#btm-txt

I’m embarrassed to say, but… I wasn’t as popular as I wished I was as a kid. I was picked on a lot for a lot of bullshit reasons. Especially to do with stuff I couldn’t help, like my fur colour or how small I was. I hated it. I was a huge target for a lot of the big kids. And for those asking ‘What about the counsellors?’ Well, you know those typical teenager-20-year-old counsellors in horror movies? That were less focused on the kids and more on smoking, drinking and putting their tongues down each other's throats? Yeah, those were the type of counsellors I had, and the few decent ones- well, just didn’t really do much to help me. 

What made it worse was that despite this, I was so desperate to seem cool to most of the kids. I did a lot of shit that wound up just making me look stupid or getting me hurt. Kids can be fucking cruel.

Anyway, not important.

It was evening time and just about everyone was sat around a giant bonfire, just doing their own thing. Honestly, due to how most of the counsellors were focused on themselves, I'm shocked that I don’t remember a lot of the kids sneaking off. Maybe they did. Wouldn't surprise me. I don’t remember quite what happened at this point, but a bunch of the little shit ‘cool kids’ that I wanted to be friends with so had just finished doing another hazing ritual to me. I even don’t remember what it was, but I do know it was embarrassing and upsetting enough to make me come up with some excuse to leave.

(imagine illustrated by @btm-txt)

I remember announcing that I was gonna ditch this place and go into the woods alone, and as a plus for me at the time, a lot of the kids thought that was ballsy since it was getting dark and not really recommended for any of us to be out there after dark. Didn't stop me, though, and probably didn't stop other kids doing it either. I didn’t care, though. I just wanted to go somewhere to cry alone without being picked on anymore. As pathetic as it sounds, this wasn’t the first time I came to the woods to cry. In fact, I was caught doing it once, but that just made me go deeper into the woods to avoid getting seen by the other kids. 

I was trying really hard to like it there, but I didn’t. I hated it. I hated it SO much. I wanted to go home so bad. So, out of my embarrassment and homesickness, I just started to bawl my eyes out.  I must’ve sat there crying for a good 10 minutes maybe, until a sound made me go quiet.

SNAP

The break of a stick.

I immediately sat there in dead silence as I quietly began looking around. Now, my first thought would’ve been it was more kids that found me, but you know as much as I do, kids aren’t that sneaky. You’d be hearing giggling and a lot of movement. Hell, a lot of kids I knew at that camp would’ve just barged through to laugh at me, not hide from me. And if it were a counsellor, they’d immediately be approaching me, not hiding either. So… the idea that someone was trying to sneak up on me was already really fucking creepy. 

I didn’t see anything for a bit, no matter where i looked there was just nothing around me except more woods.

Until I turned my head towards another crack of a branch. This time it was closer and louder. I quickly turned, and I saw this... figure. This tall, lingering figure; just standing between the trees in the darkness. it was hunched over, and its arms were long and dangly. It just… wasn’t normal. The one thing I could see clearly were its eyes. At least I think they were. These small white glowing orbs just staring at me. 

(Illustrated by @btm-txt)

You know those times when you’re so scared you just can’t move? That’s what happened. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run but I just couldn’t. I was frozen I just stared at…whatever this fucking thing was. 

I don’t know how long i was locked in a staring match with the thing for. But eventually, it just vanished from my sight. I don’t know where the hell it went, but as soon as it left. I booked it. 

I just ran in a random direction into the woods, which looking back now, was a dumbass move; I dunno why I didn’t go back to the camp, but I guess I just wasn’t thinking. I was just a scared kid who wanted to get away from whatever I saw. After running out of breath and hiding under a fallen tree, I just curled up, trying to catch my breath and calm down. That wasn’t easy, considering I was JUST crying, holding my breath in fear and THEN ran for it. So I may as well have sounded like an asthmatic. Eventually, my breathing calmed down, but I just stayed in that spot. I was too scared to move as you could expect. The woods were eerily quiet except for a few of the typical noises but that didn’t make me feel better. The coldness began to get to me, too, so now I was shaking both out of fear and the cold. 

