this point and bugging me a lot, because it's right in my line of sight. They just keep waving their flashlights around and coming in and out, but they never seem to go anywhere. They'll walk out of the restroom, turn their lights off, and just walk into the dark without their lights to guide them. Usually they either walk behind the bathroom where I can't see them,

or off to the left side, into the dark where there are no campsite. I notice someone is standing next to me. I tear my headphones out and jerk my head to the right. There is a silhouette of a person standing about seven feet from my chair. I am frozen and spooked pretty bad. They take around two or three steps toward me, then back up again around six, and walk around me and away into the dark with no flashlight,

away from me in the bathroom. Now I'm freaking spooked. I don't think it's anything supernatural right now, but I definitely think it's some people up to no good. The nearest city is hundreds of miles away, and we are far from any civilization out here. If these were people trying to hurt me, they could do it rather easily.

I stay in the chair for now, but I keep my headphones off so I can hear the environment around me. My head is now on a swivel, but I'm still trying my best to enjoy the night. Around midnight, no one else is awake. No flashlights anywhere, no voices, nothing. All the bathroom people finally vanished, and it seemed like I was the only one awake. With my headphones off, I started to notice sounds now.

The sound of a jet somewhere nearby would come and go, flying around somewhere in the desert. I kept looking for its aircraft lights but could never find them. This deep, almost physics-defying boom would occasionally shake the desert, but in a weird way. When I heard and felt it, I would feel my body tense and shake with it, and the air too. but never the ground. It's weird because it sounded as if it was coming from the ground itself, not the air. I would also hear what sounded like laughter coming from the desert to my left, the part with no campsites or people. I was still, at this point, just chilling. I was obviously starting to suspect some weird crap, but for the most part I was just chilling and enjoying

the night. Then, orbs in the sky. I practically crapped myself when I saw this. Above one of the cliffs far out on the horizon, a little swarm of glowing orbs appeared, and they were almost dancing around one another. I remember this moment very clearly. I remember seeing them and thinking, I can't explain that. What the hell is that? There is nothing I could imagine that could move like that, not even drones.

I won't record this, I promise. It would ruin it, and I want to see it through. I remember thinking that last part very clearly, out of nowhere, and it was weird how specific it was in my mind. I hadn't even thought to record it in the first place, but here I was making a promise to myself that I wouldn't even try no matter what happened. Another cluster of orbs appears in the sky to my right, and almost simultaneously, the orbs to my left instantly shoot across the sky to join the other orbs. I start smiling like a damn idiot. This is it. the thing I have been staring at the sky looking for my whole damn life.

The thing I stopped believing in for decades, because I never saw it. I had let the world convince me that it was just as boring as it appeared, and never once allowed myself to think it could actually be more than that. And the proof was finally staring me in the face. I had to keep checking in with myself, being like, this isn't the shrooms, right? No, it's definitely not. I see that, and I know I'm not hallucinating it.

I probably went through that little personal questioning close to a dozen times over the course of the next few minutes. The jet sound comes back and it's much louder now. I can actually see the aircraft lights now too, flying directly overhead, but they aren't blinking like usual. They fly into this dark cloud in the sky I hadn't noticed before and vanish along with the jet sound. The orbs continue playing around each other until they vanish too. All in all, I'd say this lasted for about an hour. It's now around 1 a.m., and I really have to pee. I obviously hold it as long as I can because I'm witnessing the single most special thing I'll ever get to see right in front of my eyes.

But eventually, I break and just want to get it over with. So, I'm a trans woman. I wouldn't even bring that up if it didn't have some sort of relevance to the story, to be honest. I look and sound exactly like a girl. It's pretty much impossible for people to take it. tell, and I haven't been clocked in a long time. I'm out here in the desert on shrooms witnessing some high strangeness, but I still got to be careful about which bathroom I use. Normally I would just use the women's, but those people I encountered earlier were still making me paranoid,

