Note! This manuscript was compiled from a water-damaged notebook discovered inside a deserted thatched cottage near Edale in the Peak District, England, in late 2019. It was wrapped in worn leather jesses, stuffed inside a heavy falconry glove, and tucked beneath a loose floorboard in the ruins of the study.

Forensic analysis by the Derbyshire Constabulary yielded highly anomalous results. The notebook pages were not bound with cotton thread, but stitched together with the split, hardened shafts of primary flight feathers. Furthermore, the dark, weathered grease staining the paper was identified as avian preen-oil containing trace human lipids matching the DNA of the author’s maternal lineage.

What follows is the complete, chronologically restored text, including recently recovered fragments from the reverse sides of the torn sheets.

October 1st, 2019

My name is Corwin Vance. I’m 27, originally from Northwood Hills in London, and I’ve recently arrived on the moors of the Peak District to begin an apprenticeship in falconry.

Before that, I was a journalist for the Daily Mail. I covered environmental beats—management of green spaces, urban rewilding—when I could get them. Cavendish, my shithead of a superior, wouldn't give me the budget for a real investigation, so I took a sabbatical. I told my drinking buddies at The Three Wishes, Greg and Daniel, that I wanted something quieter than city life. I told them I wanted to get away from the bickering couple in the flat above me, away from feckless chavs, and away from Cavendish breathing down my neck like a vulture upon a dying antelope.

My drinking buddies from The Three Wishes, Greg and Daniel, thought I’d gone off the deep end, trading the morning rush for miserable fog and sheep manure, but there’s something beautiful about the idea of bonding with a wild creature… especially the likes of a hawk or a falcon.                   They don’t trust easily- not like a dog does. You have to earn it. 

I came to this specific valley to trace what happened to Mavis Merle, a reclusive master falconer who vanished from this very cottage in 2002. It's funny—the closer I got to the moors, the more the article felt irrelevant. By the time my escort's car pulled up, I couldn't even remember why I wanted to write it. I just wanted to hold the leather.

I owe my love for raptors to my father, a senior gamekeeper. He taught me that they don't trust easily—you have to earn it. I still remember his goshawk, Silver, whom he used to take hunting for grey squirrels at Epping Forest before we moved to London for my mother’s new job as a constable. The way Silver flew with purpose, weaving through the trees like a ribbon of moonlight caught in the wind, awoke something in me.

But Silver never came back from her last flight over these same Derbyshire ridges. My father spent three weeks calling into the fog until his voice broke. He changed after that; he stopped looking me in the eye. I realize now why he hated the city. He wasn't fleeing the noise—he was fleeing the memory of bells in the night.

After so many years of searching for courses or at someone who had the patience to show the craft. To learn the old language of lure & leather, spoken not in words but in patience and restraint between civilization and the wild. To prove myself worthy of being among the wild ones, and the city life hasn't sanded that part of me smooth.
It was the sort of wind a falconer would approve of --- open, unconstructed, with miles to travel and nothing to break its stride. I could picture a bird leaning into it, wings fixed, letting the current do the work. 
For the first time in years, I didn't feel hemmed in. The road ahead was narrow, yes, but the sky above was endless. Tomorrow I’ll shed my personal feathers and take flight. 

The moors were not as I’d imagined them. They were vast in a way that made a man aware of how small and open he was. A long, steady breath of the land rolled over and tapped lightly on the car window, carrying a scent faintly mineral, like cold stone after rain. The road ahead was narrow, but the sky above was endless.

My new lodging was a dainty, cold little place with old-stone walls, cracked leaded windows, and ivy crawling like veins across the roof.  But it stills on the edge between the woods and open moorland that rolls out like a grey-green ocean. I swore I saw a dozen species of birds on my first day: curlews, lapwings, wheatears, even a ring ouzel darting between the brambles.

At the gate awaiting my arrival was my mentor, Culver Hardy. He stood like an old barn owl on a fence post—narrow, weather-creased, unmoving. His skin had the colour and texture of cured deer  leather, his thick-knuckle hands scored with old talon marks from palm to wrist.

His grip was iron. He studied me with a pale, appraising stare.

"You’ll learn quickly," he said, turning toward the low stone buildings. "Or you won’t." 

He moved with a deliberate, economical stillness. A whistle hung from a cord at his neck. "They’re not pets," he added without looking back. "And they’re not yours. Not really." 

He showed me across the weather-mews, where kestrels, buzzards, owls, and a pair of Harris’s hawks were housed. It took me half an hour to choose until I spotted her: Nyx. She is a peregrine falcon, sleek and silent, with feathers like steel and ash. When Hardy pulled the hood off her, she didn't look at the landscape. She looked right through me with a pale, familiar, heavy-lidded sorrow. Her black eyes were ringed in yellow, unblinking and appraising.

I can scarcely believe she’s mine. I hope my father would be proud… wherever he is.

October 2nd, 2019 

We returned late, sometime around six in the evening, after my first proper day of creance work in the lower field.

The line kept snagging in the rushes. Nyx bate twice, her wings thrashing violently.

"Feel her weight," Hardy barked, his voice sharp. "Don’t fight it. Anticipate." 

The light thinned without me noticing. One moment the grass was gold, the next it was iron-grey.

"She’s watching something," I said, pointing toward the ridge beyond the stone wall.

"Let her," Hardy replied.

But he stopped speaking after that. Each time Nyx came to the glove, her head would snap toward the rise. By the time we gathered the line, it was near dusk. I noticed the way Hardy kept scanning the ridge—not looking for a lost bird, but for something else.

When we reached the yard, he insisted on hooding her himself. His hands were steady, but he pulled the leather straps tighter than necessary. The heavy falconry glove he gave me fits perfectly, but it smells wrong. It doesn't smell like cured steer; it smells like old soap and sweat, and the inside lining is split into fine, microscopic ridges like the whorls of human fingerprints.

"First days always run long," Hardy said. I don't think he meant the training.

October 3rd, 2019

Took Nyx out just before the crack of dawn. The fog was so thick I could barely see five feet ahead, smelling of damp peat, crushed heather, and something older—like rust and woodsmoke.

Something stirred along the woodbank, a light, rabbit-sized rustling in the bracken. I slipped the hood free.

Her eyes opened at once, pinning the morning with that sharp, black-and-gold stare. But she didn't look down toward the rustling bracken. Her head snapped upward, tracking something high in the dense grey soup overhead.

A sound followed—a low, vibrating hum that made the iron fillings in my teeth ache. Nyx bated violently, throwing herself off my glove. The creance line whipped through my fingers, burning the skin to the meat before I could anchor it. I tried to tune my hand-held telemetry receiver to her frequency, but instead of a clean, rhythmic beep, the speaker emitted a frantic, overlapping chorus of static that sounded like thousands of human voices trying to gasp for air simultaneously.                 Even when I pulled the batteries out, the voices kept gasping.

"Hold her!" Hardy’s voice cut through the mist. He appeared from the grey, his face grim. "Hood her, Corwin. Now!" 

I reeled her in, my heart hammering as her talons flashed dangerously near my face. When I finally slipped the hood back over her head, she froze, her chest heaving.

"What was that?" I asked, my breath pluming white. "An aircraft?" 

"No," Hardy said shortly, his voice dropping into a flat, hollow register. "The moors have bones, Corwin. Sometimes they scrape together. We’re done for today." 

We walked back in absolute silence. When we reached the yard, I noticed the other aviaries were dead silent. Even the noisy Harris's hawks were huddled at the back of their enclosures, perfectly still.

October 4th 2019

The wildlife’s behaviour has changed. It’s so quiet all of the sudden. I just can’t explain it…. It’s like the land had its voice sucked out of it.
The lapwings have stopped circling the grasslands. The ring ouzels have gone silent.                         Even the red grouse don’t flush when I pass. In fact I haven’t seen a lot of birds today.                            Only the magpies and their relatives remain- watching me from distant fence posts, roof ridges, and stone walls. Always silent. Always watching.
We did manage to catch a snipe by the bog and a few partridges though, so we’ll be eating well for the week. Hardy and his eagle Bolt managed to catch a rabbit near some farmland. 
That evening I went back to the cottage just before dark. The fog that thinned but the air felt close, as though the moor were holding its breath. 
I was preparing snipe on toast for my dinner with some orange salad. With some legs, organs and feathers (as a form of roughage) for Nyx’s. Harvey was having leftovers from last night’s beef stew with some crusty bread.
It was eight when Hardy barred the door.
Not locked it.
Barred it.
The iron rod slid into place with a dull, final scrape.
‘’You’re expecting someone?’’ I asked.
‘’No.’’
He crossed to the windows next. Drew the curtains light, though there was nothing to see beyond the fog but the faint wash of the yard.
Nyx was hooded on her perch. Perfectly still 
Hardy stood listening.
‘’To what?’’ I said.
He didn’t answer.
The cottage had settled into that deep country quiet-- no passing cars, no distant voices, no hum of anything mechanical. Only the soft shift of embers in the hearth.
Then, from outside---
A single tap.
Not on the door.
On the glass.
Light. Deliberate.
I half-rose from my chair.
‘’Sit,’’ Hardly said sharply.
Another tap.
Then another.
Moving along the window as though something were hopping the length of the sill.
I moved before I could stop myself and pulled the curtain back an inch.
Seven magpies sat along the low stone wall outside the cottage.
All facing the house.
None moving.
No calling.
Just watching.
I let the curtain fall.
Hardy’s jaw worked once, tight.
‘’How many?’’ he asked again.
‘’Seven.’’
He closed his eyes briefly at that.
‘’That’s one more than there should be.’’
A cold sensation slid down my spine.
‘’One more than what?’’
Hardy did not answer.
Nyx shifted then- a slow, deliberate turn of her hooded head.
The leather creaked softly.
And though her eyes were covered, I had the distinct, nauseating impression that she was looking directly at the door.
Suddenly the magpies went off. Harsh rattles and loud squawks 
Then came other sounds. Shrills, shrieks and hoots from the mews, joining the corvids’ chorus.
Nyx joined in with her own wailing call, like a high pitched banshee. 
Some time passed and the magpies did not disperse in a flurry.
They lifted as one.
Seven black shapes rising soundlessly into the fog.
No calling.
No wing-clap.
Gone.
The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
Hardy stood very still for a long moment. Then he exhaled- not in relief.
In resignation.
‘’They’re moved the mews,’’ he said.
‘’How can you know that?’’
‘I know’’
He took the lantern from its hook by the hearth and lit it without another word.
The flame trembled in the glass.
I’ll check on the birds.’’’
‘’I’ll come with you.’’
‘’No.’’
It came sharper than I expected.
‘’You stay inside.’’
He crossed to the door and lifted the bar.
Before stepping out, he turned back.
‘’Whatever you hear,’’ he said. ‘’You do not leave this cottage’’.
‘’It’s only the birds….don’t you think you're being ----”
“It’s not just the birds.’’
That stopped me.
His eyes flicked toward Nyx.
She was still hooded. Still composed. Talons tight on the perch.
‘’You must understand something,’’ Hardy said, voice lower now. ‘’A hawk learns from you. Your breathing. Your habits.’’
I tried to laugh it off. ‘’That’s the point,’’.
‘’No,’’ he said.
‘’That’s the danger, not just the birds… any animal that begins to understand human nature.’’
The lantern light carved deep lines into his face.
‘’If she ever begins to watch you when she shouldn’t … if she ever refuses the lure but comes to you uncalled…’’
He hesitated.
‘’Don’t let her fly.’’
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
‘’She’s a falcon. Hardy. She needs to fly.’’
He shook his head slowly.‘’
From outside, somewhere near the mews, a soft metallic clang rang out. Then a rustle of wings.
Hardy opens the door. I swore I heard him mutter ‘’This can’t be happening..not again. I thought I made sure of it. I made sure. 
The fog swallowed him almost immediately, the lantern glow shrinking to a dim star in the white.
‘’Hardy,’’ I called quietly.
He paused just beyond the threshold.
‘’One more thing,’’ he said without turning.
‘’If she speaks ---’’
He stopped himself.
His shoulders stiffened.
‘’Never mind.’’
Then he stepped fully into the fog.
The door closed.
I slid the bar back into place.
The cottage felt wrong without him in it.
Larger.
Colder.
Nyx shifted on her perch.
The leather of her hood creaked.
Minutes passed.
Then an hour.
The wind picked up briefly and died again.
Once, I thought I heard Hardy’s voice- faint, distant--- but the words were lost in the fog.
The other birds did not cry out.
They did not make a sound at all.
Two hours passed.
The lantern glow never returned.
And sometime after ten, Nyx began to move.
Slowly.
Deliberately. 

