Have you ever found something that’s just incredible? Something so unusual you can’t help but wonder what events led to this item becoming intertwined with you. I’m not talking about a bottle cap or a piece of a plow. Hell I’m not even talking about the pistol I found buried in the dirt when I was a kid. I’m talking something mind boggling, not sure if that’s the right word. Enough talking about it, time to give you a story about my recent discovery.
Most mornings during the fall I deer hunt. Before you all jump down my goddamn throat about it. I only kill two a year, only enough for me to eat. Times are tough a guy’s gotta eat ya know. After I catch my two however, I still make my way out to my stand a few times a week. I enjoy sitting up there in the cool fall air and taking it all in. It’s me and nature no phones, no one, or any real life stuff. Plus I enjoy seeing the deer even if I’m not shooting at them.
It was one of these days that I was sitting in the stand taking in the sunrise when I heard it. “Well I guess I don’t have to ask if that one made a noise.” I think, chuckling and betting with myself which tree fell this time. “Im sure it’s that dead one that’s right next to the fence this time, it’s been on its last limb for years.” With my curiosity piqued and the sunrise over I decide to climb down the stand to start my trek home.
With my pack clung to my shoulders and a pistol on my side, I make my way towards home while keeping an eye out for the fallen tree. Every tree I pass boosts my confidence in my assertion that the old dead tree finally gave way. Shortly after I find the old tree laying on its side I take a little pride in my skills of assumption. As I walk by however, I notice that the tree is hollow on the inside and the tree collapsed on itself as it fell. Looking at the poor tree is when I see it.
The stump of the tree is not hollow, it is solid like any normal tree. Odd I think termites must’ve gotten to it after it dried out. But the stump has something sitting inside the tree stump sticking in the ground. It’s shards of some kind of pot, an old clay pot that was placed in this tree for a long time. Long enough for the tree to grow around the pot. How do you even make that happen?
Thoroughly intrigued I look through the pieces of clay shattered on the stump, and the first thing that sticks out to me isn’t the clay. It’s a piece of cloth and a piece of thin rope around a circular piece of clay which I presume to be the top of the pot. The other eye catching part of this is a large round flat piece of the clay that appears to be the bottom of the pot. I know what you’re thinking “Wow the pot has a bottom what a fascinating thing to realize!”
Well smart ass, it’s not that it has a bottom, obviously it has a bottom but the symbol on the bottom is what caught my eye. A five pointed star with tiny small stars in each of the triangles of the star and in the center of the star, a squiggly symbol maybe meant to look like smoke if you squint at it just right. The engraver was not a perfect artist if I say so myself. Still a very interesting thing to put in the bottom of a clay pot, even more so when you seal the pot up with cloth and put it in a tree. I decided to take it with me, at the very least would be an interesting trinket to show everyone at my dinner parties that I never host. While putting the pieces in my bag one of the shards pricked my finger letting a tiny drop of blood roll out into the pack with the pieces.
Once the house is in sight I’m thinking of one thing. Is this pot worth something? It’s clear that this thing is a relic so who’s to say it’s not valuable to some institute to study it or to a museum. Unsure of what makes something valuable to a museum, I decide to examine the pieces again to see if I can find any other clues to help me identify where and who this thing came from. My immediate guess would be native Americans or something of that sort. Did they even have clay making abilities? Adding that to the list of things to google.
After a thorough look over I can’t find anything that sets this apart from a standard clay pot at any store that sells clay pots, other than it’s weathered exterior. As I sit looking at it I try to piece together the size of it from the pieces in my head. My mind jumps to it looking like a pot from Zelda but something tells me it looked a little different with it probably not being cell shaded.
After noticing I’ve been staring at these pieces for hours, I decide it might be time to put my efforts somewhere else for the rest of the day. Nothing bothers me more than a puzzle that’s not finished, it sticks in the back of my mind all day thinking about what it could be. As I lay down in bed that night I’m still thinking of that damned pot with the symbol that makes no sense.
As I drift to sleep I see myself in a dream, myself in bed asleep. My point of view in the dream is from my bedroom ceiling. My body lays there still softly breathing in and out. That’s when I see it, out of the corner of my eye I see a figure. A short pudgy man slowly walking towards the bed. Not short, like short short like couldn’t see over the bed short. He waddles towards my unconscious body all while chanting.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming”
Panicked but unable to do anything I watch as he puts his little chubby hand on the foot of my bed and pulls himself up. His head peaks up onto the bed. I feel violated as he looks up at my body scanning it with a look of pleasure in his eye. I say eye because he only has one eye in the middle of his round thumb head. Right as he’s getting on top of me he turns up to look at me. Not the me in the bed but the me in the ceiling watching the horror unfold. All while continuing to whisper!
“I’m coming, I’m coming I’m here”
Leaping out of my bed I realize it’s all only a dream. Wiping the sweat off my face and trying to catch my breath. My throat screams in pain, it feels like I swallowed razor blades. Like I had my mouth open all night. Nothing some cough medicine won’t fix I guess.
