Campfire Stories

The Wendigo

Anton has always been invested in the things that lurk in the dark, he does a lot of research in anything that is touted as mysterious or creepy, he's done research into SCPs and even skin walkers, but none of these have interested him as much as the wendigo does, the wendigo is a cryptid that has no specific shape but can shape shift and is usually seen as a deer like creature, the wendigo was rumoured to live in a forest near to where Anton lived.

So one faithful day Anton went to visit his friends Max and Loria to convince them to go with him, but he did not tell them why he wanted to go, he had just said "Come on guys, it'll be fun". Max and Loria were of course skeptical at first but they eventually gave in and agreed to take the dangerous venture in the woods not realising this would lead to a fate worse than death. They agreed on the going on the Friday after work and arriving back on the Sunday night at the latest.

As the day of the outing approached, Max and Loria became increasingly more paranoid about the trip but Anton reassured them "It will be fun and nothing bad will happen", and so the day of the hike was upon them, they got themselves ready and set themselves on their way. The travel was nothing out of the ordinary. They occasionally stop to catch their breath and recoup, but then nightfall was upon them. Conveniently when nightfall came; they came across an open piece of land where they felt would be a good place to reside for the night.

They set up camp in this open piece of land. They cooked food and told stories around a fire, namely the story of the Wendigo, Anton being fascinated with cryptids told them stories since he already knew a few from memory. After they had all finished eating and telling stories they ended up going to sleep in their respective tents. They slept peacefully until Max heard the sound of snapping twigs outside his tent.

He opened his eyes and saw a figure standing outside his tent, Anton is a notorious prankster so he shouted Stop being silly and go to bed, but the figure didn't move at all, then the figure let out a roar that sent shivers down Max's back, but he was woken by Loria asking him "What's wrong? You were screaming like a mad man" and he said "It was probably just a nightmare".

Loria asked "should I accompany you for the rest of the night?" but he replied "No, it's fine, I'll just head back to sleep", which they all did. This exact same event repeated itself again and the trio started to get freaked out as they did not know what was happening at this point. This time was slightly different though, the footsteps sounded a bit more frantic and there were faint taps outside Max's tent, and this time there was no roar the creature circled his tent 3 times and just stopped at the front. The figure of this creature was there for the entire night until Max finally fell asleep out of extreme exhaustion.

The next morning he tried to tell Loria and Anton about the second time the creature visited him, but he could not remember the figure of it, he thought he was busy going mad BC he knew he saw it but he could not describe how it looked. After he told them what happened the night before they packed up camp and continued on their journey. They trekked with no problem until dawn when all hell started to break loose.

They were walking when all of a sudden they heard a twig break in the distance, the sound echoed through the trees, then the bushes started ruffling like something was running through it quickly and this set off their fight or flight response and filled them with adrenaline. They started sprinting on their trail and they sprinted until they physically collapsed and could not anymore.

When they stopped they took a minute to look around and realised that they were in the exact same place they had camped the night before. This set them off because they could have sworn they were running in the opposite direction of their campsite. Since it was already night time they had decided to just camp there again for the night. This would bring upon them a fate worse than death.