I was nearly three quarters of an hour into my hike on Long Trail in the Appalachian Mountains. It was an arduous journey I well remember, because it went on for hours longer than it should. I got lost. Believing I could wander off the path and make it back. How wrong I was! And how lucky I was to have made it out. What I encountered off the trail… I still don’t know if it was a dream.
As I wandered away into the trees with compass and topographical map in hand, I felt confident. I was a survivalist, I falsely believed. It was just after I began my trek into the trees, that a thin veil of mist accumulated, and I did not become discouraged.
“Spooky,” I chuckled thinking no one could hear me…
“Keep walking.” I heard a faint, raspy whisper originating from nowhere but within the thickening veil of mist, as it suddenly blurred the trunks of trees and shrouded what phantom that was speaking to me. Still, I was not discouraged in the white gloom.
I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. “Who’s out there?” I called out.
“Step through the fog.”
I remained where I was for I felt a sudden nauseous feeling deep in the pit of my stomach and a migraine that seemed to come out of nowhere. My hands even began trembling, which is unheard of for me as I am known to be very calm even in tense situations. But this was an eerie calm… a calm that gradual drifted as a sheet of fog into my direction and folded over my trembling body.
“Show yourself!” I yelled.
Silence…
Moments had passed which seemed like minutes. I decided to be both foolish and bold. So, snapping twigs beneath my boot, I stepped forward into the fog.
I remember my eyes bulging with anticipation as they fleeted about the blank whiteness. So thick already, I blindly groped my way on, snapping spiny branches as I passed. I kept my hand before my face as not to be whipped by a branch.
“Come closer.” the raspy voice continued.
And as I stood in trepidation, a blurred figure took shape before me. The outstretched arms is what a first saw. Stretched towards me then the figure itself was evidently groping their way through the fog as well.
“Hello?” I shouted.
“I cannot see,” the figure hissed, “Come to me.”
And as the figure emerged, I saw something that filled my very soul with horror. Two gaping black holes where her eyes should’ve been. And her face was deathly pale, her arms were as thin as the handle of a rake, her teeth were either missing or they were a deep yellow.
“I cannot see you. Come to me!” she said.
I hiked back, groping my way through the fog and trees. I made it hours later onto the trail and made it back home. I have never told this story to anybody until now. Was I dreaming?