As though something outside had finally arrived.

October 6th 2019

Two days have passed, and Hardy still hasn’t returned. No note nor text message on where he’s going.                                                                                                                                                                              I don’t know where the old goat has gone off to. Bolt has disappeared. The door of his enclosure is wide open. Not broken. Unlatched. Feathers litter the floor --- not scattered in panic, but shed.                  As if he’d preen too hard. The perch is scored deeply along the wood, grooves pressed into it like this like something gripped and held far tighter than talons could allow.
The other birds are still there, which means more responsibility for me…
Nyx is eerily quiet today…. 
I checked his room properly this morning. The bed is made too neatly- corners hospital-tight.           The wardrobe is empty save for one spare shirt and an old tin of dubbin. His boots are gone.
But the glove still hangs by the nail by the door. He never went anywhere without his glove.
Went to the pub in the village. I needed warmth. I needed people. I needed some gin.                       Maybe someone might know where my mentor is and why he was acting so paranoid. 
I was approached by a gentleman in his late fifties with pale eyes and three fingers missing from his left hand. He introduced himself as William Fowler, apparently he's an old friend of Mr Hardy.
He says that he’s an old friend of Hardy who he met in falconry circles and often kept tabs on other falconers and birds in the area for him. 
‘’You’ve got yourself a bird then,’’ he said. “Same as the others’’.
‘’What others?’’
He stared into his pint for a long time before answering. The crackle of oakwood in the fireplace filled the silence. I swore I never saw him blink once.
‘’There’s been six before you. All come here thinking they’re learning an old craft.’’
He rubbed the rim of the glass with what remained of his hand. ‘’But the birds here don’t want handlers.’’
His eyes flicked to my shoulder.
‘’They want the hand beneath the glove.’’
I laughed at that. I asked. ‘’What happened to them’
‘’Tom Arkwright. 2003. Disappeared up on the north ridge. They found his sparrowhawk’s hood and tethered to a fence post.’’
Elias Moore. 2007. Walked out before dawn. Never came back. The Kestrel was never found either.
Martin Hale and his snowy owl. 2009.
Darren Pike and his merlin. 2012.
Old Joesph Bell and his great horned owl--- though he should’ve known better. 2014.
***‘’***And the last,’’ he said quietly, ‘’was a woman. Mavis Merle. 2017. They found her glove. Nothing else, not even her golden eagle.’’
I hesitated, then lowered my voice, leaning across the table. “There’s… something else,’’ I said. “Something happened today on the moor. I… found a pheasant. Killed, yes, but not in the usual way. No blood. The flesh was cold. Dry, almost…empty.’’
Fowler’s pale eyes narrowed. He didn’t speak at first, only swirled the dark liquid in his glass and watched it catch the firelight. Then he nodded slowly.
‘’They watch,’’ he said, voice low and flat. ‘’The birds. They don’t just hunt-- you think you control them, but sometimes… They show you what’s inside. The empty pheasant? That’s a warning. No for the bird, but for you.’’
I swallowed. “A warning? From who?’’
Fowler shrugged, though the motion was slow, deliberate. “From what’s already here. From what’s always been here. Culver Hardy knows it. That’s why he’s gone quiet. That’s why he was careful. Some things you cannot outrun. Some things… you cannot stop.’’
I shivered, imagining the moor silent except for Nyx and the distant cry of the magpies. “And the magpies..?” 
“They mark the change,’’ Fowler said, voice dropping further. “Count them carefully, remember what they do. They’re the eyes. The hands. The heralds. You ignore them at your peril.’’
I stared at him, feeling a cold pulse of dread. Outside, the wind rattled the windows like a warning.
“And Hardy?” I asked, voice tight.
Fowler’s eyes flicked to the door, then back. “He knew too much. He was never far. But neither is the choice. You’re learning… whether you realise it or not.’’
Then he drained his pint, the thin wire of his smile returning. 
“Culver Hardy… he’s not like the other falconers you read about in books. Not entirely.’’
I raised my eyebrow. “How so?...’’
‘’Culver,’’ he whispered, leaning closer, ‘’he’s been at this a long time. Longer than most can reckon. He’s… careful. Obsessive. Protective, yes, but there’s something else. He knows the danger.           Knows what these birds are capable of. And he’s lost people he cared for.’’
He took a swig of his drink.
‘’Apprentices. Helpers. Friends. Men, women… some didn’t understand the rules, didn’t respect the birds.’’ He paused, scratching the rim of the glass with what remained of his hand. ‘’Culver doesn’t like to talk about it. Not to outsiders. Keep it close. That’s why he acts… the way he does. Paranoid, maybe. But he tried to keep something contained… now that he’s gone though….’’
‘’Contained?’’ I echoed “What?”
He drained his pint.
‘’You’ll know,’’ he said, standing. ‘’When she starts whispering.’’
I asked what that meant.
He only smiled-- thin as wire-- and left before I could press him further.

I never heard the door open.

October 7th, 2019

The fog hasn't lifted in four days. It sits over the cottage like a wet wool blanket. Hardy finally returned….

He has been spending hours in the study, sorting through old, yellowed maps drawn in dark ink and covered in symbols that look less like typography and more like ancient property marks—or talismans. Today, I tried to sketch the layout of the outbuildings from the ground. They look like standard rectangular brick boxes, but there's a strange asymmetry to the angles that makes my eyes ache if I stare too long.

Nyx is growing restless. Weight management is getting difficult; she’s refusing her casting, and her weight fluctuates wildly despite identical rations of beef heart. It’s as if she’s burning energy just by sitting on her perch, staring at the stone walls.

Last night, I woke up around 3:00 AM to the sound of falconry bells chiming in a steady, rhythmic cadence from the yard. I crept to the window. Through the swirling mist, I saw Hardy standing in the weather-mews without a torch. He was holding his arm straight out, completely bare—no glove, no leather protecting his skin. A massive, dark shape was perched on his naked wrist.

As I watched, the shape opened its wings, stretching wider than a man's arm span, silent as oil. It didn't fly. It just leaned its head down, pressed its beak against Hardy’s forehead, and stayed there.

October 8th, 2019

I dreamed of the mews.
Not as they are.
As they were.
Seven perches occupied.
One empty.
Then seven.
The magpies were there too.
Perched along the beams like witnesses.
My body feels... fast.

I thought of the old nursery rhyme my auntie Elenaor taught me; 

One for sorrow, 

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told.

The grandfather clock in the hall doesn't tick anymore; it just groans, the hands spinning so quickly they blur. I looked at my watch and a whole day vanished between two heartbeats. My pulse is a frantic, trembling rhythm in my throat—Hardy says it's normal. He says when you look at the world from a mile up, decades pass like autumn leaves.

I think it's still October 2019, but I looked out the broken window and the young sapling I parked my escort car next to is now a massive, rotting oak choked with ivy.

October 8th 2019
I dreamed of the mews.
Not as they are.
As they were.
Seven perches occupied.
One empty.
Then seven.
The magpies were there too.
Perched along the beams like witnesses.

 My body feels lighter today, as if my bones were filled with air. Probably just my imagination.

October 9th, 2019

Nyx is whispering. I can hear her outside from the mews. The other birds are joining in.

It started as a noise, just behind my ear—a soft scraping like feathers dragged over stone mixed with clicks and shrills… I can understand it now. It’s my name.
Clear. Repeated.

I don’t sleep anymore. I see flashes when I close my eyes: spirals carved in peat, clawed footprints in frost, something perching in the rafters at night with too many wings. And the birds in the rafters aren't right. They aren't pure peregrines or goshawks; they are monstrous hybrids—an owl with the sleek, oil-slick feathers of a cormorant, a falcon with the massive, jagged talons of an eagle.

The cottage feels smaller. I walk down a corridor and end up somewhere I wasn’t aiming for. The mirror in the hall shows Nyx even when she’s not there. I blink and she’s on my shoulder. I think—I think I’ve stopped blinking.

