Curupira

I'm a biologist and I went to Amazon Rainforest to do some research about the “Phoneutria nigriventer”, the most poisonous spider, also known as Brazilian Wandering Spider (Aranha Armadeira), but that doesn't matter. I'm here to tell you about the Curupira, one of the creatures from the Brazilian folklore. The oldest manuscript mentioning this creature is from May 30th, 1560, a few years after this land was "discovered". Here's what is on the manuscript:
"It is something known by everybody that certain demons run around these woods, which the Brazils call Curupira. They often appear to the Indians in the woods, flog them, hurt them/us and kill them/us. In testimony to this, some of our brothers who saw them were killed by an unknown creature. Because of that, the Indians used to leave in some paths, which would have the rough thickets entries or on the summit of the highest mountain, bird feathers, shakers, arrows and things alike, as a kind of offering, praying fervently to Curupiras that they do not do evil."
The principal characteristic of the Curupira is its feet. They’re just like human feet, but turned backwards. As a result, it leaves footprints that lead you in the opposite direction to the way that you want to go, if you are running away from it.
Anyway, my first day in the Amazon was normal. I set up camp close to an Indian tribe that lived there, since there was no hotel near enough to the woods that would permit me to study completely what I wanted. Besides, this was also an opportunity to learn about how they lived. I was just collecting some samples of cobwebs, plants, dirt, and the spider’s poison.
I went to talk with some of the little Indians about what they do over the day. They were amazing kids, they said that in the morning they all wake up really early to enjoy the sunlight as much as possible. After that, they go fishing, hunting and collecting fruits. The weird thing is that, as soon as the sun was coming down, they lit a fire and ran to their huts, looking like they were afraid of something. At first I thought it was just because of the animals that lived in the forest.
I hardly could sleep at the first night. I had a strange feeling that something was around, watching, surrounding… I tried my best to ignore this feeling and eventually forced myself to sleep.
The second day I was woken by a scream coming from one of the huts. There were many Indians in front of that hut, all of them seeming scared about something. I asked some of them what had happened, and they said that one of the kids was missing, a little girl. Her mother was desperate because she had heard nothing during the night, and there’s were traces that something was dragged out of her hut. There was no trace of blood, at least that was at least a good thing. The strange thing is that some of the Indians gave me a bad look, but with what was happening, I ignored it.
Eventually, some Indians went to search for the kids. I couldn’t stay without doing anything about it, since she was just a little girl.
During the day, I asked one of the Indians if something like this had happened before. He said that it had only happened once, a very long time ago, when he was just a kid. He told me that one boy disappeared, just like this girl, but that night one of the adult Indians was awake, and saw a creature dragging the little boy. He warned everybody as soon as possible, and they went search for the boy on the dark night.
After three days of searching for the boy, they found his body severed and slaughtered. It was the most horrifying thing they’d ever seen. At this point, I was staying very creeped out thinking of who might be capable of doing such a horrible thing to a kid. Why was this happening again?
I asked them if there would have some reason for a thing like happens. They said that at that time, some hunters were around the region, and some kind of “protector spirit of the forest” (also known by them as “Curupira”) didn’t like the way the hunters treated the animals. After catching the animals, they tortured and killed them just for fun. For punishment, the spirit took the kid, and some weeks later after that, they found some of the hunters in the same condition as the kid.
Now I realized why some Indians were looking in bad ways at me. Maybe they thought I was the reason why the Curupira had taken the little girl, and I also started to think that way.
Coming back to the village, I decided to take my things and leave, seeing as if the Curupira didn’t kill me, the Indians would. Not long after packing my things and leaving the village, I got lost. Even though I had a map and a compass with me, I couldn’t get out of the forest; the compass kept spinning with no reason.
It was getting dark, and staying at night in a forest were every kind of animal could kill you isn’t good, even more when an unknown creature is looking for you.
Then my heart almost stopped. A few meters away from me, I saw yellow glowing eyes looking in my direction. Whether it was the Curupira or not was a discovery I wasn't willing to make. I ran as fast as I could, without knowing where I was going and not even looking back. While I was running, I dropped my flashlight and it broke. I panicked, in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, with something looking after me, and then it jumped in front of me, the most horrifying creature that I’ve ever seen, it was almost impossible to describe. It had a weird, badly shaped head with big, sharp teeth and a body full of pustules and a yellow liquid coming out of it, standing on four, also looked like its torso was wry, and what let no doubt that it was the Curupira, his feet were backward.
At first, I was paralyzed, but then I grabbed a stone in the ground, threw it at its head and ran away from there. The only thing I could hear was some kind of howling and growling that I'd never heard before, and it was getting louder and louder, that thing was approaching me, and I had no hope that I was going to get out of there alive.
I was still running from the beast when the howling suddenly stopped, I heard a thump, I didn’t know what had happened until I saw one of the Indians right in front of me with a bow and some arrows with him, seemed that he had taken the beast down for a moment.
The Indian advised me to go back to the village with him, but I knew if I had done this, the danger would go back with me and I didn’t want that thing close to the Indians again, since it was all my fault. The Curupira must’ve thought that I was going to repeat the acts the hunters did a few years ago, so I hesitated at first, but there was no other option for me to get safe.
On our way back to the village, the Indian heard someone crying. The crying was from the little girl, the Indian ran to where the crying was coming, he yelled at me saying he had found the girl in a hole in the ground. As soon as he finished his sentence, the sound of the Curupira was back, and this time, louder than ever. I saw it passing close to me and going towards the Indian… Screams… Screams and the sound of flesh getting ripped was everything that I could hear, but luckily I saw the little girl, crying, coming in my direction.
The village wasn’t far from for there, I still could hear the screams as I leaded the girl to her home, after the screams stopped, I told to the girl to run as fast as possible to the village, and I went in the opposite direction, shouting, to lure the beast.
After running for about thirty minutes, I stepped on a hole and broke my ankle, at this point I haven’t any hopes of getting out that situation alive, and the Curupira was very close to me, then I noticed I had something on my pocket, it was the spider poison in a syringe that I had collected earlier, I barely could think in anything when jumped in me, I was trying to protect my head with my left arm, and when the beast bit my arm, I injected the poison on its neck, it did not produce a rapid effect, but the Curupira got slower and dizzy, and before it could rip my left arm off, I found a sharp rock and stabbed him in the head.
When it fell to the ground, his body turned into smoke and slowly faded into the sky, as a biologist, all I wanted was a sample of the creature, but nothing was left there but the rock…
The sun was rising when I finally found my way out of the forest, I reached a road and fainted… I woke up in a local hospital, the doctors said that a car was passing by the road when they saw me and took me to the hospital.
I can’t really prove what happened, and I will never come back to that forest again, I lost almost all movement of my left arm, but the important thing is that I could get out of there alive.
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