The Whistling Skinwalker

The Whistling Skinwalker . part 1

So one fine day i got a text from my friends " hey its a good rainy day lets go to a waterfall nearby " seriously where do they get this energy ? to climb a hill when its raining this heavy ! , why can't they enjoy a nice cup of tea or coffee and a playlist . ah well there was no point in denying cause they would have drag me out my house anyway . So we decided to set out in evening. i had a great place in my mind
We reached there around 5.30 pm , Even though i had planned to laze around in my room, witnessing such scenery of mountain covered with the blanket of fog and distance view of waterfall was worth the trip. it was less to no crowd as it was a weekday, when we started climbing it took 4 of us around 15-20 mins to reach the waterfall, the view from up here of the city was mesmerizing , there was a very small area surrounded by big rocks at summit of waterfall , flow had created hot-spring style potholes one below another . There were few people up there around 4-5 except us , as the waterfall was loud it was hard for us to communicate without yelling , we are kind of group who just enjoy the company of each other even though there is no conversation , we all sat in one of those potholes in silence vibing with the feeling of flowing water , enchanting view and sound of fall,
it was a bliss ! , we all drifted off. after some time passed by as i was lost in thoughts , admiring the view i noticed a small broken branch of white flower flowing besides me , i watched it flow down one pothole to another it was peaceful watching it flow off until it went out of view in thick forest thats when i jolted out of my daydream, i looked back wondering what my friends were upto and they were all still drifting off on their own , one's laying down enjoying the flow and other gacing the sky . I start noticing something strange, it was quite.. too quite , i couldn't hear people talking or laughing as before i looked around and realised the place was deserted , we were the only ones left behind. when checked my watch it made me feel uneasy.. cause when we came here and sat down it was around 6 - 6:15 pm , for what i and everyone with me had thought had spent 15 minutes idling there was a 45 mins time gap we could not explain , when i told them its almost 7:00 pm they all thought i was joking but after confirming they had confused yet blank look on their face and didn't knew what to make out of this situation. At moment we decided not to overthink about it and decided to descend as it was getting dark but cause whatever luck we had, the sunset was late that day . As we started our way down with the chit-chat, i was still bugged about the fact that all four of us were sitting there ideally for almost an hour and none of us noticed and how i didn't noticed people leaving , as i was overflowing in this thoughts i heard a whistling sound coming from the forest edge of the trail we were walking ,

(just to give you readers a clear idea of the trail it was a narrow path on the edge of the hill, and down below was slide of deep forestation)

i looked at my friends to see if anyone heard it but they all seem to be busy with their conversation, i shrugged it off as it could be a bird , as i countinued few steps down i heard it again a "whistle" kind of which sounded very human , i watched my friends who were walking in front of me , all looked in same direction as the sound came from down the edge , first when we heard the whistle it sounded casual but as we paced further the tone changed and sounded way more like it wanted our attention . the conversation between them was slowly dying down as they were starting to realise what the situation was . I also noticed the whistling was coming from the same distance even though we were moving as if whatever was making that sound was maintaining the same 5 to 10 meters distance between us . Well To say it clearly IT WAS FOLLOWING US . And i guess everyone with me had started to realise this without me saying. Now the thing about late timed sunset is , it lits the sky as long as it does and in a matter of mins it is dark as middle of a night . It seemed like our luck ran out on us . we were almost out of the forest area but it was pitch dark and we were at the mercy of our phones flash light and slippery muddy trails were not any help for our pace . I was walking upfront cause some turns needed a support hand to pass by.
as we were almost out of this forest i was starting to feel a little hopeful , only if i had knew it was a false feeling , something happened which none of us had expected. We heard a sound of a branch breaking following with a "whistle" it send a chill down everyones spine . my heart was racing faster then ever , i looked back and everyone was frozed on their tracks like a deer in headlights , i wanted to flash the light towards the direction of the sound but something screamed inside of me to leave it alone , somehow calming myself i instead decided checked on my friends, 2 of them were holding on somehow but the one who was walking in last. she had tears up her eyes almost ready to give up and scream her lungs out for help, honestly she would have done that if she wasn't paralyzed by fear, i could sense she or none of them wanted to be last person standing , i knew everyone including me just wanted to run like the hell broke loose but that would have only led to some serious casualty as the path was filled with sharp stones , i muster up of whatever courage i had , I didn't wanted to panic myself and others, walked all the way back tapped on her shoulders signalling her to moving forward while joking on how she is slowing us down , in my mind i begged that they would go along and not cause the scene and for the sake of it they did , laughing awkwardly on the joke , and pacing forward . All life on earth including humans, animal, birds and even insects share one thing among their DNA that is "INSTINCT" . a necessity for survival , at that moment not out of fear but something inside us was telling us that something was lurking in that slope of thick forest , the slope which was nearly impossible to stand or walk thru for any normal human . And Somehow we all knew we absolutely cannot acknowledge the whistle or that there is something in those bushes. After what it felt like forever we managed to get out of the forest we rushed towards our bikes and took off as fast as we could. coming into the city , the sound of traffic and lights calmed us down i noticed we were all shivering of cold and and maybe fear , i made a stop at a tea stall , the warmth of tea was soothing.
as time pass by the fear was starting to fade away and curiosity took its place as we started brainstorming on what actually happened to us ? were we scared of random noises? Was our brain messing with us out of fear? Many theories and logical reasoning can be created out of it , and we came up with best theory. that it could have been a bird that mimicks humans. sound reasonable right? after all some crows and parrot can basically have conversations! How hard can it be for it to whistle. And we all shrugged it off . As days passed by , it still didn't fit right with me so i decide to do some research about this place, usual like what kind of birds and animals are found in the area ? Well To my suprise there were none of the birds native that could mimick sounds , also it is suppose to be the hunting ground for kites . so birds smaller in size tend to avoid the area which threw out Parrot theory out of the equation. As i went down the rabbit hole i found something that made my blood cold and made matter much worst. Apparently there were several cases of sucides and accidental deaths of many men, women and children's , some of which the bodies were never found . Police always seal the entrance with barricades during heavy rainy days but some local always manage to slipped pass by and had met with such unfortunate accidents i could not find any stories similar to ours but then again this spot was not know to many but only to locals. As am documenting this down , to this days have no explanation to what could have happened to us that day . ghost ? Maybe something out of a folklore like skinwalkers? Or a mindgame caused by fear . I would leave this to your imagination .