I’ve always been a huge fan of horro and wrote my own horro when I felt like it, rarely shown anyone outside of the people I liked the most but Halloween of 2019 I decided to enter a horror writing competition and got first prize, which made me a lot more confident in my writing. Skip ahead to 2021 I decided to go to a horror convention to find material and have fun.
I went into a section where people were being judged bssed on their work. I only went to listen when one of the judges recognised me because he just so happened to have read the story I wrote in 2019, now I’ve never liked a live audience all the judging eyes staring at me made me anxious, the judge called me out and told me to read the story to everyone and my heart dropped to my shoes and I started sweating bullets but decided to atleast try.
While reading there was a bunch of different reactions and in the end the crowd cheered while applauding, I faught back tears of joy as I saw that everyone was pleased with my work. There was a lunch break and a girl named Lia approached me saying she loved my story and practical forced me to give her my number. We talked for quite sometime after the convention when she told me she heard somewhere of a forest that was supposedly haunted and that the people who went in where never seen again.
She asked me to go with her to it to see whether the stories where true or not, now I have come to be quite fond of her so I agreed to go with her even though I was a bit terrified of us coming out alive. Few weeks later there we where at the foot of the forest and I already started feeling unsettled as it felt like something in the forest was staring right at us…
We weren’t alone, Lia had invited some of her friends to join us however I couldn’t help but feel like the forest had eye’s of its own. Lia’s friends made me walk infront claiming that my height would be threatening to any predators we came across, I was bearly a foot taller than everyone there nut still agreed so as not to seem cowardly, during our little hike I noticed that Lia tried her best to stay as close to me as physically possible which I found cute. As the first signs of night started to appear we decided to set up camp until morning.
We made a fire from dead branches and erected our tets in a circular formation around it, while preparing dinner we all started to share a bit about ourselves and me being the stranger of the group everyone had dozens of questions for me somewhere a bit uncomfortable but I still awnsered truthfully, something that shocked everyone is the fact that I wasn’t christian and that I had encountered the super natural more times than the average ghost hunter thusly me always wearing silver and having a big bag of salt with me.
After dinner something didn’t feel right and the wind smelled sour, after a few campfire stories everyone went to sleep. Not long after I got comfortable Lia came into my tent saying she forgot her sleeping bag and wondered if I didn’t mind cuddling, naturally I said yes. Just after midnight everyone was woken up by a horrifying screaming from the forest. Rushing from our tents the question everyone asked was who or what did it come from. I did a head count and we were a person short, guessing the screaming came from her we split into two parties of three with one person staying at camp to wait if she returned.
Our search was to no avail and when we found our way back to camp we found that the guy we left alone at camp was no where to be seen. As we stood there with bewildered expressions I felt a shadowy figure lurking over us like a hawk stalking it’s prey. I realised that it only attacks when we are alone so I advised everyone to stay in a group.
Just before dawn we started hearing voices, unrecognisable and bone chilling whispers echoing from all around us, and as if everything wasn’t creepy enough a layer of mist thick enough to cut rested upon the forest hindering us from seeing further than 7 feet infront of us but something told me this mist was the work of what ever was hunting us.
We were three guys and three girls left; so as to make things easier the guys other than me was D and H, the girls were Lia, S and C; we were sitting around the campfire trying to ignore the whispers when everything went silent. D saw a silhouette in the trees he said seemed to be his brother, the guy we left alone at camp, I told D it’s just an illusion but he didn’t listen and ran towards it soon after only his shrill screams of agony where heard frightening Lia so that she jumped into my arms, although I could tell she was planning it for a while but used D’s screaming as an excuse.
C had enough and went crazy, yelling out I cant die like this and immediately started running into the forest, about half an hour past and we heard nothing from her, S determined to know what happened to her sister grabbed a flashlight and started running in the same direction. We heard a loud thud as if someone tripped when C came out of the forest and bursted into tears by the fire. “It got her.” she repeated between sobs, I asked her what did the monster look like but she didn’t awnser.
Something didn’t feel right about C since she had returned H tried to comfort her while I studied her, something was definitely off, she kept her eyes covered the whole time refusing that we see her face which was very off because at the very beginning of this nightmare she didn’t stop bragging about her facial features but what led me to being suspicious was the fact that her tears seemed endless but never hit the ground by now their should have been a small puddle infront of her but it was dryer than stale bread.
Lia looked up at my puzzled face and asked me what I was thinking, not saying a word I made her wear my silver bracelet and told her “No matter what don’t take it off.” then I grabbed a handful of salt and threw it at C, almost immediately black smoke along with a demonic cry came from her as she hastily retreated into the forest. We were dealing with a demon that could mimic people.
It was evident that what I did made the demon quite upset, it wrapped a vine around H and pulled him into the mist in a split second. Then a deep unholy voice echoed all around us “Congratulations in my 500 years of haunting this forest no one has ever seen through my disguise, as a reward I’ll tell you my name not that you have long before I consume your soul as well.” his name made the very forest shiver in fear “Uth’ral the soul eater!”
The mist became so intense than seeing an inch infront of me was next to impossible, I remembered before entering the forest an old man gave me a piece of paper that he said could be of importance later on I was naturally curious and read what was on it before falling asleep it was an incantation that could dispell weak magic, deciding to test it out I uttered the incantation and to my surprise it worked there was no more mist but now there was a bigger problem, Two Lias stood before me identical matches…
When they saw each other it was like looking at a mirror what made it worse is that both said the same thing at the same time in the same way “Jack thats the demon, I’m the real Lia!” I unsheathed my silver knife I kept hidden and started pointing at the both of them not knowing wich one was the real Lia. My bag was nowhere to be seen so I couldn’t use my salt to unmask the imposter…
I studied them from where I stood trying to find some sort of imperfection in the disguise but my efforts were of no use, telling them apart was the definition of impossible but I couldn’t help but feel I was missing something then it clicked my bracelet was still on Lia’s left arm. I pretended as if I hadn’t figured wich one was the mimic and walked closer to them. Once I was in range I dashed towards the demon and made a diagonal cut clean through its skull.
Releasing a blood curdling howl and a horrid oder the demon bursted into a blue flame lighting the campsite a blaze, I grabbed Lia’s hand and dashed for the edge of the forest not stopping till we reached her car. Luckily she had her keys on her and we drove away as fast as the car could go, I looked behind us seeing a giant demonic figure stretched out over the trees with a nasty scar diagonally across its nightmare inducing face….
It’s been a few months now since then, Lia and I moved into an apartment together and started dating, life was good but I can’t shake the feeling that we haven’t seen the last of Uth’ral and he’ll be back for revenge…