The sign had been there for months, nailed crookedly to a pair of posts at the entrance to the old campground road. The white paint was peeling, the lettering smeared as if someone had tried to scrub it away with their bare hands.NO TRESPASSING.
UNSAFE CONDITIONS.
BY ORDER OF THE PROVINCE.
But warnings meant little to people like Travis Mullen.
He parked his dusty pickup just off the gravel shoulder, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment, staring at the road ahead. The path into the forest looked innocent enough—just a narrow lane where weeds had begun to creep through cracked pavement. Trees arched over it like a tunnel, their branches tangled and dark, blotting out most of the afternoon sun.
Travis smirked. “Unstable ground,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Yeah, sure.”
He’d heard the stories, of course. Everyone had. Campers slaughtered, police cover-ups, missing bodies, and a creature that wore a melted mask like a second face. But Travis didn’t believe in monsters. He believed in profit.
His channel, Backwoods Truth, was desperate for a comeback. He’d spent the last year chasing “haunted” barns and abandoned hospitals, but the views had dropped. People wanted something real. Something that felt dangerous.
Cropsy was perfect.
He grabbed his camera bag, a flashlight, and a crowbar—more for show than anything—and stepped out into the cooling air. The forest greeted him with the smell of damp soil and old smoke, like a campfire that had died long ago but refused to be forgotten.
The silence bothered him right away.
No birds.
No buzzing insects.
Even the wind seemed hesitant, whispering only at the tops of the trees.
Travis crossed the barrier tape with a grin and filmed himself doing it, holding the camera at arm’s length.
“Alright, folks,” he said, voice loud and confident. “Today we’re heading into the Cropsy woods. The government says stay out, but you know me—I don’t take orders from anyone.”
He laughed, but it came out thinner than he expected.
As he walked deeper, the road narrowed until it became a dirt path. Blackened tree stumps appeared now and then, remnants of the fire that had supposedly “cleansed” the campground. But there was no new growth here. No bright green life pushing through.
Only dead soil and twisted roots.
After ten minutes, he found the first cabin remains.
It wasn’t a cabin anymore—just a skeleton of charred beams and melted metal. The air around it felt colder, and the smell of burnt wood was so strong it made his eyes water.
Travis stepped closer and shone his flashlight into the wreckage.
Something glinted.
He crouched, reaching into the ash. His fingers touched metal, half-buried and warm, like it had been sitting in sunlight—except there was no sunlight here.
He pulled it free.
A piece of a mask.
Not plastic. Not rubber.
Something thicker. Harder. Like metal fused with bone.
Travis swallowed.
His camera caught the tremor in his hand.
“Okay,” he whispered, suddenly less amused. “That’s… that’s definitely not normal.”
Then he heard it.
A soft rustling sound from behind him, like leaves being dragged across dirt.
He spun around, flashlight beam cutting through the darkness between the trees.
Nothing.
Only fog, rolling in low, curling around the trunks like pale fingers.
Travis exhaled, forcing a laugh. “Wind,” he said, but his voice cracked.
The fog thickened.
And the silence became heavier, as if the forest itself was holding its breath.
Then, from far off, came a sound that made his blood turn cold.
A slow, wet crack… like something bending where it shouldn’t.
Travis stood frozen, staring into the fog.
And in the distance, barely visible through the mist, a shape shifted behind the trees—too tall, too thin, moving wrong.
Travis backed away.
His boot hit something solid.
He looked down.
A melted, blackened mask lay in the dirt, face-up, staring at him with empty eyeholes.
And inside those holes…
Something glimmered.
Not reflection.
Not glass.
A faint red pulse, like an eye opening in the dark.
Travis screamed and stumbled backward, dropping his camera.
The screen hit the ground and kept recording.
Fog swallowed the lens.
And a voice, raspy and broken like burnt wood scraping stone, whispered from the trees:
“Back… again…”
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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