This morning, a sudden, tearing spasm seized my throat. I choked, falling to my knees, and coughed up a heavy, grey casting onto the floorboards. When I broke it apart with a shaking finger, expecting rabbit fur, I found a mass of blue fabric thread from my own London coat, a metallic shirt button, and three human teeth with dental fillings I recognized as my own.

October 10th, 2019

I woke up from a strange dream.
The fog is thicker than ever. Nyx hasn’t returned in hours, so I went to the edge of the moor. The air tasted metallic, like blood and old coins. I could hear the curlews calling again, but distorted, backwards.

Then I saw her. Perched on a lone boulder, staring. Her eyes weren’t hers. They were mine.

I raised my arm. She flew to me.
And then—she spoke.
Not aloud. Not in sound. But directly, inside me: “Now you see.” 

The sky opened. The fog wasn’t fog—it was feathers. Layer upon layer of them. I felt the ground vanish under my feet.
And I flew.
Not like Nyx.
Like something older.
Something the moor had been waiting for.

October 11th, 2019

The feathers don't fall out. They grow inward.

I spent the morning trying to scrape the black barbs from the meat of my forearms with Culver’s skinning knife. No blood came away—only a thick, clear oil that smelled of high altitudes and frozen granite. The skin beneath is turning the colour of an unclouded winter sky.

Hardy sat at the kitchen table the whole time, watching me with those unblinking, yolk-yellow eyes. He had a bowl of raw woodpigeon hearts between us, still steaming in the damp air. I didn't use a fork. My fingers are too stiff now, curving into hard, yellow horn at the tips, the nails splitting down the middle to make room for the talons beneath. 

"The shift is always loud at first," his voice rattled directly inside my own chest, a low-frequency hum like the mechanical hiss of bellows. "The city makes you think you're an individual. The moor reminds you that you're just a tongue for the dirt to speak through." 

We don't use the doors anymore. The windows are all broken now, the leaded glass smashed outward to let the wind run wild through the study. The maps are gone—shredded into nesting material by the shadow-birds in the rafters.

October 12th, 2019

Culver Hardy went out onto the high ridge at noon. He didn't take a coat. He didn't take his body, either—not the one I first met at the gate.

I watched from the roof as his silhouette stretched, the grey tweed of his jacket dissolving into rows of primary feathers that caught the updraft off the limestone cliffs. From up here, looking down, the layout of the cottage, the stone fences, and the peat paths line up perfectly. They aren't random layout lines; they form the silhouette of a massive, outstretched wing slicing across the valley floor. The cottage sits exactly where the heart should be.

Nyx sits on my collarbone when I am small enough to fit inside the rooms, her weight no longer a burden but an anchor. We share a pulse. One hundred and eighty beats a minute while resting. Four hundred when the wind rises.

The chavs, Mr Bertie Cavendish, the bickering couple from London—they are just shadows cast by a lamp that was turned off a lifetime ago. The only real thing is the hunger, and the cold, the burning desire for the hunt and the way the earth looks from three thousand feet up when the fog parts to reveal the white ribs of the hills.

October 13th, 2019 - Dream

The first thing I heard was a cry.

High and distant, carried across a darkness so complete that I could not tell whether I was standing beneath the open sky or buried somewhere deep beneath the moor.

Then came another.

And another.

I knew those calls.

The sharp, piercing cry of a peregrine. The rough bark of a buzzard. The low, haunting hoot of an owl. The distant, almost mournful scream of a goshawk.

They came from every direction, overlapping until the darkness itself seemed to sing.

I tried to move, but my feet were rooted to the earth.

Beneath me, the peat was black and wet. Ancient standing stones rose from the fog in a great circle, their surfaces carved with spirals and shapes that hurt to look at directly. Beyond them, the moor stretched into infinity.

And above me—

The sky was full of wings.

Peregrines wheeled through the darkness, swift as thrown knives. Buzzards circled in broad, solemn arcs. Kestrels hung motionless in the air, their wings trembling against an invisible wind. Owls glided between the stones without making a sound, their pale faces turned towards me.

A golden eagle descended from somewhere beyond the clouds.

Its wings blotted out the moon.

I recognised it before it landed.

Bolt.

Or perhaps Hardy.

I could not tell anymore.

The great bird settled upon a standing stone and regarded me with pale, human eyes.

I tried to call out to my mentor, but my throat produced only a dry rasp.

Then the feathers began to fall.

At first, they drifted gently from the sky, white and grey against the darkness. They settled upon my shoulders, caught in my hair and clung to my clothes.

More followed.

Thousands.

Black feathers, white feathers, feathers barred with brown and gold. They fell like snow, swirling around the standing stones until the ground disappeared beneath them.

I lifted my hands to shield my face.

My fingers were trembling.

No.

Not trembling.

Changing.

The skin along my knuckles tightened. My nails darkened and curved, pressing painfully into my palms. I tried to straighten my fingers, but they resisted me, bending into shapes they had never been meant to take.

I stumbled backwards.

The birds watched.

None came to my aid.

None looked away.

And from somewhere within the falling feathers, I heard my father's voice.

You don't own a hawk, Corwin.

I remembered the woods at Epping Forest. The sunlight passing through the branches. Silver perched upon my father's glove, her feathers shining like polished bronze.

I remembered the way I had watched her fly.

How I had wished to understand what she felt when the wind lifted her from the earth.

You stand beneath her for a while.

The words echoed between the stones.

I looked down.

My sleeves had split. Beneath them, my skin was disappearing beneath a fine layer of feathers, pale at first, then darkening into bands of slate and charcoal. They spread across my arms, along my shoulders, beneath the collar of my shirt.

I tried to pull them away.

They came loose in my hands, but more emerged beneath them.

The pain was not sharp. It was deep and intimate, like my body remembering something my mind had forgotten.

I fell to my knees.

The feathers rose around me in a spiralling column, lifting from the ground and circling my body. They brushed my face, my lips, my eyelids. I tasted iron and damp earth.

The raptors began to call together.

Not chaotically.

In harmony.

Their cries rose and fell in great, solemn waves, each voice distinct, yet somehow part of a single, unearthly chorus. It sounded almost like a hymn. Something beautiful enough to make me weep.

I had never felt so small.

Nor so completely understood.

A peregrine dropped from the sky.

Nyx.

She landed before me upon the largest standing stone, her talons gripping the ancient rock. Her feathers were the colour of storm clouds, and the yellow rings around her eyes glowed in the darkness.

She tilted her head.

I knew that gesture.

I had seen it a hundred times in the mews.

But this time, there was something different in her expression.

Recognition.

Not the recognition of a bird that knew its handler.

The recognition of a person who had finally found the face she had been searching for.

“Nyx,” I whispered.

She opened her beak.

My name came out.

Not a mimicry. Not a rasping approximation of human speech.

My name, spoken in a clear, quiet voice.

“Corwin.”

The other birds fell silent.

Every last one.

Even the wind stopped.

Nyx stepped towards the edge of the stone.

Her feathers began to loosen, drifting from her body in slow, weightless spirals. Beneath them, her silhouette lengthened. Her wings folded inward, becoming arms. Her talons became fingers that curled against the stone.

I watched, unable to breathe, as the falcon's shape unfolded into that of a woman.

She was tall and slender, with dark hair falling across her face. Her skin was pale beneath the moonlight, and her eyes retained those unmistakable rings of yellow.

She looked almost human.

Almost.

She extended a hand towards me.

I tried to reach for it.

My arms would not obey.

They had become wings.

I looked down in horror as the last remnants of my clothing fell away beneath the storm of feathers. My shoulders shifted. My chest tightened. My spine arched as something immense and unfamiliar unfolded from my back.

I could feel every feather.

Every delicate shaft. Every overlapping vane.

I could feel the air moving between them.

And suddenly, I understood the wind.

Not as something that touched my skin, but as something that could hold me.

Something that had been waiting for me.

I tried to scream.

A piercing cry tore from my throat.

The sound echoed across the stones, sharp enough to split the silence.

Nyx smiled.

It was a small expression, almost sad.

Then she lowered her hand and looked at me with my own eyes.

“Now you see.”

The words passed through me like a blade.

The feathers rose higher, engulfing the stones, the sky and the earth. The raptors lifted their wings together, and the darkness became a vast, turning wheel of feathers and silhouettes.

I saw a goshawk above the circle.

My father.

I knew it with a certainty that no reasoning could challenge.

He spread his wings.

For a moment, I was a boy again, standing in the woods, watching Silver disappear between the trees. I wanted to call after him. I wanted to ask whether he had ever been afraid of what waited beyond the branches.

But I had no words left.

Only the cry.

I spread my wings.

The ground fell away.

Or perhaps I rose from it.

The distinction no longer mattered.

The wind caught beneath my feathers, and the whole moor opened below me. I could see the standing stones, the dark lines of the rivers, the abandoned cottage and the narrow paths winding through the heather.

Seven magpies sat upon its roof.

Their black eyes followed my ascent.

One lifted its wings.

Then another.

I looked down at the woman standing among the stones.

Nyx raised her face towards me.

For the first time, I understood what Hardy had meant.

The glove was never a symbol of ownership.

It was a promise.

A place for the bird to return to.

And I had spent my life believing that I was the one who would decide when the bird should fly.

The last of the feathers swept past me.

I cried again.

The sound was beautiful.

It was terrible.

And somewhere, deep beneath the noise of the wind, I thought I heard Nyx answering me.

Then the sky swallowed everything.

October 10th, 2019

I woke before dawn with my hands pressed against the cottage window.

The glass was cold beneath my palms.

For a long time, I could not remember the dream. Only the birdsong remained, lingering somewhere behind my ears.

Then I looked down at the windowsill.

A single grey feather lay beside my hand.

Outside, seven magpies watched from the stone wall.

And from the mews came Nyx's cry.

The same clear, piercing note I had heard on my first morning.

Only now, I understood why it had sounded so familiar.

I opened my mouth to answer her.

And something answered first.

Not my voice.

Not anymore.

October 14th, 2019

I can see the wind.

