The creepy horror story

Why We Fear The Dark

My name is Seth Anderson. I am a 43-year-old accountant from Washington. I am married, I have two daughters, and I was mortally afraid of clowns for a time in my life. That time lasted from my tenth birthday party up until last night.

Before I delve into why I am typing this at three in the morning, I need you to ask yourself if you fear the dark. If your answer is no, you need to CAREFULLY reconsider your answer, for that would have been my first response a mere couple of hours ago. Now, there is nothing I fear more. At this point, I would live with clowns just to forget what happened. I know that sounds funny coming from a near-middle-aged man on the internet, but hopefully you'll take my words into consideration if you remotely care about your mental health, let alone your life.

There is a reason we were born into fearing the dark, but it's far from the scientific explanations that have been built upon over the years. There really isn't a right word for what it is, but the best I can say is that it's just... wrong. It's not the dark itself, it's what festers in it; what is unearthed when the sun hides behind the horizon. It's everything wrong with the world, both physically and morally. When it happens, it's almost as if time has shattered, nothing makes any sense.

I remember everything so vividly, but to recall the event is almost like having a nightmare.

It all started a few hours after I returned home. I live in the woodland area, so it is quite a drive back from where I work. I was raised in the woods, and most of my childhood consisted of walking trails and climbing trees, so it only felt right to settle down away from the city lights to let my kids experience the wonders of the outdoors. To clear my mind of documents and papers, I walk the rugged trails within the forest behind my house, which allows me to relive some familiar feelings from when I was a kid. Overtime booked me an extra few hours, so by the time I arrived home, the kids and wife were already in bed. Without thinking, I grabbed my walking stick and water bottle and flew out the glass sliding doors. Almost forgetting to close the doors, I quietly slid them shut and trudged through the unkept yard and found myself at the edge of the forest.

I gazed into the piney wonderland, but my eyes only met with a wall of darkness. This was very strange because the forecast for last night was a full moon, which should have given ample light to walk the paths. The moonlight was almost nonexistent, as if the land was absorbing it. After turning my phone flash on, I began my walk into the abyss. Around a quarter of a mile in, I look up from the path and realize I can't see more than a few feet in front of me. It was like looking into a tub of oil, the trees drowning in the dark until you pulled them to the surface. And ever stranger was the fact I couldn't hear anything. The only sounds to accompany me were the sounds of my footsteps and breathing. I mean this was VERY unnerving, even during the winter you could hear the sounds of trees rustling in the wind. Pushing the thought out of my head, I walked faster and returned my gaze to the ground. Then I stopped. Rather than a worn dirt path, I was standing on underbrush and shrubs. Something wasn't right, and every feeling in my body was screaming it at this point. I turned around and walked for what seemed like an hour, looking for the path, but it felt like I wasn't moving at all. At that moment, my flashlight flicked off.

My mind went blank. All I could feel was an overwhelming sense of dread and terror. It was like thousands of blades were hovering inches from my body. Moving felt wrong, breathing felt wrong, just being felt wrong. I frantically pressed the power button on my phone, but to no avail. For some unknown reason, the sense of an impending doom was creeping on me. As second pass by, the closer whatever I thought was after me was getting closer. My body shot into overdrive and I began sprinting further into the void. As I stumbled through the forest, my eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. I could see faint outlines of trees and bushes. I ran for what felt like hours, hoping to break into a clearing or just find a source of light. That's when my phone started ringing. I stopped dead in my tracks, slowly grabbed for my phone, and raised it to my face.