Greetings wonderful community! My name is Elena and I am 78 years old. Thanks to my grandson Hans through which I discovered this community, I am able to share something with you. I will only post this one story that took me decades to write, because those technology things are not for me. However, I hope that you will find it interesting.
Born in a small village in Central Europe, I have lived there till the age of 19. From 1951, after the discoveries of mangled corpses, the villagers adopted a simple yet mysterious rule that they still observe till today: if you have lost your way, find it back before sunset.
On top of the rule, most of the villagers would not step out of their homes without bags of chilli pepper, as a mean to escape the clutches of an evil entity suspected for the murders; an entity only known as Mirage.
Like many of the young ones in the village, I always felt unconcerned about all that until what had to happen, happened.
***
Summer 1962. Making our way back to the village from an exploration in the mountains, Conrad and I enjoyed our brother and sister moment teasing ourselves about our respective crushes. As two risk addicts, instead of taking the usual and safer path, we opted for a risky move.
Our stupid plan: run across the 150 meters long viaduct, and then through the 85 meters long mountain tunnel that follows, before the passing of a train. After the tunnel, there was enough land to step off the railway and proceed to our village not far away.
There was a train at least every 15 minutes passing across the viaduct, often emerging from the tunnel. Being on the viaduct at such instance required to stand still and so close to the edge, that one wrong move meant a 70 meters free fall to meet rocks and stones. On the other hand, getting caught in the tunnel by the train spelled death.
“Coast is clear!” Conrad shouted after we waited for a train to pass to maximize our chances. Before the train was out of view, we stepped on the viaduct and the run began.
I recall the heat in the air, and the adrenaline rising at each stride I took under the scorching sun. The glinting railway sent gleams of excitement right to my eyes. The sunlight dressed the surrounding mountains and the trees on them with garments of joy. I often think about that view and moment of happiness, and how it contrasted with the darkness that just awaited to befall us.
We reached the tunnel after around a minute, paused to catch our breath while getting our flashlights out of our backpacks. My big brother then smiled at me, giving the signal to continue the run, before he led the way. In the tunnel, we shouted in joy while running, amused by the darkness and cold of the passage till we could see the daylight from a distance.
“Last outside buy the drinks!” Conrad shouted before we both accelerated.
You know, there is a certain feeling when you exit a tunnel. The mere fact to move from darkness to light can inspire and even give hope, a feeling best personified by my brother in the way he lifted his arms high and shouted in victory. However, in our case that day, Conrad and I left darkness and stepped into a nightmare, evident by the way he suddenly stopped his shouting, his run and slowly lowered his arms.
Heavily breathing, we both stared at something surreal after I caught up with him. With instinct, we both looked behind us to check where we came from, but the tunnel is not straight, therefore, we could not see the other side we had left. We looked at each other then looked in front of us, beholding the viaduct and the tunnel entrance we just left behind.
“What the hell is that?” Conrad quietly said, slowly stepping forward and looking around before I imitated him.
Confusion led us to the middle of the viaduct, where we both stood in the middle of two tunnels, a major change in scenery while all the rest remained untouched. Any oncoming train would be the final nail on the coffin for us, so we chose to move forward and we reached the other side of the ‘new’ tunnel. Once again, same viaduct, same tunnel waiting for us.
My brother grabbed my hand, and we ran again, as fast as we could, across the viaduct, and then through the tunnel to no avail. Awaiting on the other side were the same viaduct, and the same tunnel, mocking our efforts. It made me think of the video games that my grandson plays; those in which a moving character can endlessly disappear in the right side of the screen to emerge from the left side and vice versa.
Out of breath, sweating and desperate, Conrad grew more and more agitated while tears felt my eyes, at the realization that this was what the village rule talked about. It did not feel like being lost, rather it felt like being trapped; a trap we had to break out of before sunset.
***
Shivering in fear, I spent the next 40 minutes arguing with Conrad, as we proposed and discarded ideas on how to end the deadly loop. He kept on walking back and forth, growling in nervousness and pulling his hair each time he glanced at his watch.
“Good, but this time we walk.” Conrad said at 3:48 pm, faking a smile to ease the tension after agreeing to my last and desperate suggestion.
At the mercy of the heat, we advanced, sharing one of our water bottles. With our flashlights still ON, we reached the tunnel and started walking through. We hoped to see something different, I even hoped for a train, and something different we saw, shining in the dark of the tunnel.
Dressed in a white robe and looking at us, a smiling little boy of maybe 5 years old stood still in the middle of the railway. We both froze when we spotted him, then continued without saying a word, and stopped again two or three meters from the boy.
“Hey cutie boy! Are you—are you lost?” I said, failing to at least smile back at him.
“Boy? What the hell is—Elena you okay?” Conrad questioned, while the boy remained immobile, smiling at me.
