I hid out in the wilderness for weeks. My leg was definitely broken.
I skirted around the edge of the property until I reached my grandfather’s squat hunting cabin. It sat, dilapidated and pitiful against the final ambient rays of the setting sun. I would have to spend another night exposed to the elements with no food, water, or supplies and only fifty percent of my lower limbs in working order.
However, this fate seemed minor compared to the reality that began to set in for me during that night of exposure. I knew I’d be out in the elements. I knew I could only dare going over the property line during the day to eat, drink, and tend to my wounds. I knew that for the foreseeable future I’d be spending each and every night on high alert, unable to adequately hide due to my injury, and unable to cross the boundaries in order to secure safety, because crossing the line meant certain death and staying in the forest meant only potential death.
The only thing I couldn’t account for was the fact that these creatures had no sense of property boundaries or strategic planning. I wasn’t prepared for them to try and collect me. I truly thought I was safe.
My first and only clue came when I was holed up against my safety tree that I’d specifically selected for the sheer fact that the trunk was so thick that there was no way anything could sneak up on me. It was the dead of night, the landscape so black that I was unable to anticipate any threat, when the creatures came for me.
They came silently this time, slowly wrapping me in a nightmare cocoon in which I’d have no escape. I was well and truly cornered, injured, and deprived of not just nutrients but sleep as well. My brain was functioning at approximately five percent, and when they descended upon me I had no choice but to try, unsuccessfully, to fight my way out.
I first noticed them when long, spindly fingers settled upon my shoulder, slightly tickling me as the predator ensured I was well within their grasp. I had to fight off the sudden feeling of calm that engulfed my being, which I’m sure was a tool of theirs to ensure I would not flee, and instead trust my instincts. With one good leg I instantly rose, and with that I hobbled, apparently throwing off those who wished to do me harm. They gave chase, and caught up almost instantly with me.
The black silhouettes were no clearer up close than they had been far away. And worse still, they encapsulated me with an intense feeling of dread that stopped me dead in my tracks. My body froze completely. I had no choice but to essentially play dead and hope they moved on, but instead I spent a night, or week, I can’t even be sure at this point, in absolute throes of agony while the creatures drained the entirety of my will to live. It seems they cannot hurt me physically, but I wasn’t interested in sticking around after daybreak to find out the extent of what they could do. So after they treated my soul as an all you can eat buffet, I knew I needed to move. I couldn’t outrun them. I couldn’t outsmart them. But I was confident in my ability to figure out a way to avoid them.
It turned out, though, that horrors worse than soul sucking demons lurked within the confines of my grandfather’s property.
I had been back in the house for two nights before I began to hear them. I found that as long as I didn’t cross the front door threshold the black silhouettes didn’t bother me. But then I began to hear the scratching, and the tapping, and as the days wore on the noises began to move down the hall toward my bedroom, when yesterday the insistent predators finally reached me.
I was in bed, with a leg that was still throbbing because I couldn’t risk leaving the land and enraging the threats further, when I awoke to the slight scratching sounds coming from the nightstand approximately a foot from my head. I opened my eyes and saw long, spindly fingers, not unlike those from the silhouettes, inching their way across my nightstand toward my face. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and the adrenaline kicked in.
I immediately tried a vanishing charm with no effect. I tried to escape, and bought myself little time with my broken leg threatening to terminally slow me down. I crawled, and pulled myself out of the room with the fingers following me in hot pursuit, promising to extinguish me the moment they caught up. With my experience I knew I could buy slightly more time by getting to an unexplored part of the house; in this case I figured the attic would be my safe haven.
In the hall the pull to the attic was visible and, wincing, I had to jump three times to successfully grab the pull in order to expose the staircase. I grabbed at it feverishly until, finally, my hand connected with the pull, and I was able to amble my way up.
I am writing this update from upstairs. I’m not confident that I will make it through the night. I’m not confident that I will be writing to you again. I wanted to ensure that this update made it out, but I am not sure that I will. I firmly believe that this curse has finally caught up to my family. If this is the end, goodbye, and please ensure
This entry was discovered by a family acquaintance. It was posted as a form of closure. Please do not come anywhere near the land in which these events occurred. Certain death will follow. We are currently investigating the exact entities that inhabit this land.