I jumped in the shower cause I guess in all the excitement over the pot I forgot to take one last night and I had dirt all over my clothes. Not even sure where I picked up this much dirt. Onwards the day goes as I try to get this damn pot out of my head when it dawns on me! My brother was a history major in college maybe he would know what this thing is.
I take pictures of the symbol and give him a brief synopsis of what happened. It’s almost no time before he texts me back asking if I was being for real. “Why would I make this up? I reply back annoyed at him obviously knowing something and not telling me.
“I can’t be one hundred percent sure but from the evidence I would say you found a witching pot, brother!”
“Don’t keep me in suspense you know I don’t have a clue what that is Lol”
“It’s a pot for witch catching you muggle”
“I’m serious Zeke. tell me what this is please!”
“Okay okay I’m just messing with you bro, it’s an ancient tradition that goes all the way back to the Romans I think. When bad shit was happening they would do some kind of ritual and trap the (insert bad thing here) into the pot. Like ganon basically lol”
“That’s encouraging but I don’t think the Romans were chilling in America there bro.”
“It goes back to the Romans but the tradition has been found in all kinds of civilizations. African tribes, Chinese, Vikings, basically any civilization you can think of has something similar to this. Logically the Native Americans probably did the exact same thing. They would make a container for the evil force and put the symbol of the spirit at the bottom of the container. I guess it worked like a magnet and lured it in. The thing usually gets trapped in the container and happily ever after for the good people.”
“Okay that doesn’t really help but at least I know what it is now thanks bro!”
“Let me know if you have any evil spirits running around your house hahahaha”
So as you probably guess I wasn’t really concerned about this but it did make me a little unnerved given my dream the night before. Everything he said made some form of sense I guess. The symbol at the bottom was for some kind of witch, demon, or hell maybe some disease that was running through the people. They seal the pot up with the cloth and set it on an altar or something made out of a tree. Some years later you get a tree with a pot in it.
My throat continues to burn throughout the day with no help from my medicine. I finally stop fighting it after a few hours and lay back down in bed hoping sleep will help it.
I wake from an apparent nightmare I can’t remember having but I do recognize that I’m talking as I awaken. I hear myself mutter out, “I’m here.” But I don’t have time to think on that before it hits me.
Pain, hot and sharp runs through up my arm. That’s when I realize I’m standing up in my living room. Over my living room table, the table with the pot. Except the piece that’s in my hand carving out a five-pointed star on my right forearm.
I drop the shard of bloody clay and run to the bathroom to get a towel. It’s only skin deep but bleeding like a son of a gun. As the bleeding stops my mind catches up to the last few minutes of time. I was carving that symbol into my arm! What the fuck is happening?
I decide the pot is going in the trash. Bagging it up and walking out the door with the clay remains. Still, my mind is coming back to what my brother said. It’s used to trap something bad, it was holding something bad and the tree falling broke it from its prison. And there I went stumbling along like the unlucky penny I am and picked up the pot. “He’s coming” My unconscious mind tried to warn me of what was happening. Too dumb to realize though.
As I’m walking back in the house from throwing the pot in the trash when I realize it. I’m still holding the bag in my hand. I hadn’t realized that I didn’t let go of it. I can’t make my hand do it! It won’t let go.
No, matter how hard I try it won’t yield even when I jab at the star-shaped cut on my arm, trembling with pain it still holds on unwavering. I go back to the table in the living room and my arm works as normal dropping the pieces on the table.
I decided to write this all out because what else am I gonna do? I can’t leave or fight. How can I fight something living in my body? I wanted to see my brother but I can’t and won’t do that. I’m not gonna put him at risk of this thing going into him too, No way!
Of course, I don’t know if that’s how this works at all or if he goes wherever he wants to. I guess he could move through this if he wanted to. “Whoever reads this shall be my plaything!” I picture it saying as it watches me type this out. Hell maybe it’s making me type it out, maybe this is what he wants. Maybe it thrives off of people knowing about him and being scared of him.
I’m talking crazy now I just wanted to tell you guys what happened so you know if you find something similar. I don’t know what you should do to avoid it obviously so I guess I really don’t have a point in writing this. Actually, when did I decide to write this? How long have I been writing this? I don’t remember the things in here happening at all. I was just walking back from hunting and I saw a tree had fallen.
What’s going on? I know I can’t stop myself from posting this because it’s not me actually typing, it’s him. I’d say don’t read this but since this is at the end, I’m assuming you already have. I’m sorry for that, honest! Maybe nothing will happen to you but if it does then I can’t help but think of my preservation and wonder if he’ll leave me alone if he jumps to someone else. I can’t stop from posting this if I wanted to anyway so I guess I’ll hope for the best.
I think I’m fixing to go back to sleep and this might be the last time, I’m sorry to whoever sees this but I think he’s here