I know that you aren’t supposed to start a writing with “Hello, My name is __” , but I’m going to do that anyway, since this is Reddit and not some extravagant essay. I need to get my story out and warn others. Whatever you do, DON’T go into the forests of Tennessee late at night.
My name is Daniel Smith. I am a college student at a university in Pennsylvania and I recently went on a trip down to East Tennessee to visit my grandparents. I thought nothing of it, and I was actually quite excited to visit them. I even brought my friend, Cody, along to meet them as well. On the drive down, I warned him multiple times that my grandparents like to talk about this thing called “Jötunn Merrowald”, and I told him not to encourage them. I always believed that the legends they told me were all made up to scare kids before bed.
We got to my grandparents house after a long, eight-hour drive and we visited like anybody else would until the time was around eight o’clock p.m., and the sun was beginning to set. We began towards the door.
“Oh, you can’t go out there, Hun. It will be dark soon.” My grandma begun. “You can stay the night here, in the guest bedroom or on the couch.” My friend, Cody, responded to her.
“We actually have a reservation about 30 minutes away from here.” He seemed uncomfortable with the idea of staying at my grandparents house as I looked at him. Then my grandpa chimed in.
“Oh, shush up and stay the night, Kids. Better safe than sorry,” he said with his scratchy and aged voice.
“Safe from what?” Asked Cody. I nearly facepalmed after he asked that question. I let out a huff and decided that I would rather stay the night at their place, rather than hearing the whole Jötunn legend thing again.
“Let’s just stay the night, ok?” I said before my grandma could begin talking about her silly story again. My grandparents let out a sigh, almost in sync with eachother, and helped me and Cody find blankets and pillows to sleep with. We both decided to sleep on the couches, with Cody on the couch next to the window and me on the couch in the middle of the room, infront of the coffee table.
After the lights went out, Cody and I quietly talked for a bit. After maybe twenty minutes of talking, my eyes began to flutter shut. Everything around me faded away as I drifted into a deep sleep. Suddenly, Cody shook me awake.
“Daniel! Did you hear that?” He whispered loudly. I let out a tired grunt and sat up on the couch. I looked at Cody’s face to see an expression that wasn’t exactly worry like I had expected. Was he…. happy? “What if those stories your grandparents told you are real?!”
“They’re not real…” I said as I looked at him. Then I realized that this was the first time I had seen Cody smile since his breakup a month ago. He was finally excited about something.
“Wanna go check?” He said with a big grin on his face. He had always been big fan of anything horror or cryptid related. I let out a huff and thought for a moment before I felt my face form into a small smile.
I just wanted to see him happy. I just wanted to provide a good experience with him. That’s all I wanted… now my world is crumbling.
We walked out the front door with flashlights in hand. We walked maybe ten minutes into the woods before we heared a bush rustle. Cody approached the bush. I quietly called his name as a warning. As he neared the bush, I could see him shaking and I could hear his breath quickening. Suddenly, we both jumped back and shouted fearfully when a rabbit popped out of the bush and scurried away. We looked at eachother for a moment before laughing.
We carried on walking for around five more minutes before the strange things started happening. I found a rune-looking mark carved into the bark of a tree and a few feet away, I found a few drops of blood in the ground.
“Hey, Cody…” I said cautiously. “Look at this.” Cody stumbled over and shined his flashlight down at the droplets… and then at the mark on the tree.
“The blood is probably just from an animal… right?” Cody whispered with a shakiness to his voice.
“Right…” I said not so sure of my responce. Just then, from the darkness, slowly erupted a crackling vocal sound. It sounded similar to a sort of bird mixed with an injured animal… maybe an injured bird? But it was too loud… and moving… towards us. I finally realized what was happening and thought of how my grandparents had tried to warn me.
I should have listened.
I grabbed Cody by the arm and began running back in the direction we came. And as soon as we began running, so did it. Cody looked confused as he ran, but his confusion turned to fear as a tall dark figure with antlers and a cloak emerged from the dark forest. We ran and ran as fast as we could, but it was not fast enough.
The Jötunn clawed at the back of my left leg, leaving large leaking gashes across my skin. As I ran, now limping, I looked back to see that Merrowald’s stag skull that sat over his face was now covered with blood from my open wounds. It’s clock bellowed behind it and his stag like legs and hooves clomped towards us. Cody shouted out my name in fear. As we realized that we had somehow gotten turned around in the woods. The jötunn had chased us deeper into the woods. Bones on strings with beads hung from tree branches and more trees were carved with strange Norse markings.
We were getting closer to its layer.
“We have to turn back!!” Shouted Cody.
“How?!” I yelled back at him.
We began approaching an old beaten up log cabin with cracked windows and mossy walls.
“In there! We can lock ourselves in!” I shouted.
Cody and I sprinted as fast as we could to the cabin and slammed the wooden door shut behind us, locking it tight. I looked over to see tears streaming down Cody’s face. I then looked down at my leg to see the true extent of my injuries. The door banged harshly for a while before stopping suddenly and completely. We backed away from the door cautiously. The silence was eerie.
Without warning, the window next to Cody smashed and his body was jerked out in the blink of an eye. His screamed were silenced by a sudden crunch of what I presumed to be his neck. Gurgling emerged from his damaged lungs. It was silent for a long time after that. Until it wasn’t. Well, it was silent outside, but in the back of my head there was a string voice telling me, “get out! Leave! Leave!”
This went on for some time before I finally gave in and cautiously cracked the door open. Nothing but silence greeted me back. I opened the door and snuck away from the messy log cabin. I limped back the way I came with warm tears streaming down my face and red blood streaming down my calf.
I heard a creaking sound overhead, like a rope with something weighing it down. As I looked up, horror flooded through my body and my skin went pale. My blood fell to the bottom of my body as I stared in disbelief. Above me, was the body of my best friend. Dead and mangled. From his neck, shot a bone from his skin and his head hung at a crooked angle. His spine shot out of his back in an impossible way. His bones were twisted in crumpled in ways even I can’t imagine again… and blood dripped from his tied up body. It was a warning.
After I was in the safety of my grandparents house once more, I called the police. They investigated it but scaled it down to a bear attack. There is no possible way that a bear could tie someone up in a tree and leave their body as a signal for others. They were covering it up.
I didnt survive that night based on pure luck. I survived because it wanted me to. It wanted me to live the rest of my life knowing what can happen if you explore the wrong place. And to tell you. To warn you.
Never. Go into the woods of Tennessee late at night. ____ [EDIT: visit my page if you’d like to see a drawing of what I saw that night]