Travis ran.His boots pounded the dirt path as if the ground itself had become a mouth trying to swallow him whole. Branches whipped his face, cold and wet, and the fog thickened so fast it felt like he was sprinting through water. He didn’t know where he was going. He only knew where he wasn’t going—toward that mask, toward that voice, toward whatever had shifted behind the trees.
His lungs burned. His throat tasted like ash.
Behind him, the forest made no sound at all.
That was the worst part.
No footsteps chasing him, no snarling animal cries, no human yelling. Just silence. A dead, choking quiet that made his own panic sound obscene, like he was the only living thing left in the world.
Then the silence broke.
A slow dragging noise crept through the fog, as if something heavy was being pulled across soil and roots. It wasn’t rushing. It wasn’t hunting with urgency.
It was following.
Travis turned his head for half a second, and his flashlight beam swung wildly into the trees. The light caught nothing but mist and trunks, but he felt it—he felt something watching him from inside the fog.
Not just eyes.
Intent.
He stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against a tree. His camera bag slammed into his ribs. Pain flared, sharp and nauseating, but he forced himself to keep moving.
When he finally burst out into a small clearing, he stopped, doubled over, gasping. The clearing was ringed with scorched earth and blackened stumps. In the centre stood something that made his heart sink.
A wooden post.
And nailed to it… was his camera.
Not the one in his bag.
The one he’d dropped back at the cabin ruins.
It hung there like a warning, dangling by its strap, swinging gently in the fog as if the forest had hung it up for him.
Travis stared, wide-eyed, frozen in disbelief.
“No…” he whispered. “That’s not possible.”
His hands trembled as he approached it. The camera was still on. The red recording light blinked calmly, patiently, like it hadn’t missed a second.
He grabbed it and looked at the screen.
The footage was playing back automatically.
It showed the moment he dropped it. The lens had landed facing the ground, filming the dirt, dead leaves, and the lower half of the trees.
Then the fog rolled in.
And through the fog… something stepped into view.
Travis’ breath caught.
The creature’s legs looked wrong—too long, joints bent at strange angles. Its feet were bare and blackened, as if the skin had burned away long ago and never healed. Every step pressed into the soil like it was heavier than any man should be.
The camera’s microphone picked up a sound.
Not footsteps.
A wet clicking noise, like sap bubbling from a tree wound.
The creature crouched slowly into frame.
Its hands were massive, fingers thick and cracked, the skin looking like bark fused with scar tissue. It reached down and picked up the melted mask Travis had seen.
Then it lifted its head.
And the camera caught its face.
Or what was left of one.
It wore the mask like a growth. Like the melted material had fused into its skull. Behind the eyeholes, something glowed faintly red, pulsing like a heartbeat.
The creature leaned toward the lens.
And it spoke.
Not clearly. Not like a man. But the words came anyway, forced out through a throat that sounded like it was filled with ashes and nails.
“Show… them…”
Travis jerked his eyes away from the screen, shaking violently.
The clearing around him was empty.
But the fog had thickened into walls. The path he’d come from was gone, swallowed up completely.
His flashlight flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then it went out.
Travis stood alone in the dark.
Except he wasn’t alone.
Something exhaled behind him—hot and rotten, smelling of smoke and wet earth.
He didn’t turn around.
He couldn’t.
A voice rasped close to his ear, so close he felt the vibration in his skull.
“You came back…”
Travis’ knees buckled.
He whispered, “Please…”
A hand, heavy as a tree limb, rested on his shoulder.
And the fog swallowed his scream.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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