Do you truly know yourself? Do you regularly question your beliefs, do you know who you really are?
my names Sammual, I’m a thirty-year-old Alaskan nomad, by nomad I mean I have no “physical” home, the pines are my home. may sound cliché but let me explain. I’m originally from Washinton, united states. country of the free, or so they say.
i moved out at 19 by moved out i mean I gotten “threatened” to move out. i really don’t want to explain why.
i travelled out of my hometown and lived on the Canadian border for a while. my life seemed… perfect for a while. i found a well-paying job, i got myself a girlfriend, Krista. a nice two-story house down in the woods. but nothing good lasts forever and… it happened. i really, really don’t want to delve into my past history. that’s not what you came here for. but yeah, after that i moved to Alaska.
upon arrival i was pretty much broke. wanting to disappear i spent the rest of my money on supplies and hiked out of the small town. i was only 21 at the time and i was prepared to die, may it be from a bear, the cold, an infection. well i had nothing left to live for, may sound dramatic buts that’s the truth and it’s the cold-hearted truth of what my life has become.
after a week of constant hiking with little food nor water, i could no longer see any signs of civilization. with this being my intent i decided to set up a more permanent camp.
i decided to set in a bushy area with nearby pines completely shrouding the area in a constant darkness. my camp was small but was built for the winter, you see it was currently the middle of October so i had to deal with the constant storms and blizzards, so i was quite thankful to have such a high-quality tent.
two miles east is a large frozen over lake, at least a half mile long and wide. the area around the lake was completely open, about a yard or two of rocks and sticks. it was a sore thumb out in theese forests of pines.
going north is the nearby village, getting there is at least a seven-day hike, so there was no turning back. as for my tent i decided to cover the surrounding area with large sticks and brush. I’m an extremely light sleeper and probably the most paranoid one you would meet; you will understand why later.
it was the middle of the night. i woke up to a few branches snapping, just for closure i do carry a gun. a 9mm to be exact. it wouldn’t be effective against a bear, it would probably piss it off more, but hopefully a warning shot can scare it off…. right? i felt around the crowed tent for my handgun, i found it hidden behind my backpack. another snap. this time it was way closer. i cursed under my breath as i made sure the safety was on and that i had bullets. snap. this time it was only a few meters away from my tent. i held my breath and listened. nothing. with a swift motion i opened the tent and barged out, screaming. i was hoping i could scare away whatever was lurking out in the darkness. there was nothing, not a sound to be heard. for crying out loud there wasn’t even the wind blowing. somethings wrong, i can feel it.
it was a new moon out, so the darkness shrouded and engulphed anything it touched. the primal fear of the unknown kicked in and i had the urge to run. i felt like i was being observed, studied by something right out of my view of vision. i turned around and was about to go grab my flashlight when i heard it again. snap…snap…snap. this time it was only a meter away. i heard its deep and pained breaths.
as i turned the safety off my 9mm i slung myself around to face the source of the noise and what i saw both terrified and shaken me… it was nothing… “you got to be kidding me” i exclaimed under my frozen breath. i took a few steps forward and that’s when i felt it. that terrible feeling when you done something so terribly wrong. like a child when they broke their mother’s favorite vase. that feeling when you realize you’ve made a grave mistake that you can never rewrite, a mistake that will follow you for the rest of your life.
i heard a high deep growl behind me. i turned around and i finally saw the source. it was a moose, one giant moose but it felt wrong, like someone or something is pretending to be a moose. this… moose unsettled me for one of two reasons.
its eyes were white, like when you shine a flashlight on a deer, and you see their bright white eyes looking back at you. there was no light, not even the stars were out. and…. it was smiling, the moose was smiling, this damn animal was smiling at me. i would like to say my blood ran cold but the -7-degree weather is making short work of that.
i was too afraid to make a move. this thing was like a statue, it didn’t even look like it was breathing. look, i was a strong muscular man back then but this situation almost made me wet myself. the best thing about this situation is that the creature was taunting me. it knows it can kill me at any moment, it was toying with me. “Just kill me already” i said, trying to sound as stern as possible but in reality, i didn’t want to die.
wanna know what the creature did after that? it grinned wider and started breathing heavily. i aimed my gun at the things head, i knew it wasn’t going to do anything to do it but i didn’t want to die a coward. i was about to fire when i heard it.
words. words coming from this thing. it was deep and shaken, like this thing hasn’t spoken in over a hundred years. note this was over a dozen years ago but i will try to transcribe what that thing said to me as best as i can. he said something along the lines of “s….sa…..samual, sammmmual. its so pretty look, look at it, look at it sammmmual. the trees, the trees, they die up in the trees, sammmmual, s. s. sa. sammmual, they’re coming, they’re coming to kill you samual” after this the creature backed away into the shadows of the pines, i just stood there, shaking from fear and the cold. this thing, didn’t just speak to me. didn’t just say my name but tried to warn me, warn me of what? this entire situation has shaken me to my core, but i knew standing out in the cold wasn’t going to help.
so i did the only thing that i could do in that moment, hide in my tent till dawn, and that’s what i did. the next morning was the day i’d make my way towards the nearby village.
to be continued.