so I figured if worse comes to worst, I'd rather be caught in the men's in case there are some weirdos out here. I head in there and am doing my thing at the urinal as fast as possible. The moment I start, the door to the restroom shoots open, and this guy with short, brown hair, around five foot six, and a half-sunken droopy face runs in, eyes glued to the ground, and barges into the stall next to me, shutting the door and doing his business. The only word I could use to describe him was that he looked sick. This obviously scares the crap out of me. It's 1 a.m. and I haven't seen another human being in a few hours. Plus, I just saw the light show in the sky, and I'm a cis-looking girl peeing standing up at a

urinal, and I'm alone with this dude. He pees for, no joke, three seconds. That's it. All that rush, all that urgency for three seconds of tinkle time. Who does that? He spent the rest of his time in there slowly pulling out toilet paper from the roller for some reason. I'm a dumb idiot and just held my bladder for way too long, so I'm trying my best to get it all out so I can leave, but it's taking forever, I finally finish, and for some reason, I go to wash my hands. I don't know why. It just felt like the right thing to do in the moment. The guy shoots out of the stall again way too hard and fast, comes right next to me at the sink, washes his hands for a total of two seconds, and leaves the bathroom as fast as he entered. I'm just kind of shook, but again I'm

trying to rationalize this. I just think he's probably tripping too, and the sight of some girl peeing at the urinal at 1 a.m. probably made him think I was an alien as well. So, I head out and back to my chair. The moment I sit down, the lights in the bathroom I was just in, shut off all at once. The lights in the women's bathroom and the men's. No one enters or leaves either, and now just a single tiny yellow bulb can be seen glowing above a park ranger's bulletin board on the side of the building. I sit down and almost kind of invite more weird stuff to happen around me. Jets are back now and louder than before. There are orbs forming a huge ring around the campground, pulsating, growing, and then dimming, slowly drifting around. I'm terrified, but also I can't move.

It's too cool to be honest. That's really the whole reason I didn't hide in my tent. Who the hell in their right mind would listen to their instinct to run when you could see how far it could go? I hear stranger sounds coming from the desert, what sounds like shouting and a baby crying far, far, far away. The orbs reappear in the sky, and behind the trees next to my tent, it looks like the moon is shining through, but it's a new moon. It's now 2 a.m. The bathroom lights come back on, but only in the men's restroom. The women's remains off, and I see no one come or go. At this point, the only thing I've been muttering to myself for a while is, I'm a dumb idiot. Why am I doing this? This is terrifying, and I'm dumb for just letting it happen.

I'm very aware of my desire to run and give in to the fear, but that is highly outweighed by my curiosity. At least it was. A person comes from seemingly nowhere, with no flashlight on and no clear direction, and walks in front of the bathroom, and it's terrifying. Normally that wouldn't be scary. It's just some person, but this person was easily ten-thirteen feet tall. The bathroom itself was around thirteen feet tall, and this person's head was at mid-level with the top ventilation window. The crown of their head was taller than the building itself. They walked in front of the restroom and into the dark, and I shot out of my chair.

The only thing I said was, Nope, nope, nope, nope, freaking nope, that's terrifying. Or something like that. As fast as I could, I ran into my tent and quickly zipped it up. There was no not running at this point. My sympathetic nervous system just took over and was very adamant that I needed to hide. It's hard to describe what I felt. but it was the most primal fear I've ever felt.

I have BPD and CPTSD, so I'm used to feeling a staggering amount of terror in my mind on a daily basis when my symptoms show up. But this was on a whole other level. It was like some deep, animal part of me understood the moment I saw them that I was no longer at the top of the food chain. Another ultra predator, much smarter than me, had just made itself known, and my body was tensing up like a wild animal at the sight of it. I felt truly humbled and small in that moment and knew I was outmatched. They were now outside of my tent, scurrying in circles around it. The sound of their footsteps gave way to the feeling of their voice playing alongside my own inner voice.

This is where it gets hard to explain. We talked, but talking is not the right word for it. They communicate in pure concept and feeling, and it's so subtle and instantaneous. It's hard to describe how obvious it is, while at the same time being so much. subtle as to almost be indistinguishable from your own thoughts or feelings. The things we talked about were rather personal, so I won't go into too much detail. I asked them about the Jets, whether that was us, and if we're trying to find them. They said yes, I thought, we aren't smart enough to find you guys.