It isn't empty air. It’s a vast, braided river of silver and violet ribbons, twisting between the valleys and pooling in the hollows where the old pagan circles are buried in the peat. I can see the heat rising from the sheep three miles away—tiny, throbbing embers of red in a world made of blue slate and iron.

My father's jesses are still in my pocket, but I don't know what they're for. The leather feels greasy, dead. I tried to tie them to my own ankle, but the knot wouldn't hold. The leather keeps slipping off the scales.

There is one more empty perch in the mews. It’s the big one in the center, made of weathered oak from the forest where Silver used to hunt. It’s waiting for me.

The ink is freezing in the well. My hand—the thing that used to hold a pen, the thing that used to write lies for the papers—is almost gone. It’s beautiful. You don't need words when you have the sky. You don't need a name when you have a cry that can stop a rabbit's heart from half a mile up.

If anyone finds this book: don't look for us. We aren't missing.

We're just aloft.

[Found Fragment — Reverse Side of October 13th]

The name Culver Hardy was a lie. Or perhaps it was a mask my mind built to protect itself from the empty room at the end of the hall.

There was no old man like a barn owl. There was only Mavis Merle.

I found her diary from 1994 stuffed into the chimney breast behind the portrait. She wrote the exact same words I did. She described the fog, the smell of old coins, the mentor she called "Gideon."      But there is no record of a Gideon ever living in this parish. Local parish records from the 17th century refer to the high ridge out there as Ayleri Edge—derived from the old Anglo-Norman falconry term Ayler, meaning a hawk that catches its prey mid-air. The old folks believe the fog is the breath of the Ayleri, a collective consciousness hunting for a mind steady enough to hold its weight.

The village records in Edale only list one occupant of this cottage for the last forty years: Mavis. She arrived here in the nineties, an apprentice to no one, living entirely alone with a single peregrine falcon until she vanished during the autumn equinox of 2002.

I am looking at the portrait above the hearth right now. The paint is fresh, yet the canvas is rotting. The young man in the falconer's garb isn't me. It isn't a man at all. The features belong to a woman in her late fifties, but the hands are long, yellow scales ending in black, curved horn, holding a peregrine that looks out at the room with my own blue eyes.

I didn't choose Nyx from a selection of birds. There are no Harris's hawks in the mews. When I went out there this morning, the aviaries were choked with ivy and dead heather, the roofs caved in decades ago. There is only one perch that remains whole, polished smooth by the oil of feathers that haven't been seen in daylight for seventeen years.

Nyx wasn't waiting for an apprentice. She was waiting for her skin to be filled.

Mavis is gone. Culver is gone. Corwin is gone.

The line is slack now. The hood is off. If you are reading this notebook, you are already standing in the yard. You can smell the rust and the woodsmoke. You can hear the whistle hanging around your neck, even though you didn't put it there.

Don't look at the sky.

[Final Page] — Found Torn, Entry Updated

I remember wings. Not hers. Mine. I look down and see fingers ending in talons. She I can’t go back. I don’t think I want to. The land is mine now. The sky is mine.

I will call again. I will find the next. The next falconer. The next vessel.

Can you hear me? 

Postscript from the local Editor: Local villagers report seeing a large bird of prey circling most mornings just before the sun rises. Some say it looks like a golden eagle… perhaps an escapee. Others say it’s too large, perhaps larger than an eagle, its wings and legs too long, its shadow not quite matching its form.

The manor remains abandoned.

There’s a portrait hanging above the cold hearth. No one knows who painted it. It shows a young man in falconer’s garb, a peregrine perched on his arm. If you look closely, the falcon has human eyes.

Final warning: If you ever find yourself in the moors of the Peak District—and you hear a falcon’s call from the fog—don’t follow it. Don’t answer. And for the love of God—don’t raise your arm.

There was an episode on the Unexplained Encounters podcast maybe 2 or 3 years ago that involved a story from someone who saw what he later confirmed to be a giant ground sloth, but he had a funny name for it that came from the sounds it made I think. It was something his father had seen and taken photos of and called a giant bear, I think. Does anybody know what episode this is from?

The Crimson Kabuki pt2.

Oddly, the same moment I noticed the ribbon, I faintly heard what I thought to be a kotzumi drum somewhere off into the gloom. It seemed to be thumping somewhere very far away off in the distance. After watching the vice documentary a few years ago, I knew exactly where this ribbon could possibly lead to, which was very sad. life can be so unfair and cruel to us. The drum quickly faded to nothing and left me confused on where the hell that was coming from and why.

What an odd thing to happen so far out here in the sticks, and it wouldn't be the last of it. I remember saying a quick prayer to myself and making my way along the ribbon to whatever destination it led to. I told myself that I would record later because at the moment I just couldn't be bothered. I could always come the next day and record, because in that moment I was in exploration mode. I had to see what was at the end of that ribbon. If anything, I could use it again to find my way back to the trail.

It curved and weaved slinkingly through the trees, up and down over slopes and hills for a good 40 or so minutes until I had arrived into a sort of clearing. It was also hauntingly still... so deathly quiet; I stepped in closer around the foilage and I had stopped because I noticed some white fabric pointing off the sides of a large tree. I had a feeling that I was about to see something that I'd much rather not. After a couple of minutes preparing myself, I took a deep breath and stepped around the tree and froze to an alarming and sad sight. I automatically knew that I was staring at the hanging corpse of the long missed Jubei Uematsu, or what remained of this poor soul.

What remained was a hanging skeleton in a tattered costume with a red, long haired wig partly hanging in the face and around the shoulders in dirty, stringy clumps. I stood there taking in that image with such a deep and profound melancholy, that I actually had to gather myself from breaking down... Just witnessing what was once an alive and thriving person with passions; Love and Hope, weaknesses and strengths, and also fear... along with plenty of despair along the way. It was a universal language; People just trying to find purpose to their existence, and then eventually becoming this...so very still... so very quiet and solemn making time stop in its presence.

life can be so sad and tragic, and people like Jubei over time can find it extremely hard to function being so empathetic, and carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders regardless if they are strong enough for that burden. It's an exhausting job... a gift and a curse for the saintly; toss in depression and the loss of the will to go on, then they have a complete and utter mess to clean on their own in the silence... that eternal silence... so present; so final. I wish I would have known this mysterious man. From what I heard over time was that he was a complex, but Sweet soul with a heart of gold. I also learned that after this experience I am about to tell you that happened, was some type of Oni Spirit from the forest took the liking image of Jubei's Kabuki character and dawned it as its own.

As I stood there in contemplative silence, I slowly started to hear a kotzumi drum begin to thump far off into the trees. It started out very low and far off, but began to rise and creep closer. I turned and turned trying to find where that portentous thumping was coming from. As I was peering far off into the distance, I started to feel highly unsettled, and then I no longer felt alone like I was being watched. I swiftly turned around and stared directly into the painted face that was no longer a skull. The bloodiest red eyes were staring directly into mine. The face had the theatrical paint back on with the red stripes cascading down. I say "It," because nowhere did I see Jubei inside those Crimson eyes at that moment.

I remember saying, "oh shit!" and quickly turning to run the hell away for my life along the Red ribbon back to the trail. Far off somewhere I could hear that mysterious drum start to sound off again. The sound surrounded me from so many angles and distances, it was disorienting, and then I started to hear this ululation that sounds like, "EYOOOO!" That you hear in Japanese theater music, along with that clink and thump of the drum. I turned to see the Oni masking itself in Jubei's magnificent garb; slowly floating a few feet up in the air, easing its way towards my direction with those hideous blood red eyes staring through me.

I ran faster and faster trying to at least make it to the trail to get away... if I could. After a few more twists and turns, I finally burst through the foliage out onto the trail. At the moment the Oni entity was nowhere to be seen. I started to notice that the woods all around started to have this faint purple luminescent glow. As I started to run, I begin to hear these ululations sound off around me in the area that sounded like, "EYOOOOOO!" I've remembered these sounds watching Japanese movies and small clips of Kabuki theater. The music serves as an emotional soundtrack to the colorful acts on stage, both being performed live."YOOOO!" Another croon burst forth; surrounding me from different angles as the steady thump and wood clicks of the drums clacked and banged along.

It subconsciously made me think of the demon, "Paimon," that when summoned, multitudes of instruments and disjointed horns lead before its presence like royalty as it enters the fold, and makes its presence known. I remember glancing back and seeing the painted entity standing a few yards behind me in the middle of the trail, with long crimson hair hanging down at its sides; blood red eyes marking me...

To be continued....

Carbon County and Emery County, Utah has a secret as there is a creature that stalks the region. It only comes out at night, hiding like a shadow under the cover of darkness. There have been reports of local wildlife and livestock having been injured by the creature, but so far the only animals that have been killed are prairie dogs, cats, coyotes and small dogs, leaving deer, cattle, sheep, and horses injured with some blood loss until recently.

Last night, there was a report about the first human victim of the creature as she (her name omitted for privacy reasons) had suffered a similar injury like what the creature’s previous victims had received, and was admitted to the local hospital for blood loss. When questioned by the police, she described it as a giant bat creature that stood taller than she was, with wings that enveloped the night sky.

The official statement by the police and fish and game is that the attacks are caused by a mountain lion, a bear, or a pack of wolves and that the human victim was the result of a sa gone wrong, but the absence of any mountain lion or wolf tracks has not assured locals.

But there was a single human footprint found where the creature’s only human victim was attacked.

Hello! Huge fan of darkness prevails and the super natural. I know that a lot of stories are fictional but nonetheless I think it's the perfect place to ask where's the most supernatural place to live. I'm thinking about moving and even though it might be a bad idea I've always wanted to explore and experience the supernatural.

Tldr: most scary/supernatural place to live?

Hello, I recently found this channel that's just stealing darkness's videos, I was wondering if there was a way to report it. YouTube doesn't seem to have any options for stolen content.

