It's The Wind

Something’s wailing and moaning outside. It’s the wind, of course. It’s the wind. While I know it’s just terrible winter weather, I cannot shake the feeling of something being wrong tonight. This wind is different, it’s special. It is almost supernatural. To me, that is. I’ve heard these sounds being made by the wind only once before. That was long ago.

About two decades ago, when I was still a teenager, I’ve had a rough time. I was probably sixteen or seventeen and I was absolutely miserable. I hated my life, my parents, everyone around me. I even hated myself. I wasn’t suicidal, or anything, but I felt like everything was wrong, like something was out of place in me. I was probably just burnt out at the time. Regardless of the reason, many days with very little sleep and lots of anxiety and stress had made me irritable and volatile. So much so, that I had to get away from everything. To get away is exactly what I did.

I packed a bunch of stuff and just drove off into the mountains telling no one. It was the middle of the winter. Back then we had shitty cellphones that were good for nothing but making calls and obliterate brick walls. I left mine at home and just disappeared for a few days. Being away made me feel better, I don’t know what it was, but whatever was different there – it made me feel alive for a change. Maybe it was the silence, or maybe it was the clean mountainous air, I don’t know. Regardless, being there felt just amazing. That said, on my last night there, a violent snowstorm broke out. I was safe, I made sure to lodge my tent firmly into the ground under a tree. It was leafless at the time, massive and skeletal, and yet beautiful. That night when I went to sleep, the wind was only picking up.

The wailing and moaning outside woke me up. My tent shook under the force of the air currents. The movement made an irritating flopping sound. That coupled with the Banshee-esque cries of the wind prevented me from falling asleep. No matter how hard I tried to fall back to sleep, I could not. I don’t even know how long I’ve twisted and turned in my sleeping bag.

Then I heard something pop, snap, and crash just outside my tent. A cold shiver ran down my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I sat up and stared at one of the closed tent windows. Nothing but wailing winds came for a while. So, I reasoned that the noise must’ve been a tree branch breaking or something. I laid back down and tried falling asleep again.

I was finally drifting off when I heard something scrape against the tent. At first, I ignored it but then the scraping returned, I ignored it once more but it came back again and again and again. My anxiety returned, my heart was racing and my mind was going nuts with anticipation for something to happen. I could no longer ignore the scraping once I figured out something much heavier than a tree brunch made the noise. It was something long and wide that scraped against my tent.

The anxiety got the best of me, and the impulse took over, I slowly crawled over to the other end of the end and carefully, slowly unzipped the tent window.

The entire mountain must’ve heard me scream out at the moment; I swear I screamed so loud when I saw those two bloodshot eyes staring back at me from within the storm. Just two huge glossed over bloodshot eyes and I don’t mean bloodshot. Not venous, but blood red, like all the capillaries had exploded in them.

I forcefully zipped the window, so hard in fact I almost flipped the whole damn thing over.  I scrambled to the other end of the tent and grabbed my hammer. I waiting for whatever that thing was to tear the tent open and charge straight at me. I was ready to fight for my life. Nothing happened, however, whatever it was it just scrapped against my tent occasionally. That’s all it did, fortunately. I couldn’t fall asleep for hours. I had to stay alert just in case this thing would fly it. The notion of this being some kind of predator kept swirling in my mind. These eyes, they weren’t normal. I knew what I saw, and I knew they saw me.

I must’ve fallen asleep when the sun started rising and the storm was finally dying down. I knew I was dozing off because the scraping noise had ended. My mind relaxed and my body gave in to the exhaustion.

I woke up probably at midday, feeling exhausted and groggy I must’ve forgotten about the thing that was lurking around my tent at night. My body was on autopilot. I hastily unzipped the entrance of the tent and tried walking out. I must’ve slipped because I remember nearly falling onto a pillar of snow that had accumulated in front of my tent. Then, I completely lost my footing and landed on my back, my head hitting the cold ground below me.

Luckily, no harm was done as I was able to get back to my feet just a second later. However, I was so dizzy it took me a few moments to make out the blood-red eyes of a hooded figure hanging from the tree. Its side was awkwardly against the back of my tent.