They said, no, you are smart, you just aren't creative. They said they are scared of us too, but are much more aware of us than we are of them. They want to know us more, but it's hard, too much complication. They cited me running and hiding as proof. I said, that's natural. I'm still an animal with a nervous system hardwired for survival. Something new and unknown is going to do that to people, no matter how rational they try to stay. They said they liked me because I was honest about the fear.

They were scared too. They want freedom, and they want that for us as well, but they aren't quite sure what to do. Or at least they wouldn't tell me. Whenever I asked their name or why they were here, they deliberately ignored me. They also seemed to get a kick out of messing with me, citing that as a reason for this encounter. They did one thing that I really liked. They showed me that they have always cared and always will. It's hard to describe the feeling they gave me, but it really was unconditional love.

They called me family and kept expressing their love for me, telling me that I chose this. I didn't fully get that part. When they said it, a bunch of memories from my childhood flooded in, but I'm still struggling to draw any connections. After a while, of course, I had to pee again. I did, and nothing happened. I went back into my tent to eat some trail mix and record an audio note of what we'd just talked about

so I could remember as much as possible. I noticed the time on my phone said something like 11 a.m. My phone has never messed up like that before or changed the time on me. It was a little validating to see, to be honest. It was very clearly the middle of the night, not 11 a.m. I left the tent, and they messed with me some more, more orbs in the trees, lights going off in the bathroom. Eventually, 5 a.m. came, and they were gone.

The sun came up, and I headed home. There are a lot of details I skipped over, as this post is already way too long, but there you have it. Like I said, I don't expect anyone to believe me. I invite the skepticism, honestly, because I was under the influence of a psychedelic substance. I do have to say, out of the hundreds of trips I've had, I've never experienced something like this before or since. I truly believe that these events happened, and that the drugs were not responsible for their inception whatsoever. What to take away from it, I'm not sure. It was amazing, and I want to meet them again. I am extremely humbled now. I believe in other people.

beings again, and I have this sense of family and home in myself I've never quite had before. Has anyone out there met them too? I'd love to hear your story if so, and to let you know you aren't alone in your experience. They are out there, and they do exist. It didn't feel right from the moment we stepped off the trailhead and into the forest. Don't get me wrong. I've hiked before, nothing crazy, just a few weekend trips. But something about Blackwood Reserve didn't feel right. The air was dense, heavy in a way that made it hard to breathe, even before we'd started the climb.

The trees were unnaturally tall, their bare branches tangled like veins against the overcast sky, and the wind carried a faint, metallic tang that clung to the back of my throat. I told myself it was nothing, just nerves, but that gnawing unease wouldn't go away. The others didn't seem to notice. Mike, my roommate, was up ahead, joking with Rachel and Zoe about how much he'd overpacked.

Tom and Clara, the guides, led the group, their calm, practiced demeanor a stark contrast to the rest of us fumbling with our gear. I hung back, my pack heavier than it should have been, my eyes darting to the shadows between the trees. We'd been hiking for hours when the path opened into a clearing. Here we are, Tom. announced, dropping his pack and gesturing around. The campsite wasn't much, a patch of uneven

ground surrounded by trees, with just enough space for us to pitch our tents. The forest pressed in close, a solid wall of black trunks and tangled undergrowth, making the clearing feel smaller than it was. We spread out to set up camp, each claiming a spot. I picked a patch of ground at the edge of the clearing, close to the tree line. Big mistake. The forest was quieter here. The usual buzz of insects and birds replaced by an oppressive silence. Even the wind barely stirred the trees. I focused on pitching my tent, trying to ignore the prickling sensation crawling up my neck. Hey Jonah, you good? Mike called, his voice cutting through the stillness. Yeah, I lied, not looking up, just tired. The truth was, I knew we were being

watched. Every time I glanced at the tree line, I swore I saw something move, a flicker of shadow, the quick dart of something too fast to track. I kept telling myself it was my imagination, that my eyes were playing tricks in the fading light. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the temperature had plummeted. We huddled around the fire, eating dehydrated meals and swapping stories, but even the flickering flames couldn't chase away the cold. The fog rolled hold in thick and fast, curling around the trees like skeletal fingers. It muffled everything, the crackle of the fire, our voices, even the distant rustle of the forest. Ever hear the stories about this place? Clara asked, breaking the uneasy silence.