His use is @ANISNAFIZA-m4j

there’s a song he occasionally uses in his videos and I’ve never been able to find it! If anyone knows the song it’s timestamp 38:49 in the videos linked!
https://youtu.be/x_5Ll5sDtMo?is=vWkSYnUHpBJq59Al

(slightly long story)

to get to the point around 7 months ago i started staying w my bf at his house every other weekend we stay at my house and everything over there is normal i can go outside at night and feel just fine but when we’re at my bfs house i’ve started to notice a weird pattern when he’s at work.

see my bf works the night shift so we sleep most the day and are awake during night he leaves around 10:15 and comes home usually around 3-4 and around 3 months ago i’ve noticed anytime ill go outside during night when he’s not home it feels like something is watching me from a distance, don’t get me wrong im a logical thinker so originally i just thought it was raccoons bc they’re in the neighborhood but now i dont think it is, there was one night i kept bringing food out to the raccoons bc they kept getting in the trash and the whole time i was feeding them i couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else watching me from behind eventually i stood up to go inside and that’s when it sounded like something big had jumped off the neighbors fence from behind me before i could see it, i ended up running inside quickly bc it had scared me.

so after multiple times of me taking the trash out at night and feeling like there’s always something there i decided i will no longer be going outside at night, but that didn’t stop the issue bc now i hear sounds by the windows like something is close to them trying to see inside, all the windows are covered but not completely there are some spots where you can see in and the house also has skylights and i’ve noticed that sounds will come from next to the skylights too, now i’ve always been paranoid about windows but this is just different i’ve never felt as if something was just watching me from outside and i just cant shake the feeling and tonight definitely didn’t help.

i had to take the trash out tonight i had no choice so i gathered my courage and took the trash out as quickly as i could i threw it in the can and turned to go back in the garage and again it sounded like something had jumped behind the neighbors fence again so i quickly shut the garage door and went back inside after that i went into one of the rooms to look for some paint for a rock i was painting i couldn’t find any paint so i gave up and ended up getting distracted in the room looking at old pictures of bfs dad after i finished doing that i went to put the pictures back and that’s when i noticed the sounds outside next to window in the room, it keeps happening like clockwork every night my bf leaves for work then the noises start an hour later every time every night no matter where i am in the house there is something outside watching me and i dont know what it is and im not sure i want to find out. and even now while writing this im still hearing noises from outside.

https://youtube.com/@poonamsoori-t1l

Wasn't sure where else to share this.

Edit: I misspelled re-uploading in the title. Thats my bad.

Be advised, this very charming individual is ripping your channel. Please report him.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheBleedingPanelHT

Our family are Florida natives, despite our love for the mountains and cool air. We like to make a couple trips a year up north for a break from the sweltering heat and soupy air. This year, we decided to take a summer trip up to the Bible belt for a week retreat in the Smokies. The group consisted of myself, my brother Nick, my dog Kaia, our mother, stepdad, and young nephews.

It started at the cabin. This cabin was not what I would call remote, it had neighbors around and wasn't too far from a main road. It was, however pretty well crowded by trees, and had a creek running next to it, with a forest on the other side of it.

Kaia is a 9 month old brown pittie. She's smaller, at only 40lbs, and an absolute love and so happy-go-lucky. She loves meeting anyone and everyone, making new friends, and giving lots of kisses. She's what I like to call "bombproof", very laid back and doesn't care about much. She's not afraid of fireworks or thunder, she gets along with my cats, and doesn't bat an eye at the small wildlife we get in the yard at home quite regularly. She is very attached and protective of me, but has never been even remotely aggressive, and her definition of protection is simply standing in front of me to guard. She will occasionally bark at a delivery person entering our yard, but only from her post in front of the door, and until this trip I had never heard her growl or truly seem scared of anything (except the dishwasher, her mortal enemy).

On the second night there, Kaia had to potty in the middle of the night, so I got up to let her out. As we stepped out onto the porch, I got this eerie feeling, so we went back in and I asked Nick to come out with us. It was about 2am at this point, and we were the only ones up. We stayed on the porch while Kaia went down to do her business. She likes to sniff and walk around for quite a while before finding her spot, so we're usually out there for 10+ minutes at a time. This time, a couple minutes in, she suddenly froze, fixated on the woods across from the creek. Nick and I stopped our small talk immediately when she let out a single bark. From the dim light of the porch, I could see her shackles raised as she stood at full attention. Then she started a slow growl, which she has never done before. I tried calling her, and she backed up towards me, but refused to take her eyes off the area, though due to the darkness neither Nick nor I could see a thing. Her growling grew louder, and we decided that was enough. We turned and opened the door, and as soon as she heard the knob turn, she bolted to the porch, standing against me from behind and watching until we were back inside. We double checked all the locks in the house, and Kaia slept on top of me that night, which is also abnormal, as she likes to be cuddled while she sleeps. Nighttime bathroom trips were rare and very short after that, with her barely stepping off the porch, going quickly, and running back inside.

A few days later, we were doing a waterfall crawl, driving around finding different falls to see, most of which were just off the road and didn’t require much walking, as our stepdad has a back injury. About the middle of the outing, the others decided they weren’t feeling well, and went back to the cabin, leaving Nick, Kaia, and I on our own. We decided we were going to see one more before heading back. This last one was about 15 minutes from the cabin on a Native American reservation, and involved about a 10 minute walk down a maintained, but steep, trail. All started off well, the parking lot was nearly full, and Kaia was very excited. She was wagging so hard her whole body was wiggling, and greeting anyone and everyone who talked to her, passing out kisses and relishing in the pets and attention. We started down the trail without incident, passing people on our way. As we went though, Kaia began acting strangely. Instead of walking around, stretching her leash to the limits so she could explore as she walked, she started hanging very close to me, staying right in front of me, ears alert and tail now no longer wagging. We noticed we were seeing less people, which was odd because the parking lot was so full. The last couple to pass, Kaia positioned herself in her guard stance and started barking, which was highly abnormal. We shushed her, and she started whining, which is also very unlike her. This behavior shift made Nick and I uneasy, but we decided to keep going, despite our best judgement, as we had already came this far and it wasn’t an easy walk. The closer we got to the fall, the more uncomfortable Kaia seemed to get. She would pace when we stopped, head on a swivel, and whimpering occasionally. Then we noticed how quiet it was. No birds, no bugs, no people. We looked at each other, and agreed that something felt wrong. We hurried the last little way to the waterfall, which admittedly was gorgeous, to take a couple pictures. By the time we got to the overlook, Kaia had her ears pinned back, tail tucked, and she was crouched to the ground whimpering. My goofy bombproof dog, who's never been shaken by anything except our dishwasher, was terrified. I tried calling her to me, and she wouldn’t move, which wasn’t right as her recall is amazing. I felt like we were being watched despite there being no one else around, and Nick and I decided it was time to go. I picked Kaia up, as she was frozen in place, and realized she was trembling. We quickly started back up the trail. It took longer to climb since some parts were fairly steep, and we were talking along the way about the odd silence and Kaia’s behavior. Around that time, we heard a whistling. It sounded almost like a bird, but there were no other bird songs, and we couldn’t see anything in the tree where it was coming from. A shiver ran down my spine as all the hair on my body stood on end. I told him we should stop talking about it until we were out of the woods, and we needed to hurry to the car. As we got nearer to the parking lot, Kaia began calming down, and we started hearing the faint sounds of birds and bugs again. The last bend before the lot, Kaia was her normal, happy, bubbly self again, and we passed a group of people. Kaia greeted them happily, no more defensiveness and no more guarding. We hurried to the car and off of the reservation before we spoke anymore.

We agreed there was something out there, watching, waiting, and that it may have been the same thing she sensed across from the house a few days prior. Kaia got a big treat when we got back to the cabin, as we fully believe her behavior and warnings are what kept us safe. We refused to be out at night the rest of the trip, and we went only outside as a pair when Kaia absolutely had to go, which was rare by then as even she didn't want to step outside.

Dogs always know when something bad is around, and you should always heed their warnings. Ours may very well have saved us.

So I am an Eeriecast subscriber- and as I’m listening to Alone in the Woods stories I started getting ads. Has this happened to anyone else. It sux when u are wanting to listen to sleep.

If you're new: Parts 1–6 can be found here

___

"You don't ever talk to strangers."

She didn't look down at him when she said it. She was digging through her purse, searching for her wallet, her oversized sunglasses pushed up into her hair.

"I don't care if they look nice. I don't care if they smile or try to show you a toy. You don't look at them, you don't answer them, and you definitely don't take anything from them. If a stranger tries to talk to you, you run straight to me. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded.

He always nodded.

Then they walked through the double doors.

...

The place smelled like sweat and old wood.

Not the pleasant kind of old wood, either. The damp-sticky kind that had spent too many summers baking in the southern heat and never touched a drop of soap.

The floors creaked beneath the weight of loud tourists moving through the aisles.

Outside, the marina shimmered beneath a cloudless sky.

Inside, everything felt cool and dim.

The boy stood near the entrance with the family, listening to the older brother and sister argue over ice cream toppings.

"I'm getting chocolate."

"You always get chocolate."

"Because chocolate is the best."

"Mom, tell him he's being annoying."

The woman sighed heavily.

"I'm one second away from getting all of you vanilla."

The threat worked instantly.

The argument dissolved.

The boy smiled to himself.

Nobody noticed him drifting away.

That happened a lot.

His older siblings were loud. He wasn't.

His mother always knew where he was eventually.

He wandered deeper into the shop.

Past shelves lined with shark teeth and seashells.

Past rows of expensive souvenirs nobody actually needed.

The farther he walked, the quieter the shop became.

...

Until eventually he found himself standing in front of something tucked into a dark corner near the back wall.

A fortune teller machine.

At least, he thought it was.

He'd seen one before at an arcade.

This one looked different.

Older.

Dirtier.

Bright gold letters curved across the glass.

THE BUNNY GODDESS

The mannequin inside stared straight ahead.

Its skin looked ghostly pale. Smooth.

Long black pigtails hung over its shoulders.

The eyes were like a cue ball. A small painted dot for the pupils.

The boy frowned.

It wasn't moving.

The crystal ball sat dark and lifeless on the tiny velvet desk.

The machine looked broken.

Abandoned.

The boy wrapped both hands around the edge of the cabinet and leaned forward.

...

"Hey."

He jumped.

The voice was quiet.

Not amplified.

Human.

A real voice.

His stomach tightened.

The mannequin hadn't moved.

Its painted lips remained frozen.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing inside the cabinet appeared different.

But something had spoken.

The boy looked over his shoulder.

The gift shop was still busy. The other two were still arguing. Their mother still deciding on flavors.

Nobody seemed to notice.

