The ghost servant

Chapter 1: Find of the storm

The ghost servant

An ominous title, isn't it? No worries, although the setting is hiking in a relatively remote area and quite a lot of strange things happened, this isn't a horror story. On my recent trip I ran into such a strange and complicated situation that I just felt a need to make use of my journalism degree and write about it. Even though I'll probably never show it to anyone.

We were hiking in some snowy hills in a forest in a remote area. We hike like this pretty often. The group consists of Lyra (me) – An aspiring young journalist unafraid to get her hands dirty and her nose pokey to get to know the truth!

Artie – Cheeky tech guy who is not afraid to be himself, always carrying fun with him wherever he goes and is brave enough to run a small business.

Kaycee – Usually more on the quiet side but when she says something it's really important and super smart. She can also be surprisingly strong. She does coding and graphical design.

Kazumi – The kindest person I know. She makes sure everyone is feeling alright. She herself is very sociable and I can't imagine her not being around other people. Funnily enough even though she went to engineering school, she now makes a living by baking bespoke cakes and posting on social media about baking.

Zane – What can I say? A typical man. Conventionally handsome, tall, and strong with strong opinions, fearless and up for any challenge but also a total fun ruiner. Adapts even to the harshest situations but also is gonna complain about minor inconveniences. Yep, you guessed right, he is moodier than a teen having their hormone levels change every day. His moodiness mostly depends on how much time he gets to spend with Astrid and how well things are going between them. His job is super cool though. He's an artistic blacksmith and he forges props for film studios.

Astrid – Tall and honestly intimidating if you don't know her. She is kinda the leader of our group. She's the one who plans everything and communicates. She's also a bit bold and abrasive when talking to strangers but very kind and even silly when talking to her friends. Thinking about it now, it makes a lot of sense that she's good at being attorney.

Zane and Astrid are in a relationship.

So, now that I have introduced the group, let me also give a little bit of background to how things work when we are on a hike to hopefully avoid initial confusion. We like to go off-trail. We're experienced hikers and we also carry expensive equipment so we're never in any real theat. Because it's hard to get a connection in the places we usually hike, Artie always brings his relay device that works like a local network. We can't go on the internet with it, but our group chat works, and we can communicate even at big distances.

Now to the actual trip that I wanted to write about. We had been hiking for a while and the weather was getting bad. In fact, a snowstorm was starting, and the temperature was getting uncomfortably low. We noticed a trail, so we followed it and to our surprise, we met a man.

The man: "Good day!"

Astrid: "Hello."

Zane: "Hello"

Kazumi: "Hello!"

Artie: "Good day."

The man: "Quite the weather, isn't it."

Astrid: "Yeah, it can be unpredictable... But we definitely didn't expect to run into anyone else here."

The man: "Haha, I believe you. There is a place I work in where you can hide."

Artie: "Wait really? And I thought we are gonna have to turn back."

The man: "Yes, it's up this trail, follow me."