Tom shot her a look, but she shrugged. What? They're just stories. What stories? Rachel asked, leaning closer. People say the forest is strange, Clara said her voice low. things go missing out here people animals they say the forest takes them okay creepy zoi muttered laughing nervously relax clara said waving it off it's just local folklore every place like this has its ghost stories but the words lingered planting a seed of fear that grew as the night wore on i retreated to my tent early unable to get rid of the unease the fire cast long shadows across the clearing and as I zipped myself inside, I tried to convince myself that everything was fine. It was just another hike. The stories were just stories. I fell asleep to the sound of the wind whispering through the trees. When I woke up, the whispering was gone.

It took me a moment to realize what had startled me. The forest was silent. Not the peaceful kind of quiet you get in the wilderness, but the kind of silence that makes your skin crawl. No wind, no cricketing. Nothing. Just an oppressive suffocating stillness. I heard something, leaves crunching, slow footsteps circling the edge of the clearing. I froze, every muscle in my body tensing. My heart hammered against my ribs as I strained to listen. The steps were heavy and wrong.

Not an animal. Too slow. Too calculated. They stopped just outside my tent. I held my breath. every nerve screaming at me to stay still. Something was out there. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. Something large. Just beyond the thin layer of fabric separating me from the forest. The steps started again, moving around the perimeter of the tent unhurried. Then the sound shifted.

It wasn't just footsteps anymore. It was dragging. Something sharp, like claws, scraping against the ground. My breath hitched as a shadow passed across my tent, faint but unmistakings. It lingered motionless before moving on. The air was so cold now, I could see my breath misting in the dim light of the moon filtering through the fog. I wanted to unzip the tent, to look, but my body refused to move. Then came the breathing. It was shallow, labored, almost human, but with a wet, gurgling edge that made my stomach churn. The sound came from just behind me,

close enough that I could feel the vibrations in the air. I don't know how long it lasted. Minutes, hours, time stretched and warped, and the only thing I could focus on was the sound of that thing outside my tent. And then it was gone. I didn't sleep. I lay there staring at the fabric of my tent, waiting for the sound to return. But the forest stayed silent, and eventually exhaustion pulled me under. Morning came too quickly. Sunlight filtered through the fog. casting long, pale shadows across the campsite. The others were already up, packing their gear, laughing and joking like nothing had happened.

But I wasn't the only one who'd heard it. Clara caught my eye as I stepped out of my tent. She didn't say anything, but her expression said enough. She'd heard it too. I didn't say anything at first. Honestly, I thought maybe I'd dreamed it, chalked it up to exhaustion and my brain playing tricks on me. But when I stepped out of my tent that morning,

the look on Clara's face said otherwise. Her smile was forced. Her usual confident demeanor cracked at the edges. I wanted to ask her if she'd heard it, the breathing, the footsteps, the dragging claws. But part of me was terrified of her answer. What if she had? Worse. What if she hadn't? And I was just losing my mind? Rough night? She asked casually her voice low enough that the others couldn't hear. I nodded, swallowing hard. Did you, uh, hear anything? Her eyes flicked toward the forest and for a moment I thought she was going to brush it off. But then she nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Footsteps, she whispered. It's probably just wildlife. Let's pack up and keep moving. Wildlife, sure. That didn't explain the breathing or the shadow circling my tent. The others didn't seem to notice anything off as we broke camp, but I couldn't stop scanning the tree line. The fog still clung to the forest like a veil, and every shifting shadow felt like a pair of eyes watching me. I kept my head down and focused on putting

one foot in front of the other as we hiked deeper into the woods. It wasn't until we stopped for lunch at a small creek that the tension in my chest loosened, just a bit. The sound of running water felt like a balm after the suffocating silence of the campsite. But even then, I knew that we weren't alone. As I filled my water bottle, Rachel crouched next to me, her voice low. Hey, did you see anything weird last night? My stomach dropped. What do you mean? She glanced over her shoulder, making sure the others weren't listening. There was this light outside my tent, like, like someone was walking around with a lantern. But when I looked out, there was no one there. I froze.