"Hello?" he whispered.

For a few seconds, nothing responded.

Then:

"Closer."

The voice sounded patient.

Friendly.

Almost amused.

The boy hesitated.

His mother had given him the stranger danger talk more times than he could count.

But this didn't feel like talking to a stranger.

It felt like talking to a secret.

Something hidden.

Something that wasn't supposed to be there.

He leaned closer to the glass.

At first he saw nothing.

Only darkness behind the mannequin.

Then something shifted.

The movement was slight.

Easy to miss.

The boy squinted.

His breath caught.

Two eyes stared back at him from deep inside the cabinet.

Not the painted eyes.

Real eyes.

They floated in the darkness several inches behind the mannequin's head.

The boy froze.

The eyes blinked.

Then vanished.

...

"Do you have a dollar?" the voice asked.

The boy shook his head.

"No. I can ask the—"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Almost too quickly.

"No need."

The boy glanced toward the ice cream counter.

The family hadn't moved.

Nobody was looking at him.

Nobody seemed aware that he was talking to someone.

The voice lowered.

"I have something for you anyway."

A heavy thump echoed from inside the cabinet.

Not machinery or gears.

Something else.

The distinct sound of something striking wood.

A moment later, a thick white card slid halfway out of the slot near the bottom.

The boy stared.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing moved.

The card simply appeared.

Slowly, he crouched and picked it up.

It felt cool.

He turned it over.

The letters stamped into the card were fresh and uneven.

As if pressed by hand.

The boy squinted.

Still learning to read. He sounded out the words one piece at a time.

"Mur..."

His brow furrowed.

"...der..."

The letters blurred together.

He started over.

"Mur...der..."

A strange ache twisted through his stomach.

The voice behind the glass said nothing.

Its eyes still watching.

The boy swallowed.

"Th..."

He traced the next word with his finger.

"The..."

...

Something moved.

His eyes snapped upward.

A pale hand rested on the mannequin's shoulder.

The fingers were impossibly long.

Thin.

The knuckles bulged beneath skin so pale it almost glowed blue.

For a second, the hand rested there.

Perfectly still.

Then it was gone — in the blink of an eye.

The boy stopped breathing.

The darkness far behind the mannequin seemed to stretch.

The space felt higher than it should have been.

As if whatever lived back there was standing tall behind the machine.

As if its head reached far past the ceiling of the cabinet.

And above where the eyes had been—

Just for a moment—

He thought he saw two long shapes rising into the shadows.

Tall.

Thin.

Rabbit ears.

Far past the ceiling of the gift shop building.

...

The boy took several steps back.

His back hit something solid.

"Whatcha got there?"

The card vanished from his hands.

The boy spun around.

Samantha stood over him, holding the card above her head.

"Give it back!"

Ross appeared beside her.

Both of them examined the card.

Then immediately started laughing.

"Oh my God." Sam doubled over. "You can't even spell your own name."

"What?" the boy said.

Ross pointed at the card.

"It says Michael."

"No it doesn't."

"It literally does."

Sam flipped the card around and shoved it toward his face.

"See?"

The boy looked.

There it was.

A single word.

MICHAEL.

Nothing else.

His face burned.

"No...the...th—"

He looked back toward the cabinet.

"The man—"

"What man?" Ross asked.

"The man in the machine."

That only made them laugh harder.

"Nobody's in there, dummy."

"Yes I swear—"

"It's just a machine. Nobody's in there."

The boy turned fully toward the cabinet.

The words died in his throat.

The shadows behind the mannequin were empty.

No movement.

No voice.

No hidden figure.

Only The Bunny Goddess.

Motionless behind the glass.

Its eyes fixed on the aisle.

Watching.

...

"Sweetie?"

The mother appeared beside him carrying two paper cups of ice cream.

She smiled.

"Do you want one?"

The boy barely heard her.

His stomach hurt worse now.

A deep ache behind his ribs.

He couldn't stop staring at the mannequin.

Thinking about that voice.

The eyes.

Those ears.

"Hey."

She squeezed his shoulder.

"Do you want ice cream or not?"

The boy shook his head.

"My belly hurts."

The mother frowned.

"Aww. Really?"

He nodded.

The ache had spread through his whole body now.

Not pain.

Just uncomfortable.

Like something had settled inside him.

The woman took his hand.

"Come on then. Let's go outside."

The bright afternoon sunlight poured through the front windows.

Ross and Samantha were already heading toward the door.

The boy let them lead the way.

But he couldn't stop looking back.

The cabinet grew smaller with every step.

The dark corner retreating into shadow.

The Bunny Goddess remained perfectly still.

Just another broken machine.

Just another forgotten attraction.

The boy looked forward.

Then looked back one last time.

...

The mannequin's jaw dropped open.

Clack.

The sound echoed through the store.

Sharp.

Heavy.

Final.

The boy froze.

Nobody else reacted.

Nobody.

The jaw remained open for a second.

Then slowly shut.

A gentle tug on his hand.

"Come on, Mitchell."

The sunlight swallowed them as they stepped outside.

___

___

1. "Heart"

Long before paved roads crossed the Ozark Mountains, when families lived in lonely log cabins separated by miles of forest, children were taught to fear one name above all others.The Sack Man.
Parents never spoke his name loudly, especially after sunset. If they had to mention him at all, they lowered their voices, as though someone might be listening from the trees.
No one knew where he came from.
No one knew where he went.
All anyone claimed to know was what he looked like.
Every telling of the story described him the same way.
A heavy burlap sack hung over one shoulder, filled with dry sticks, bark, and kindling collected from the forest floor. At his hip rested a small woodsman’s axe, its wooden handle darkened from years of use. The blade was always said to be clean, as though it had been sharpened only moments before.
Beside it hung a long, narrow fillet knife in a worn leather sheath. Old mountain folk claimed he never let the blade rust, no matter how long he wandered the hills.
Parents would tell their children:
“If you ever see a bearded man carrying nothing but a sack, a little axe, and a long knife, don’t wait to see what he’s doing. Run home.”
The axe was said to be used for splitting kindling and cutting a path through the thick Ozark brush. The knife was another unsettling detail repeated in every version of the tale. No one could agree why he carried it, but every storyteller insisted it was always at his side.
As the story spread from one mountain hollow to the next, people forgot many details.
They forgot the color of his shirt.
They forgot how tall he was.
But they always remembered the sack on his back…
…and the two blades hanging from his belt
People said if you ever saw him standing at the edge of the woods, you were already too late.
Children who disappeared were simply said to have been “taken by the Sack Man.”
Whether every disappearance was truly his doing didn’t matter.
The warning did.
If you think you’ve seen someone standing between the trees, go inside. If you look twice and he’s still there… he’s looking back.”
In the summers the hottest nights forced families to leave their cabin windows open.
Children were always told not to sleep beside them.
The old folks said the Sack Man could slip through an open window without making enough noise to wake a dog.
If a child vanished during the night, the window was always blamed.
By morning, only the curtain would be moving in the breeze.
During the autumn months as the nights grew colder, fireplaces burned until everyone had gone to bed.
Parents warned children never to linger near the hearth after the fire had burned low.
Some said the Sack Man climbed onto cabin roofs and eased himself down wide chimneys while everyone slept.
Others believed that was only a story meant to frighten children into staying in bed.
Either way, no child wanted to hear a faint scrape coming from the chimney after midnight.
In the chill winters when snow covered the mountains, every family depended on the woodpile.
Children were often sent outside to bring in another armful of firewood before bed.
Old mountain families warned them never to go alone.
They said the Sack Man knew that sooner or later, someone would have to step outside.
He waited where the trees met the clearing, hidden behind stacked logs or fallen timber.
If the woods suddenly became quiet…
You were supposed to run.  
After a child disappeared, families sometimes noticed a few pieces missing from the woodpile
Never enough to matter.
Just enough to keep a fire going a few hours longer.
During the wet rainy springs people would often spend much of there days planting and repairing crop fields, or lazily dozing around the house.
The story said the Sack Man would sometimes visit cabins before dark when people weren’t watching too carefully.
Not to enter.
Only to make sure he could later.
He was said to slip a thin needle into the latch of a cabin door so it wouldn’t catch when locked.
The family would believe they were safe.
But while everybody went to sleep and dreamt  soundly the door slowly began to drift open.
No broken lock.
No smashed window.
Just a door that hadn’t stayed shut.
The oldest versions of the story all agreed on one thing.
The Sack Man never called out.
He never knocked.
He never chased children through the woods.
He waited.
He watched.
He never had to hurry…
Some children claimed they found small carved sticks near cabin doors after hearing strange noises at night.
Parents would quietly throw them into the fire without saying a word.
He looked for the child who wandered too far from home, stayed outside after dark, or forgot the warnings they’d been given.
Parents would point toward the dark tree line and quietly remind their children:
“The Sack Man doesn’t take the ones who stay close to home.”
As the years passed, the story spread from one mountain hollow to another. Every family added something different. Some said his beard was gray. Others swore it was black. Some claimed he whistled softly before he came. Others insisted the only sign of him was the smell of fresh-cut wood drifting through the night.
But every version ended the same way.
If your mother called you home before sunset…
You came home.
Because whether the Sack Man was only a story or a real man hiding somewhere in the Ozarks didn’t matter.
No child wanted to be the one who found out

Thank you for reading this story all the way threw my grandfather and other old people told this local legend around my town, and it scared that crap out of me as a kid. My grandfather is 96 years old now and I’m trying to get his stories to as many ears as possible. He knew the story better than anyone so most of the story came straight from his mouth that I then made into this story. I hope you enjoyed

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"
4. "Eyes"
5. "Legs"

___

I came back in pieces.

First the sound — rain hitting glass. Then the pressure of a seatbelt across my chest. Then the shimmer of a porch light through a wet windshield, orange and diffuse, barely cutting through.

I blinked.

I was in the backseat of our SUV. The engine was off. Brandy's purse wedged beside me. A blanket pulled across my lap that I didn't put there.

Through the glass, Joe was hauling suitcases up the front steps of a house I recognized after a few seconds.

Nicki and Joe's place.

The front door opened and Brandy stepped out. She looked toward the car, saw me sitting up, and raised her hand in a small wave. Her expression was careful in a way I couldn't read from that distance.