(Illustrated by @starlitskvader)

“Tiberius?”. I heard someone call my name, I looked up and around but still didn’t see anyone. “Tiberius? Where are you?”. I heard it again; this time the voice was clearer… it was my dad's. My dad’s voice. I had no idea how it was possible but my kid brain didn’t care. I was happy, and I crawled out of my hiding place immediately. I started calling out for him. “Dad?! Dad?! Where are you?” “Come here, Tiberius. I can’t find you”, the voice spoke out again in a weirdly calm tone. If I wasn’t in such a stressful situation, I maybe would’ve picked up on the strange way my dad was talking, but like I said, I didn’t care at the time. I was just relieved that my dad was here and thinking I was gonna finally get out of there and go home. I started going through the woods, following the voice that sounded like my dad but my excitement started slowing down and it started to hit me. The more closer I got to the voice, the more I realised it sounded... off. The strange calmness was still not a warning sign for me, but what was is that the voice just sounded so… shaky? Fake? It sounded like my dad but something about it just didn’t FEEL like it was from him. More like someone trying to do an impression of him, but how was that possible? He was back on the island, ages away from here. No one here would possibly know what he sounded like except for maybe one or two counsellors but that was way too much of a longshot. Why would some counsellor be doing an impression anyway, it made no sense...

I soon stopped when I saw a figure again, the dark outline approached slowly and as it got closer it started to look like my dad. I smiled but… something felt wrong, really wrong. Something in my gut was screaming at me that I needed to run, but I didn’t know why. It was my dad; it had to be, I thought. The figure of my dad stopped, I could see some of the details, the salmon pink fur, the long curled spines, even the clothes, the hiking boots, and all the gear he wears on him. It had to be him, It was uncanny!

But something still felt wrong... “Hello, son. Come here, let's go home”, it stretched it's arms out. My smile vanished… now that I was right there, I really picked up how weird his voice was… something was really wrong with it. ‘Till this day i still can’t pick up on how it was exactly. You just kinda had to be there to know. You could just tell it wasn’t right, and listening to it made you feel like something was crawling up your spine. I didn’t move. “Tiberius? What’s wrong?” it spoke, taking a step forward. I started to notice this-this thing. Its arms were way too long for the body, and 'my dad's hair was starting to move, almost like tentacles or some shit... I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

(Illustrated by @starlitskvader) Stupidly, I spoke up out of nervousness. “W-...who are you?”. “It’s me, son. Come here, give me a hug”. The long arms stretched out even further and closer to me and the figure took a few steps forward, coming completely out of the darkness of the trees showing its face… it was not my father. That face. I don’t know if I could begin to describe it. The smile was huge and unnatural, going all the way to the cheeks, full of uneven teeth that made me think of a fucked-up shark. Rows upon rows of these janked up teeth. The eyes were open wider than I thought possible, the pupils tiny and barely visible. Staring into my fucking soul. And to this day the gaze of this thing, pretending to be my father, has haunted me.

“Come here, son. Come to me”, it spoke as it started approaching me. The voice fell apart and sounded more unnatural. It started moving with a strange twitch and making these strange sounds. After being frozen in utter fear this entire time, my legs finally moved, and I booked it. Just running back as fast as my little legs could take me. The entire time, I could hear a slurry of noises. The best I can describe them was like a bunch of demonic feral sounds, along with fast, savage movement coming after me from behind. I knew it was chasing me; whatever this thing was, it wanted me. I had no idea what it wanted to do with me, but I knew it’d probably result in me being fucking dead. 

I only looked behind me once… and the image of this thing, still trying to appear like my father, running around like a fucking animal. Running on all four of its distorted limbs and it's fucked up face looking up at me. It was at this point I started screaming my lungs out in terror; I didn’t even care if I was crying anymore. That was the least of my worries.

When I finally got out of the woods, I scrambled my way to whatever was closest, which was the stairs to a cabin, I think. I don’t remember how many people approached me at first, but i remember hearing a lot of voices, and eventually, a bunch of counsellors came running over, trying to calm me down. I was screaming, crying and thrashing around for ages. Not even the little shit kids were laughing; everyone was wondering what the fuck was wrong with me.  It took me ages to finally calm down enough, but even then, I just couldn’t explain. I tried to, but it came out as nonsense. I was a scared kid who saw something that was worse than any horror movie I’d heard of at the time. 