You're sure it wasn't someone in the group? Rachel shook her head. No one else was moving. I checked. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. The rest of the group was laughing and talking like this was just another hike, but Rachel's words hung heavy between us. We packed up and started hiking again, and that's when things got worse. The forest felt alive in the worst way.

The fog seemed thicker now, clinging to our clothes and muffling our voices. The trees loomed closer, their gnarled branches twisting together overhead, blocking out the sky. And the silence, that awful, oppressive silence, was back. About an hour into the hike I saw it. At first I thought it was just a trick of the light. A shadow moving between the trees, too quick to track. But then it happened again, a lot closer. A figure, tall, thin, and hunched, darted from one tree to the next, its movements jerky

and unnatural. I stopped dead in my tracks. Jonah, you okay? Mike asked, his voice breaking through the haze. I, I thought I saw something. I said, my throat dry. Probably just a deer, he said, clapping me on the shoulder. It wasn't a deer. By the time we reached the next campsite, the sun was already dipping below the horizon. The guides tried to keep everyone calm, cracking jokes and telling stories as we set up our tents, but the tension was palpable. Even Mike was quieter than usual, his usual bravado replaced with a nervous energy that made him fidget constantly. I pitched my tent as close to the fire as I could, but it didn't help. The second night was worse. It started the same way, footsteps crunching in the leaves, slowly circling the camp.

But this time, they didn't stop at the edge of the clearing. They came closer, the sound growing louder, heavier, until it felt like whatever was out there was standing right next to my tent. The breathing came next, wet, gurgling, and so close I could feel the vibrations in the air. My skin prickled, and my heart hammered against my ribs as the shadow passed across the fabric of my tent. And then it scratched. The sound was unbearable, sharp claws dragging across the nylon, slow and methodical, like it was testing the strength of the material. I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming. Every muscle in my body locked in place.

The light returned, brighter this time, casting a cold blue glow through the tent. I could see the silhouette of something just outside, twisted and hunched, its limbs too long, its movements erratic. It lingered, the claws raking across the tent one last time before the light suddenly disappeared, plunging me back into darkness. I couldn't take it anymore. I unzipped the tent just enough to peer outside, my breath caught in my throat. The fire had burned low, casting faint shadows across the clearing, but just beyond the edge of the light, I saw it, a figure, tall, impossibly thin, with elongated limbs that twitched and jerked as it moved.

Its head was cocked at an unnatural angle, and though its face was obscured, I could feel its gaze on me, cold and piercing. I didn't scream. I couldn't. The thing turned its head further as if studying me before disappearing into the shadows with a sudden unnatural speed.

I zipped the tent shut and sat there shaking until dawn. When morning came, I found Rachel standing at the edge of the clearing, staring into the forest. She turned to me, her face pale. Did you see it? she whispered. I nodded.

We didn't speak again after that. There was nothing left to say. I don't remember much about how it started that morning, just the raw, gnawing fear that had eaten at me through the night. None of us said much as we packed up. Rachel and I exchanged a glance, but it wasn't the kind of look that needed words. She'd seen it too, whatever it was. Even Mike, who always had something sarcastic to say, stayed quiet. His usual cocky grin was gone, replaced by a pale, tight-lipped expression.

Tom and Clara tried to keep things light, but their voice. sounded forced, brittle. The unspoken agreement was clear. We needed to get out of Blackwood Reserve, fast. The trail back to the cars felt different, like the forest itself was shifting around us. The fog had lifted slightly, but the shadows were longer, darker, and they seemed to move when you weren't looking. The trees, tall and skeletal, bent inward, their branches clawing at the sky. Every crunch of our boots on the dirt trail felt deafening in the silence. Then about halfway back the footsteps returned. At first they were distant, just the faintest crunch of leaves far behind us.

