•Ephemeral•

Prologue

Heavy snow covered the outskirts of the city, wrapping the weathered land into a blanket of morbid stillness.

As the wind blew roughly through the dried branches, a silhouette made it's way through the mountains of white torment.

By the looks of it, he was lost. A stranger to the Oregon winter. An outsider.

Clutching the brown jacket until his knuckles turned white, the man stomped on the fresh snow at the side of the road, the leather boots causing a squeaky sound each time he took a step.
It was such a big mistake to choose this specific day to go for a hike, but that's the way of the destiny isn't it?

The sun was about to set. Not that he'd seen it since the sky was covered in thick clouds, but everything got darker and darker. He had to reach the nearest town before it got pitch black.

While pacing through the snow, he wondered many times why he didn't see a single car passing by. Or why there was no road sign he could follow.

But that didn't matter now.

What mattered was to stay alive and not end up a bump under the blanket of snow.

He still had a long way until he reached the city, but he refused to give up hope. Perhaps because he was aware of the fact that if he dared to stop, even for a second, he would most likely freeze to death.

So he continued to walk. After all, he couldn't give up hope.

Just when he least expected it, something made him stop in his tracks.

The silence.

He didn't mind it until now, but it got way too silent.

The whole situation seemed strange given the fact that a minute ago the wind was still howling and you could hear the nature growl from deep within the forest. Or was that is the nature in the first place?

He quickly fumbled through his ice-covered backpack to retrieve his large flashlight.

He turned it on but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

There was a stillness though, that couldn't be explained, he felt someone, something watching him.
Maybe it was the cold, maybe he was in fact dying and so, hallucinating, but there was definitely something strange happening.

Frantically turning around, leaving thick fumes through his laboured breath, he tried to determine the cause of this suffocating silence.

The kind of silence that brought shivers to your spine.

He quickly paced forward, periodically looking behind him, knowing that something was wrong.

He could feel it.

And so, he began running.

With each step he felt more followed. He felt devilish eyes pierce through his back and right into his soul. He kept running and running, but something kept following him.
When the terrifying feeling got worse, he started praying with tears in his eyes and the only remaining source of light clutched in his hand for a holy salvation, or any salvation really.

That was until he stopped and made the mistake to look back one last time.

Then...

Only darkness.