Eventually, the adults kinda gave up on trying to get an explanation from me after they kept asking me to ‘stop lying’ or to ‘make some sense’, but I wasn’t. They just assumed I'd get over it after that night or so and I'd be fine.

I was the furthest from it. That night I didn’t get a wink of sleep. I laid awake, shaking and hiding underneath the covers. I don’t remember speaking much, if at all, after that. I just shut down. I didn't do any of the activities. I barely ate. I was practically a shell of a person. I didn’t know how to process what the fuck I just saw.

(Illustrated by @btm-txt) After a few days. Yes. I know. DAYS. My family was finally called, and the counsellors told me my dad was coming to get me ASAP. I couldn’t even be happy about it. I think at that point they just made sure to have a counsellor with me at all times. Dunno what for exactly, since I wasn’t really doing anything and it's not like them being around made any difference to begin with. I guess I just made them super fucking worried.  When my dad got here, with my mom and grandpa, they all rushed towards me. My dad quickly hugged me and picked me up, but I don’t even remember reacting much other than curling up a little into him. Meanwhile, my mom and grandpa went from fussing over me to yelling at the counsellors at the blink of an eye. They were furious. I don't remember what went on with that conversation but I could only imagine what went on.

(illustrated by @btm-txt)

I didn’t hear much else about what they talked about, as my dad just put me in the car with my things already packed. He sat in the back with me on the drive home, just holding me as I laid my head against him. When we got home. My family, mostly my grandpa, wound up suing that summer camp over what happened to me and not helping me much at all during the whole time and not even seeing me go into the woods at all. The camp wound up being charged with gross negligence and closed down not long after. I don’t even think I said anything on the drive home or when I got home. I don’t remember when I started talking again, but I didn’t talk about this that’s for sure. It was hard though, I had nightmares and apparently night terrors for weeks, I’d apparently wake up screaming and when my parents would come to comfort me, I’d fall back asleep and not remember the next morning.  Speaking of no memory, I actually didn’t remember this for a long time. I guess I tried so hard to forget most of this nightmare that I eventually did. Well, most of it. I still remembered two things. One. I always unconsciously remembered something bad happening to me in the woods, so it made me permanently uncomfortable with the idea of going into any woods, forests or any of that shit. To the point I was even terrified of letting my daughter go camping with my dad. I couldn’t even give an explanation as to why I just said I didn’t like it but I didn't stop them. I just made it painfully I didn't like it. I'm not surprised if my Dad was a little disappointed at how much I grew to hate the forest. I know he loves the outdoors and camping, and I knew he was really sad he couldn't share that with me I could see it with my daughter too, how she'd beg me to take her camping to let her try it and I just refused At least they had each other. I always felt bad that I was so against any sort of activity to do with the woods without even having a proper reason for them…until now at least. They never held it against me though, and I'm grateful for that.

And two, even after all of that… I had never forgotten that face. I think after a few years, I thought it was some messed up dream, but it’s imprinted itself into my brain. That horrible fucking face. 

Now that this is fresh in my memory, I actually decided to look up stuff on the area of that camp and that forest… and it turns out. Some weird shit has happened in those woods at night. A lot of people have had stories Stemming from being stalked by an unseen pursuer, being chased by a weird animal, or even like me, having some… thing… look like someone they know approach them and talk to them. After doing more research, a few people think that it’s not a paranormal occurrence or some weird spirit or demon doing this. Instead, these people believe it’s a shapeshifting creature; it goes by many names, but it all means the same. It takes the form of animals and people in order to lure people toward it so it can kill and eat them and or then take their place as their doppelganger.

I don’t believe that entirely, but… I know for sure now that something definitely happened to me in those woods. It wasn’t just a nightmare or a fucked up scenario I imagined. It was real. I honestly don’t know what scenario is worse, if it actually was a dangerous person after me that went way too far, if it was something paranormal or… if there really was a creature in there. Something dangerous. Sometimes, I wonder if… despite all of these years, it’s still there. In the woods. Waiting to lure another person… Not like I’m ever gonna find out for myself, though. I am never EVER going back there. Never.