I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Maybe a deer or a stray hiker taking the same trail, but the sound didn't fade. It followed us, slow and deliberate, matching our pace but never getting closer. Tom stopped abruptly and turned, scanning the path behind us. Anyone see anything? he asked. trying to sound calm. No one answered. We all just stood there frozen, listening.

The footsteps stopped too. And that's when I realized something worse. The forest was dead silent, not just quiet, but wrong. No birds, no wind, no rustling leaves, just that awful, suffocating stillness. Let's keep moving, Clara said quickly, her voice tight. We picked up the pace, our boots crunching faster against the dirt. The footsteps started again, louder this time, and closer.

My heart pounded as I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to see that twisted figure from the night before, but there was nothing, just the trees and the endless shifting shadows. Then it started running. The sound of heavy, uneven footfalls thundered through the forest, crashing through the underbrush like something enormous and unhinged. It was coming straight for us. Go! Tom shouted, his voice breaking as he took off down the trail. We ran, branches whipped at my face,

roots snagged my boots, but I didn't dare stop. The sound of it was everywhere, like the forest itself was alive and chasing us. I didn't look back. I couldn't. Rachel screamed behind me, and I skidded to a stop, turning just in time to see her fall. Her ankle had caught on a root, and she was struggling to get up, tears streaming down her face. Help her, Mike shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the deafening roar. Yes, roar of whatever was behind us. I didn't think. I just grabbed Rachel under the arm and hauled her to her feet,

dragging her forward as fast as I could. The thing was close now, close enough that I could feel its breath, hot and rancid, on the back of my neck. We broke into a clearing, the trees finally giving way to a patch of rocky terrain. In the distance, I could see the trailhead. Our cars parked like lifeboats waiting to save us. Almost there, Clara shouted, her voice hoarse. I didn't believe we'd make it.

The thing was too fast, too relentless. But then, for the first time, I dared to look back. I wish I hadn't. It was massive, taller than any man, its limbs too long and thin, its body twisted in ways that didn't make sense. Its face, or what passed for a face, was a mess of shadows and glowing, faintly blue eyes that seared into me, and its hands, tipped with claws, reached for us with an unnatural hunger.

Run! I screamed, pushing Rachel ahead of me as the thing lunged. I don't know how we made it, but we did. The trailhead appeared like a mirage, and we stumbled out of the forest, collapsing onto the gravel parking lot. The thing stopped just at the edge of the trees, its glowing eyes burning into me as it let out a low, guttural sound that vibrated through my chest. Then it disappeared, melting back into the shadows like it had never been there. For a long time, none of us spoke.

We just sat there, gasping for air, staring at the tree line. I half expected it to come back, to drag us screaming into the forest, but the woods stayed still. Eventually Tom broke the silence. Everyone okay? His voice was shaky, and his hands were trembling as he tried to light a cigarette. No one answered. What could we say? We piled into the cars and drove in silence, the weight of what had happened pressing down on all of us.

I stared out the window, watching the trees blur past, my heart's still hammering in my chest. As we pulled into the nearest town, I finally spoke. I'm never going back there, I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Never again. No one argued. No one even looked at me. But I meant it. Whatever was out there in Blackwood Reserve wasn't just dangerous.

It was wrong, and I wasn't going to stick around to see what it wanted. I'd always thought I was tough enough for any wilderness challenge. That's what brought me to Blackwater Hollow in the dead of winter. I craved the kind of isolation that could strip you down to your bones and remind you what it meant to be alive. But as I stood at the trailhead, staring into the dense forest draped in snow, I felt the first prickle of unease. The road to get here had been brutal.

Two hours of skidding on icy, narrow logging road. where one wrong move would have sent me into a ravine. My truck was now parked crookedly, half frozen to the ground, its tires clinging to the last patch of solid earth before the wilderness swallowed me whole. The silence was the first thing that hit me, not the peaceful kind that makes you breathe a little easier. This was heavy, like the woods themselves were holding their breath.