“What you mean? I’m just trying to find out.” I replied.
“Why you talking to that old lady like a little kid? Madam you alright?” Conrad asked.
“What? That’s a little boy can’t you see? Sun fried your brain?” I argued.
“There’s an old lady smiling at me in this dark tunnel, what you—” He argued back and abruptly stopped, as we realized the potential identity of the ‘person’ standing before us.
“Is that some kind of illusion?” I quietly asked. “Mi—Mirage?” I whispered.
The smile vanished from the little boy’s face when he heard that name, and his eyes became all white. He opened his mouth so wide that his cheeks were ripped open, and he let out a disturbing scream. It sounded like different men and women taking turns in screaming, but doing it with the smoothness of a radio tuning.
I gasped and widened my eyes. My heart exploded and I dropped my flashlight. I felt a strong grip on my left arm as Conrad grabbed me, pulling me out of my frozen state and we turned back to run for our lives. Mirage gave chase, and we even forgot the weights of our backpacks slowing us down. We ran as fast as we could in the dark till we saw the tunnel entrance.
Glancing back at my brother running behind me, I caught a glimpse of Mirage, running on four with elongated arms and legs. I first emerged from the tunnel in one piece and quickly noticed that the landscape had slightly changed. Conrad suddenly screamed behind me and I turned. Mirage had wounded him on a shoulder and he lost a portion of his T-shirt and his backpack.
“Run! Run!” Conrad screamed at me, but I froze again, terrified at the idea of watching Mirage kill my brother right before my eyes. Despite his wounds, Conrad kept running and screaming at me, but Mirage screamed in pain at some point. Retreating in the shade created by the mountains, the monster fumed, rolled in pain and transformed.
Conrad stopped near me and turned back to look at Mirage hiding from the sun rays in the shade. We stood on the viaduct in the sunlight and watched Mirage stand up in a new human form, and we understood why the village rule suggested to break out of the loop before sunset.
***
We looked behind us, ready to check out the new difference of the scenery, and hoping to use it to our benefit. However, Mirage did not intend to make things easier for us, and we understood it when we saw what it did. Half of the viaduct was destroyed, leaving an immense gap and preventing us from accessing the other tunnel.
“Bastard.” Conrad quietly said before we heard the monster laugh behind us. That too sounded like different men and women smoothly taking turns in laughing, resulting in a cacophony. We looked at it before it stopped laughing and smiled.
“I see a teenage girl, smiling again just like in the tunnel. You?” I asked my brother.
“A medieval soldier, with the armor and all that, smiling.” Conrad replied, breathing heavily.
“You okay?” I enquired.
“All good.” He replied, lying to avoid getting me worried.
My big brother spent his whole life protecting me. He did it again in the tunnel, running behind and shielding me from Mirage, and those gaping wounds on his shoulder seemed to hurt me more than it did to him. He removed his T-shirt and I used it to press against the wounds. Under the sunlight, we sat on the railway at 4:16 pm, and discussed about possible ways to escape while watching Mirage.
At 4:57 pm, the sun had almost not moved at all, and the heat had accelerated our blood circulation so much that my brother’s bleeding could no longer be handled. Mirage was still in the shade, immobile and smiling as if frozen in time. Conrad tried hard to conceal his suffering until I could no longer bear to see him like that. I left the T-shirt on his shoulder and went to search my backpack, hoping to find anything useful.
“I’m sure you’ll find nothing there.” He spoke.
“Stop being pessimistic! I replied.” I retorted.
“Realistic sister. Always be realistic.” He replied.
“Realistic?” I asked, chuckling. “Look at where we are. We stuck in some loop world with a monster trying to kill us.” I added.
“Well, you get a poin—aaargh!” He said then screamed.
I rushed back to him and saw that the four claw marks turned black, as if seriously infected.
“What’s that? What’s going on?” He asked, clenching his fists.
“No—nothing.” I replied. “We really need to apply something on this.” I added as Conrad’s pain decreased.
“Well, well.” Conrad said, regaining his composure. “The first aid kit is in my bag, in the shade, behind that bastard there.” He added, pointing at Mirage.
The monster heard us and turned back to our surprise. We wondered what it could be up to and watched it walk to Conrad’s backpack, pick it up and throw it at us. The backpack fell in the sunlight while Mirage remained in the shade at a good distance, frozen again and smiling.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“He heard us?” Conrad questioned too.
“Got to be a trap.” I spoke.
“Not so sure, look, the bag is in the sunlight. He can’t set a toe there.” Conrad analyzed.
“So what you think?” I asked.
“I guess he doesn’t like dead meat. Bastard wants me to survive for now.” He concluded. “Wait here.” He added while painfully standing up.
“Hey, hey! What you doing?” I questioned, holding my brother by the arm.