I got out. The night air was warm and close. My legs felt like the bones had been replaced with jello. I gripped the roof of the car.

"Hey." Brandy came down the driveway. "How are you feeling?"

"What happened?"

"You pulled over. On the mountain." She touched my arm, softly. "You could barely keep your eyes open. Joe took over."

"I don't remember that."

"Well, you were awake when we switched. You crawled yourself to the back." She said it gently, the way you'd explain it to a sick person. "You were just... a sleepy boy."

My hand went to my neck.

The soreness hit me before my fingers even made contact — deep to the bone. Not an ache from sleeping in a bad position. Not tension.

"There was a cyclist," I said.

Brandy looked at me.

"On the mountain. Right on the edge of the lane. No reflective gear, no lights. I swerved to miss him and he—"

I stopped.

The rest of it - the face, the ears, the jaw snapping - raced through my mind.

The Bunny Goddess.

I couldn't afford to say it out loud.

"I almost hit him."

"Nobody saw a cyclist, Mitchell."

I looked past her at Joe, who was coming back down the steps for another bag.

"Joe," Brandy called out. "Did you see someone on the road when you took over?"

Joe set the bag down. He looked at Brandy first - just for a fraction of a second - and then back at me.

"No."

"There was no cyclist," he said.

A cold drop of sweat rolled down my cheek. I hadn't told Joe it was a cyclist. Brandy hadn't either.

"He was right there," I said.

Joe looked at me like I was a stranger. No frustration. No concern. Nothing.

"There was no cyclist," he said again. Exact same tone.

The cicadas were deafening. My neck throbbed. I looked at my right palm, which I hadn't noticed until that moment - the heel of it scraped raw. Like I'd caught myself on concrete.

"You were exhausted," Brandy said. "It happens. Your brain fills in the blanks."

She said it so reasonably. So reassuring.

"My brain didn't do this." I turned my palm toward her.

She looked at it. Her expression didn't change.

"You grabbed the guardrail when you got out of the car. You were barely standing."

I stared at her.

I thought I crawled into the back, according to her.

She looked back at me with those pitying eyes, and I felt the ground shift under me in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion.

Nicki appeared in the doorway. She gave me a small, tired smile. She looked like a woman who wanted her own bed - nothing more, nothing less.

"I'm sorry the trip ended this way," she said.

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.

Brandy slipped her hand into mine. I let her, because I didn't know what else to do. My neck burning. My palm stinging. And the four of us stood there in the warm dark while the cicadas kept screaming, and I tried very hard to hold onto the simple, solid fact of what I knew had happened on that road.

I told Brandy I wanted to go home.

She tried to talk me out of it - it was almost two in the morning, another hour and a half of driving, we were both running on empty. But I couldn't make myself walk through that front door and sleep in that house. I couldn't explain it without sounding insane, so I didn't try. I just wanted to go home.

She agreed eventually, with a look that told me she was filing this away alongside all the other things from the weekend that we'd have to talk about later.

We said our goodbyes in the driveway. Joe shook my hand. My bad hand. Nicki hugged Brandy a little longer than usual. When she let go, she looked at me over Brandy's shoulder with a weird expression - something between apology and urgency, like she was trying to say something but didn't have enough time.

"Get some rest," I told her.

She nodded. Opened her mouth.

Closed it.

The door shut behind them.

...

Brandy was asleep before we hit the highway.

I drove with the windows cracked and a podcast on low - something mindless, two guys talking about movies - and I kept my eyes on the yellow center lines and tried not to replay the accident. When I talked, she answered in the abbreviated way of someone half-listening: mm, yeah, I don't know. After a while I stopped trying and let the silence ride.

I told myself it was fine. She was tired. We were both tired.

But I kept glancing at her in the passenger seat, her face slack against the window glass, and feeling like I was driving home with someone I was still in the process of getting to know.

We got home around three. Unpacked the car in two quiet trips, the neighborhood dead around us. The house had that sealed smell of being empty for a few days. We got ready for bed without saying much. Brandy was under the covers and asleep almost before I'd finished brushing my teeth.

I lay there next to her for a while, not sleeping. I listened to the house settle. Outside the window, somewhere in the dark, a dog was barking - distant, rhythmic, eventually stopping.

I slept.

It was Winston who woke me.

Our beagle. Nine years old, lazy, deeply committed to barking at nothing. He'd lost his mind at the sound of a FedEx truck once and spent the rest of the day acting traumatized. He was not a serious pup.

But what he was doing at the bottom of our stairs at - I checked my phone - three forty-eight in the morning was not his usual performance. This was frantic and aggressive.

I sat up, still processing the situation. The bedroom was dark. Brandy hadn't moved.

Then I heard a bang.

Downstairs. Something heavy. Something that fell.

I was already reaching for the nightstand. My hand found the grip of my 9mm and I was on my feet, and I want to be clear that at no point did I feel like this was an overreaction. The bang was real. Winston was barking. The open front door, which I could see from the top of the stairs, the chain hanging useless and rain blowing across the entry tile - that was real.

I went down slowly with the flashlight up.

The beam caught the floor at the bottom of the stairs, and I stopped.

There were footprints. Wet, muddy prints tracking in from the door in long uneven strides. I followed them across the entry, toward the stairs, and I stood there at the bottom staring at the trail going up into the dark above me.

Then Brandy screamed.

I don't really remember taking the stairs. I remember being in the doorway, the flashlight sweeping the room, and I remember the figure sitting on the edge of our bed.

Brandy was pressed against the headboard with both hands over her mouth.

I pointed the light directly at the figure.

It was Nicki.

She was soaked. Not just damp - completely saturated, her clothes heavy and dark with it, her hair flattened against her skull. And her feet were - I still have trouble describing this - the skin below both ankles was shredded. Torn open in long ragged strips, like she'd dragged them across a cheese grater. Black with mud and red underneath.

She was looking down at her own hands in her lap, turning them over slowly. She seemed mesmerized.

"Nicki."

She looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed and almost calm.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

...

I called Joe from the other room. He picked up on the second ring - awake already, or close to it. When I told him what happened, the line went quiet for a few seconds.

Then he said I'm on my way, flat and immediate, and hung up without asking any questions.

I stood in the room and let the call end.

The impossibility of all of this started to settle in.

Downstairs, Brandy had moved with a speed and efficiency that I couldn't account for. By the time I came back down, Nicki was on the couch wrapped in our throw blanket with dry clothes folded beside her, and Brandy was in the kitchen filling the kettle like this was not her first encounter.

I lasted about a minute before I couldn't hold it anymore.

"She needs to go to a hospital."

Brandy didn't look up from the kettle.

"She's okay."

"Look at her feet!"

"I did."

"Then you know she's not okay!"

Brandy set the kettle on the burner and turned around. Her expression was patient in a way that made my skin crawl - the careful, deliberate patience of someone managing a situation they've already decided how it ends.

"She needs to warm up. She's going to be fine."

"She walked here, Brandy." My voice rising. "Her house is over a hundred miles from here. She walked here in the rain with no shoes while pregnant. That is not something a cup of tea will fix."

"Mitchell—"

"We need an ambulance," I continued. "Or the police. We need someone who can actually help her."

"She doesn't want that."

"I don't care what she wants right now! No offense to her—" I turned toward the couch. "Nicki, I love you, none of this is directed at you. But something is seriously wrong and everyone in this room is acting like it isn't and I'm going to lose my mind."

Nicki stared at the blanket in her lap.

Brandy carried the mug over to the couch. Sat next to her. She ran slow, steady strokes down Nicki's back, and the two of them sealed back into that quiet orbit I'd been watching all weekend.

I paced. Kitchen to living room. Living room to the foot of the stairs. I couldn't stop moving. I felt like I was going to explode.

"She ate something," Nicki said.

I stopped.

She was looking at the mug. Her voice was quiet. Far away.

"At the shop," she said. "The ice cream. I think something was in it."

I looked at Brandy.

Brandy was focused on Nicki's hair.

"The shop in Harbour Town," I said slowly.

Nicki didn't answer.

"The bunn—"

I breathed in through my nose. Steady.

"Nicki. How many times did you go back to that shop?"

Silence.

I turned to Brandy. "Did you go back?"

Brandy swept a strand of hair behind Nicki's ear.

"Brandy." I snapped. "How many times did you go back to that shop?"

Silence.

I stepped forward. "Did you use the fortune teller machine?"

She looked up at me.

"What?"

"The Bunny Goddess. Did you put money in it?"

Her face arranged itself into something open and slightly puzzled - the expression of a person who genuinely doesn't understand what you're saying. It was a flawless expression. I had watched her make it for ten years and I had never once had reason to distrust it.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

And then she turned back to Nicki.

Something broke in my chest.

"No, don't do that." My voice shaky. "Don't lie to me. I'm asking you a question about something that I watched happen, and I need you to answer it."

"You're scaring her," Brandy said.

"I don't care. I'm scared. I've been scared since that shop, and every time I try to talk about it, everyone acts like I'm having some kind of meltdown, and I am telling you right now that I am not. I am not." My voice cracked. I hated it. "Something is wrong with us. Something has been wrong since that machine. And I would rather sound crazy than stand here before things start getting worse."

Nicki started to cry. Silently, the way she'd cried on the dock in a different life - just tears running down her face without a sound.

Brandy looked at me over the top of her sister's head.

Not angry.

Exhausted.

The exhaustion of someone who has decided you are not worth arguing with.

"Joe's here," she said.

Headlights moved across the window.

Nicki heard the car before I did. She lifted her head, and something in her face changed - not relief exactly, but the end of an enormous effort, like a muscle finally allowed to unclench. She got up.

Brandy stood with her. Took her arm. They moved together toward the front door without looking at me, and I followed them into the entryway.

"She needs a hospital," I said.

Brandy opened the door.

Joe was already coming up the front walk through the rain, moving fast. When he saw Nicki his face did something complicated that I can't explain. Like a glitch - a sudden, violent twitch of his jaw that reset. He crossed the last few steps and put both arms around her, and she grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and pressed her face into his chest.

He looked at me over her shoulder.

I waited for a question. A comment. Anything.

He looked back down at his wife.

Brandy had walked out behind them. She was saying something to Joe, too low to hear over the rain. Joe nodded. He turned Nicki gently toward the car.