No wind, no rustling branches, no distant animal calls. Just me, the crunch of snow under my boots. and the faint hum of my own breath freezing in the air. I adjusted my pack, double-checked my hatchet, and started walking. The trail was barely a suggestion of a path, overgrown and obscured by a thick layer of snow. My boots sank deep with each step, and I had to push through dense, frozen underbrush. There were no tracks, no signs of anyone having passed this way in weeks, maybe months, just endless trees standing like silent sentinels on either side.

About an hour in, I started noticing things. The claw marks on the trees were the first. Long, parallel grooves dug deep into the bark, too high for any animal I could think of. A bear may be, but they should have been hibernating. I stopped to study one of the marks, running my gloved fingers over the rough edges, and they looked deliberate,

almost like someone had dragged something sharp down the trunk on purpose. Then there was the trench. It wasn't part of the trench, it ran perpendicular to it, cutting through the snow in a shallow groove. My first thought was that someone had dragged a sled, but there were no footprints alongside it, just the trench, like something heavy had been pulled along by something, or someone, that left no trace of themselves. I stood there for a moment, staring down the faint line as it disappeared into the trees, and told myself I didn't have time to investigate. Not with the sun,

already dipping lower in the sky. The deeper I went, the stranger it got. Every so often I'd come across trees with the bark stripped completely clean, the pale wood beneath standing out starkly against the dark trunks around it. It wasn't weather or wrought. It was as if something had peeled it away, leaving jagged edges that seemed too violent to be natural. I kept moving, telling myself it was just my imagination, but the silence around me felt heavier with every step. By the time I reached the clearing near the frozen pond, I was exhausted. The spot seemed perfect, flat ground, a good view of the area, and close enough to the pond that I could collect water once I broke through the ice.

But as I set down my pack and started clearing a space for my tent, I had the sensation that I was being watched. I turned, scanning the tree line, but there was nothing there. Just shadows stretching long in the fading light. I shrugged it off and started gathering wood for a fire. That's when I saw the strange marks again, this time on the ground. A loose circle of broken branches, scattered haphazardly, but too concentrated to be random. It wasn't like a fallen tree or the remnants of a storm.

It was deliberate. And at the center of the circle, the snow was packed down as if something heavy had been sitting there for a long time before being dragged away. my mind raced through possibilities, none of them comforting. I forced myself to keep moving, to finish setting up camp. The fire helped a little, its flickering light chasing back the worst of the shadows. I made dinner, sat by the flames, and tried to convince myself I was just being paranoid. But the woods around me stayed silent, too silent. Even the crackle of the fire felt intrusive, like it didn't belong here.

As the night deepened, I retreated to my tent, zipping myself inside and keeping my hatchet within arm's reach. I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I heard it. The faintest sound of snow crunching outside. Not constant, not even regular. Just an occasional, deliberate step. I held my breath, heart pounding, straining to listen. Maybe it was an animal. Maybe it was nothing.

But then it circled. Whatever it was, it moved slowly around my cancer. camp, pausing every so often before taking another step. My throat tightened as I gripped the hatchet, praying it would go away. Eventually, the sound faded, and I told myself I'd imagined it, but I didn't sleep. When the first light of dawn crept through the fabric of my tent, I packed up as quickly as I could. The clearing that had seemed so perfect the evening before, now felt suffocating, the trees around it pressing in too close. As I hoisted my pack and glanced back to the moment, at the circle of broken branches, I felt that I'd made a mistake coming here. A big one.

The morning light didn't bring the relief I'd hoped for. If anything, it only made the clearing feel stranger, more sinister. The pale sunlight filtered through the trees and weak beams, casting long, sharp shadows that stretched across the snow. I couldn't stop my eyes from darting to the edges of the clearing, scanning the tree line for movement. There was nothing, but that did. and ease the gnawing unease in my gut. I was ready to leave, every instinct screaming at me to put as much distance as I could between myself and whatever had circled my tent during the night. But then I remembered the trench, that shallow groove in the snow, the one that had veered off the trail and disappeared into the trees. I should have ignored it, should have just

turned around and gone home. But curiosity got the better of me. That and the nagging feeling that if I didn't see where it led, it would follow me. I followed the trench, each step slow and deliberate, my boots crunching in the snow. The forest felt different now, closer, darker, the trees pressing in like silent onlookers. The trench twisted and curved, leading me deeper into the woods, where the snow was undisturbed except for the strange, deliberate path carved into it. I tried not to think about what could have made it, or why it didn't leave any other tracks. The clearing was small, almost hidden, and the first thing that caught my eye was the framework. It stood in the center like a macabre centerpiece.