“I need this kit, and we need the water.” He replied, and he was right.
“Ok, but this time, we go together, and I pick up the bag.” I suggested looking at Mirage while Conrad agreed.
Step after step, my heart beat faster, and I believe Mirage could hear it. The more we progressed, the more his smile grew vicious, yet it remained still, just watching us. We reached the backpack, shining in the sunlight. Our eyes riveted on Mirage, I slowly crouched, and stretched my arm out before I blinked, and noticed that the backpack was no longer shining.
The railway fully captured my attention as I realized that we stepped in the shade. I looked back and saw the sunlight a few meters behind us. Another illusion, Mirage fooled Conrad and I. Fear enveloped me and my brother’s name quietly escaped from my lips. The moment I turned to look at Conrad, Mirage was already in front of us.
Conrad pushed me away from the monster, which almost at the same time struck my brother on the head so hard that his neck snapped. I crawled to safety, thinking about how we should have known better; even during the summer, the sun cannot move so slowly. Mirage showed us a lie about the position of the sun. I reached the sunlight and turned to what is up to this day, the worst memory of my life.
Mirage vigorously devoured Conrad, ripping him apart. I watched streams of blood gush out of my brother’s torso at each bite, and I heard the horrible sounds that followed. It did not take long before I closed my eyes, and covered my ears, while crying, screaming, wailing and begging for Mirage to stop his carnage.
I might have stayed like that for at least 15 minutes, before I opened my eyes and saw Mirage standing still again and smiling at me in his new human form: the physical appearance of my brother. I looked at him, then at what was left of the real Conrad. Tears escaped from my eyes, the way I wish I could just escape from that nightmare, before sunset.
***
Livid for a long time, my eyes riveted on Conrad’s face, I remained on my knees, defeated by Mirage, which patiently waited for the last sun ray separating us to disappear so it can rip me apart too. I could not know what time it was exactly since the watch was on Conrad’s wrist. I only snapped out of my daze when Mirage moved to take my pain to a higher level.
That nightmare laughed while throwing ‘pieces’ of my brother at me: a hand, a bone, an organ, … It would not stop. I ran to my backpack, looking for anything I could use to defend myself: a knife, a pen, just anything. The last sun ray decreased by the minute, bringing me closer to my doom. Mirage transformed again, its arms and legs growing so long that the monster could barely crouch on the viaduct.
I emptied my backpack on the rails as the last sun ray grew thinner and Mirage started drooling. I just knew that I could not go without a fight, and while searching through my items on the railway, I saw my cosmetic compact. The panic vanished and that discovery led me to the idea that saved my life.
Without wasting more time, I opened the compact and after seeing the little round mirror, I dashed towards the last sun ray of hope. I placed the mirror in the sunlight and diverted the reflected ray at the monster. Mirage screamed in pain, the light quickly punctured his body and it burst in flames in seconds before it just vanished.
A few seconds later, the last sun ray disappeared and I sighed in relief. The sunset brought a befitting scenery to a fight that lasted for hours, but finally reached its conclusion. I looked at Conrad’s remains once more when I felt vibrations that only meant one thing: an oncoming train. I looked around and saw that everything returned to normal, including the viaduct.
The train emerged from the tunnel and I started one last run for my life. I felt a sudden surge of energy as if Conrad lent me his strength from the afterlife, an ultimate act to protect me one last time while I ran. I jumped at some point and was off the railway when I felt the train speeding inches away from my back. Once again, I sighed in relief.
Sorrow and tears soaked the safe route back to the village. I did not even want to think about what was left of Conrad on that railway. I believe that the shock due to the loss of my brother blurred what followed, since I vaguely remember anything after that, from the wails of my mother to the compassion that the villagers showed, at least for that night.
The next morning, when the mangled body of a lady was found in her own house, panic seized the village, as people thought Mirage could now break into homes and wreak havoc. The villagers forced me out of my own place of birth after accusing me of bringing doom.
Still adventurous, I traveled the world till I made a discovery that freed me from guilt. Depending on cultures, entities like Mirage have different names and representations, while their behavior remains the same. I met a man in Africa who informed me that Mirage is a spirit invoked by people involved in witchcraft.
As per its rules, the spirit can only be summoned during the day and sent to a maximum of five targets. If the spirit fails to devour a prey, it returns with fury and devours the sender instead, hence what happened to that lady in my village.
Mirage never appeared there after my incident, and people think that it is because I left, not knowing that it is because a witch died instead. However, just in case, the villagers now walk around with mirrors, ready for any eventuality, including my grandson Hans even though he lives in the United States like myself.
Conrad remains in my heart, and even though he did not survive that terrible day, his life and death taught me that responsibility, bravery and resilience are key qualities of an inspiring human being.