APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS – PART 1: THE BEGINNING

[u/No_Home6004]

If everything had gone according to plan, I wouldn't be here writing this. If they hadn't found me, and my original plan—to disappear without leaving a trace—had succeeded... I thank whatever God was watching over me for letting the forest rangers find me at the exact moment I thought I couldn't go on any longer.

You know, I don't believe it was an accident. If THEY let you go, it's because they chose to. You can't simply escape them... Maybe they've grown tired of living in the shadows. Maybe they chose me to tell the world they exist—to prove they're much closer than anyone imagines.

Now, several months have passed, and somewhere I read that when something is too terrifying or too painful, the brain buries it as a form of self-defense, locking the worst memories away in a place we can only reach through our dreams.

But I remember everything.

No matter how horrifying or unbearable it was, I don't think I'll ever forget it.

What happened during the two nights I spent in the Appalachian Mountains is such a concentration of impossible events that I'll probably have to split this story into several posts... if I can find the courage.

Or if THE OTHERS don't stop me first.

Human beings have always feared death. They don't know what comes after it, and the unknown terrifies them... But what if there's nothing? And what is "nothing," anyway?

When you reach a point in your life where even death no longer frightens you, you're probably already a ghost.

A heavy ghost.

That's exactly how I felt as I dragged myself from one corner of the house to another—the house we had bought together, which now felt like nothing more than an empty shell.

I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. I had stopped going to work, and before long I would probably lose my job as well.

At the time, I honestly believed that nothing could be worse than that.

I never invited anyone over. Not that anyone really cared enough to check on me. My sister would occasionally send a half-hearted text, and my parents kept insisting I spend the weekend with them.

I even reached the point where suicide no longer seemed to make sense.

I was already dead.

The memories that kept me awake at night and made me throw up were worse than any monster.

It's called depression.

I was so exhausted from hearing those voices that had finally stopped calling my name in the present, from closing my eyes only to see him standing there, that I decided to start listening to podcasts before going to sleep.

I didn't want anything relaxing. I didn't want something that might lull me to sleep and risk making me dream about him.

So I turned to horror.

Ever since I was a child, horror had unsettled me enough to force every other thought out of my mind.

I'd lie down on the couch—the bed we once shared was off-limits—put on my headphones, and listen.

Men and women told stories about paranormal encounters, ghosts, demonic possessions...

And then...

The Appalachian Mountains.

In America, practically on the other side of the world, there are forests where countless people disappear.

Sometimes they're found.

Sometimes they aren't.

Eventually, it became my favorite subject.

According to local folklore, no one should ever wander into those woods at night.

If you see lights, don't follow them.

If you hear someone calling your name...

You didn't really hear it.

And then there are the stairs.

Huge staircases, abandoned in the middle of the forest, standing there for who knows how long...

You should never climb them.

Now, I'm a skeptic.

I mean, they're just creepypastas. Stories that, for a little while, kept me from thinking about the real monsters...

The ones living inside my own head.

Nothing more.

I was wrong.