Rough wooden beams lashed together with strips of cloth and rope forming a crude angular structure. It reminded me of a hunting blind, but there was no purpose to it, no logic. The angles were all wrong, as if whoever built it didn't know, or didn't care, what they were making. Around the framework, the ground was littered with debris. broken shards of glass glittered in the snow reflecting the weak sunlight like jagged teeth there were bones too small ones likely animal but gnawed clean in a way that made my stomach churn and then there was the boot just one lying on its side half buried in the snow it was old the leather cracked and stiff but it didn't look like it had been there long enough to freeze solid I moved closer, my breath clouding the air in short, shallow bursts. The snow beneath the framework was packed down, as if something had been dragged or stomped there repeatedly.

I felt that it wasn't just the framework itself that was wrong. This whole clearing felt off, like I was standing in a place that didn't belong to me, or anyone. The trees around the clearing weren't any better. Their bark was scarred with strange carvings, spirals, jagged lines, crude stick figures, Some were small and faint, others deep and violent, gouged into the wood as if in a frenzy. I snapped a few pictures with my phone, my hands trembling as I tried to focus.

My pulse was hammering in my ears, drowning out the eerie silence. I didn't stay long. The air in the clearing felt heavy, like it was pressing against me, urging me to leave. I turned and followed the trench back to my camp, my legs moving faster with each step. By the time I saw my tent again I was practically jogging, but what greeted me stopped me cold.

My camp was destroyed. My tent lay on its side, the fabric slashed open and half buried in the snow. My food bag had been torn apart, its contents scattered and mangled. My water bottles were punctured, their icy remains pooled in the snow like small frozen lakes. Tracks surrounded the site, big ones, larger than any humans, but strangely uneven. as if whatever had made them alternated between walking upright and crawling on all fours. The final blow was the tree. The one I'd camped closest to, now bore a fresh carving,

larger and more detailed than the ones I'd seen in the clearing. It was a spiral, jagged and deep, the lines overlapping and crossing in a way that made my headache just to look at it. It hadn't been there the night before. My throat went dry as I realized what that meant. Whoever, or whatever, had been circling my tent wasn't just passing by. It had been here, watching. I didn't even bother packing properly.

I grabbed what I could, shoving it into my pack with shaking hands. My knife stayed in my other hand, clenched so tightly that my fingers started to cramp. Every snap of a branch, every gust of wind sent my heart racing as I started the trek back to my truck. The trail felt longer this time, the forest darker, the air colder. The silence was no longer just heavy. It was suffocating, pressing in on all sides like a living thing. And then the noises started, faint at first, like the crunch of snow far behind me, but they grew louder, closer, and less like footsteps.

It wasn't steady. It was erratic, uneven, punctuated by low, guttural sounds that sent terror through me. I kept walking, refusing to look back, but the noises didn't stop. A cold sweat soaked through my layers as I pushed myself faster, each step feeling heavier than the last. At one point, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, a tall hunched shape weaving between the trees. When I turned my head, it was gone. By the time I reached my truck, I was running. My breath came in ragged gasps as I fumbled with the keys, my numb fingers struggling to unlock the door. As I threw myself into the driver's seat and started the engine, I heard it.

a loud crashing sound, like something big barreling through the trees behind me. I didn't wait to see what it was. I tore down the icy road, the tires skidding and my headlights barely cutting through the gloom. In the rearview mirror just for a second I saw it, a figure standing at the edge of the forest, too tall, too thin, with glowing eyes that burned like embers. I didn't stop driving until I was miles away, the trees thinning and the sky brightening.

Be careful out there. Thank you.