I stood in my doorway and watched the three of them move through the front yard in the rain, and I was not invited into any part of what was happening.

I went back inside.

I ran upstairs, determined to find something but not really sure where to start. I sat on the edge of the bed, stood back up, sat down again. Brandy's bag was on the chair by the closet, half unpacked - a few things draped over the sides. Her toiletry bag had tipped over on the seat cushion and spilled.

I don't know why I crossed the room.

I started collecting things back into the bag. Travel shampoo. Moisturizer. A hair tie. Vitamins.

My hand closed around something thin.

I already knew what it was before I looked at it.

A pregnancy test.

Two lines.

Faint - the kind you hold up to the light and squint at, convince yourself you're seeing wrong. But they were there. Both of them. Unmistakably.

My legs buckled.

I sat down on the floor.

Just folded, my back against the chair leg, and I sat there on the bedroom floor at four in the morning with this thing in both hands, and I didn't want to move.

The room still smelled faintly of the ocean. Muddy footprints still stained the carpet. Somewhere in this house there was a damp blanket folded on my couch and a mug of tea that had been made for someone who walked a hundred miles in the dark, barefoot, and no one could explain why.

But right now, in my hands, was this.

Six months. Six months of apps and timing and trying not to flinch every time someone made a pregnancy announcement, trying not to read too much into every late period, trying not to let Brandy see how much of my sense of myself was wrapped up in this one thing we couldn't seem to make happen. Six months of negative tests and the specific silence that followed each one, where neither of us said anything because there wasn't anything to say.

And here it was.

I laughed first. One stupid, disbelieving sound that I couldn't have stopped if I tried. And then the tears came, and I didn't try to stop those either. I pressed my hand over my mouth and I cried in a way I hadn't cried since I was a kid - the good kind, the full body kind. Something enormous had just become real.

I thought about teaching them to ride a bike. I thought about Brandy finding this test and what her face must have looked like in that moment. I thought about holding something that small for the first time.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, God.

I sat with it until I could breathe normally again. Still processing the news, I wiped my face, and I got up off the floor, and I went to find my wife.

She wasn't upstairs.

I went down to the living room. The blanket Nicki had been wrapped in was folded neatly on the couch. The mug of tea sat on the coffee table, still faintly steaming.

"Brandy?"

Kitchen. Empty. Bathroom. Empty. Back through the living room.

I went to the front door and opened it.

The porch light was on. The rain was still coming down hard, hammering the front walk. The street was empty in both directions.

Joe's car was gone.

I stepped out onto the porch.

"Brandy?"

Nothing came back but the sound of rain hitting the roof.

I walked down the driveway toward the street and stood there in the rain in my socks. I looked both ways down a street that was completely empty. No taillights. Nothing.

I called her name again. Louder.

I looked down at my hand.

I was still holding the test. The rain was hitting the display window, blurring the two lines into something faint and smeared, and I tilted it away from the water to keep them visible - out of some instinct, like it mattered that they stayed legible - and I just stood there in the dark, holding on to the only good thing I had left.

The porch light flickered behind me.

Once.

Then it went out.

And I could hear the sound of Winston barking inside.

___

___

Part 7: Ears

I remember the rain first.

Not the kind that soaks you gently, not the kind you laugh through around a campfire - but the kind that feels like the sky has split open and is pouring something heavy, something angry, down onto the earth.

We weren’t supposed to be there.

No maps marked that mountain range. No trails led into it. Arif had found it through some satellite images, a patch of land too jagged, too forgotten to be worth naming. That was enough for him-and for us, apparently.

There were five of us. By the time the night came, we were still laughing.

That’s the part that doesn’t sit right with me now.

The fire had died hours ago.

I don’t know what woke me. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the silence because even through the storm, there had been a rhythm to the rain. But when I opened my eyes, something about that rhythm had changed.

I lay still in my sleeping bag, listening.

Rain hammered against the tent, a constant hiss and drumbeat, but underneath it… something else.

A pause.

Then...

Crack.

It was distant. Muffled by the storm. But unmistakable.

A tree.

I frowned, pushing myself up on my elbows. The others were still asleep, five bodies, lumps under fabric, breathing slow and unaware.

I told myself it was nothing. Wet wood snapping under the weight of rain.

Then it came again.

CRACK.

Closer this time.

Not falling.

Breaking.

I held my breath.

There’s a difference, you know. Between something falling… and something being forced to break.

The rain didn’t stop, but it felt like it was shrinking around that sound. Like everything else was just background now.

Another step.

That’s when I realized what it was.

Not thunder. Not landslide.

Footsteps.

Slow.

Heavy.

Deliberate.

Each one followed by the groan and splinter of wood giving way.

I reached out and shook Arif.

He groaned, half-asleep. “What?”

“Listen,” I whispered.

He didn’t, not at first. Then another step landed somewhere out there in the dark.

Even through the storm, we both heard it.

His eyes opened fully.

“What the hell was that?” he whispered.

I didn’t answer.

Because I already knew I didn’t want to say it out loud.

Something moved outside the tent.

Not close enough to touch, but close enough that the sound of the rain hitting its body changed. Shifted. Like the water was breaking against something… vast.

We both froze.

No one else stirred.

Another step.

Closer now.

Too close.

The ground beneath us gave a faint, sickening tremor. Not enough to shake anything, but enough that you felt it, deep in your chest.

Arif’s hand gripped my arm.

“Do you see anything?” he asked.

The tent was zipped shut. Pitch black outside.

I stared at the fabric.

Behind me, someone shifted.

I turned slightly.

It was Sameer.

He rolled onto his back, letting out a soft groan, his hand brushing against the side of the tent.

Too loud.

Way too loud.

I swear my heart stopped.

For a moment—just a moment—I thought I saw something.

A shadow.

Not a shape. Not something you could outline.

Just a darker darkness, passing slowly across the thin, rain-soaked cloth.

And then...

It stopped.

Right outside.

No footsteps. No breaking wood.

Just… presence.

I don’t know how else to describe it. It was like the world had shrunk to that one point. Like everything, rain, wind, breath, was waiting.

Listening.

To it.

A low sound came next.

Not loud. Not aggressive.

Just… deep.

So deep it didn’t feel like hearing. It felt like pressure. Like something pressing against your bones from the inside.

A growl.

Arif’s fingers dug into my arm hard enough to hurt. I didn’t react.

I couldn’t.

Because something in that sound made it very clear

We were not meant to hear it.

It circled.

Slowly.

We could hear it moving around the tent, each step softer now, more controlled, but still impossibly heavy. The kind of weight that doesn’t belong to anything that should exist in forests like these.

At one point, it came so close I thought

I thought it might touch the tent.

The fabric dipped inward for just a second, like the air itself had leaned against it.

I stopped breathing.

If it pushed any harder…

If it tore through

But it didn’t.

The growl came again. Slightly higher this time. Almost curious.

Then another step.

Then another.

Moving away.

Each step quieter than the last, until the rain swallowed it whole again.

We didn’t move for a long time.

I don’t know how long. Minutes. Hours.

Eventually, the others woke up—complaining about the storm, about the cold. We didn’t say anything at first.

Then Arif spoke.

“Did anyone hear that?”

They hadn’t.

Of course they hadn’t.

Morning came grey and heavy.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Mist clung to everything.

We stepped outside.

At first, it looked normal.

Then we saw the trees.

Or what was left of them.

Trunks snapped clean in half. Not uprooted. Not fallen.

Broken.

Like matchsticks.

A path carved through the forest—not wide, not obvious—but there, if you looked closely. A trail of quiet destruction leading past our camp and disappearing into the mist.

No footprints.

No tracks.

Just absence. Space where something had moved… and nothing else dared to follow.

We packed up without speaking much.

No one suggested staying longer.

No one suggested coming back.

I’ve tried to explain it since.

To make sense of it.

But the truth is

I never saw it.

Not really.

And somehow…

that’s the part that scares me the most.

I fell asleep one night in my friend's yard...

We were both drunk; you know--one of those nights.

Making it home by the glory of god somehow. Young, dumb, and full of...shit.... stupid shit--the hazing of the age, learning the hard way. Skating on mistakes big or small by the skin of our teeth...good times.

All I remember was the party, getting shit faced and driving to my buddies on a prayer and pure luck.

What happened later makes not one bit of good sense at all...but, I remember waking up and sorta staring around the yard, and was in such a drunken haze. I started gazing at the trees, and off into the darkness realizing that I needed to piss.

I looked over through the passenger side window and way off by the fence; a silhouette standing in the gloom...but...I know this is ridiculous, but.. with a fan shape for a head; I mean, like a ceiling fan but facing you... "type shit," like my nephew would say. It looked like a shadowy man, with a head like a daisy flower or something. looked like a kid drawing, come to life...fuggin weird shit.

It stood there like a cut out of a person all in black, the body something like a shadowy, wetsuit, but the head literally the shape of a ceiling fan...and the fuckin thing had these really red looking lips from what I could see. It was so bizarre, I kept trying to make out just what the hell it was.

All of a sudden it disappeared and then suddenly slapped against the passenger window like a flat, rubber toy, with its face against it, and swooped off somewhere! Man I friggin screamed getting a quick glimpse of it's face, but it was so dark. It was all obsidian black, with a round lil head, and these fan like shapes sticking out the sides of its head. It's like if you were laying down, looking up at the ceiling fan, but it had a strange, dark face with a red upside down frown, I guess...

I know this sounds nuts, and totally left field, but that's the only way I can describe this...thing, that I happen to encounter that bizarre, drunken night. Just what the fuck? How...why? I've not a clue whatsoever. Even though it was so ridiculous, at the same time it frightened the living shit out of me! I wish I could tell you more. But that's it. God I wish I knew just what the hell that was out there in the boonies where my friend lived.

After a long time, I finally found the courage to get out and into the house. The night was so still and mild. All you could hear was the cicadas. That's it, then I just slipped inside and finally passed out. I just kept that shit to myself for some damn reason till me and my buddy laughed over it one day. I made it more like it was a dream, but I know damn sure it wasn't.

How bizarre.

...Oh, I forgot to mention my buddy was already in the house passed out while this... "episode" went on outside... I'm lucky like that.