By Lincoln Bennett, Year 7
Many years ago, two small children got lost in the woods. Their father went searching for them, but he was never seen again. Their grieving mother sent out several hunting parties into the woods to retrieve her lost family but no one ever returned. It's said that there's a beast in the woods who devours all who enter. The grieving mother has hired you to help find her lost family and kill whatever horror haunts the woods. This Is How Your Story Ends…
5pm: Eve of The Hunt
A car pulls up to an old dodgy cabin in the woods and parks the car out the front of the cabin. You walk out of the car looking at the cabin, you then walk to the boot of the car and you open it and pull out your hunting rifle, 8 packets of bullets, a revolver, a knife, a flare gun, a map and a book. you get your things and put them in a backpack. you walk up to the cabin door unlocking the door looking inside. It looks like a cabin from a Friday the 13th film and you walk in as the floorboards creak as you put the bag on a chair Unpacking it.
First you pull out your hunting rifle and the 8 packs of bullets and place them on the nightstand. You then put the knife in a knife holster and you grab the revolver out of your bag and put it in a gun holster and you leave the flare gun and the map in the bag, walking to the bed to get a quick nap in before you go hunting. you lie on your bed and drift to sleep.
7pm: The Hunt Begins
A Huge roar wakes you up during your nap and you jump awake grabbing your gun and loading it. After you load the gun you grab your things and put them in the bag and you get ready to hunt. you walk to the door frame and step out as chills fill your spine as you close the door and you walk down the steps into the vegetation going to kill this beast. As you walk out you see a red light in the distance and you walk to it and it's a glowing elk skull with Cryptic symbols on it but then you turn around and theres a pair of red eyes in the distance and you follows it whilst taking the gun off safety mode then suddenly you gets hit in the back of the head and the you get knocked out.
7:30pm: Surprise Attack
30 minutes after getting knocked out you wake up being dragged across the floor by a random person and then your slightly conscious body is dropped right next to a campfire but then you get up and you look the random person is one of the members of one of the hunting parties who managed to survive but he grabs his gun and points it at you and is about to shoot but then in an instant a huge creature jumps out of the bushes snatching the man impaling him in the stomach dragging his body away. You are shocked by this and you grab your bag full of your stuff. Reaching into your bag, grabbing the map and running in the direction of the cabin.
8pm: Nightmare Fuel
you sprint away and manage to find the cabin and you run in locking the door. You grab your gun putting it on your nightstand and try to drift to sleep but can't manage to because when you close your eyes the only thing you see is the beasts devilish skull and you can't fall asleep so you sits up in the bed pointing your gun at the door but after 4 hours of being terrified you fall asleep.
6am: The Day Of Deceiving
The Next Morning you wake up and have forgotten what happened the day before but after getting ready to load your gun it all comes back and you remember the tragedy that happened the night before and you grab your things and go out to hunt this beast.
7am: Losing Reality
After An hour of searching for this beast you're about to go back but suddenly you hear a voice in the distance, a sound of a young girl. After thinking it's one of the girls that went missing you run toward the noise but it sounds like it's coming from every direction. Left, right even above you then you hear something else a voice… Your own Voice coming from inside a cave and you run in with your gun in hand ready to shoot and kill what lies beneath.
9am: The Cave Of Lies
Suddenly as you walk into a tunnel in the cave you look at your watch and it's been 2 hours only feeling like 5 minutes and it's been 2 hours and then you decide to leave but you can't. The path you went into is suddenly blocked off and you're trapped. Grabbing your flashlight you continue on your path as there's no going back.
1pm: Losing My Mind
After 4 hours of trying to find a way out you start going in circles but then you hear a growl in the distance, a wolf perhaps a bear or worse The Beast. You then grab your gun ready to shoot and a deer runs right past and you accidentally shoot but then the creature reveals itself. A huge beast with the head of a deer skull fur of a bear and human skulls being drawn over the beasts back dripping fresh blood from one of the skulls knowing its the head of the person that knocked you out and you realizes what this creature is and you shoot the beast but it has no effect and you sprint around the cave getting chased by this beast.
5pm: Minutes to Hours
Still being chased by this beast and hiding from it you find a tunnel with a dull light at the end and you decides to run down it, while the creature is still following but after you get to the end of the tunnel you run out of the cave into the light of the sunset then the beast walks out of the cave and it continues following you.
5:30pm: The Discovery
As the beast is chasing you, the beast gets distracted by a deer that runs in front of it and then you get back to the cabin locking the door. You throw your bag on the bed and you grab your book titled “Folklore Hunting” a book about mythical creatures from folklore and you flip to a page titled ”The Wendigo'' A wendigo is a supernatural being belonging to the spiritual traditions of Algonquian-speaking First Nations in North America. Wendigos are described as powerful monsters that have a desire to kill and eat their victims. In most legends, humans transform into wendigos because of their greed or weakness. The wendigo has the ability to mimic others' voices and to create illusion in victims minds and make them go insane. And you realize what you're hunting. THE WENDIGO
7pm: Where did it go
After reading about this beast you find out that the only way to defeat it is to burn it in a sacrificial fire pit. And you get your possessions and you go out to find a fire pit that the book describes as “a pool of oil surrounded by stone buildings and tables to place runes”. No run-ins with the Wendigo yet and then suddenly something really strange happens to you, you see a huge Ferris wheel and roller coaster but how did it get here? It wasn't here before and it just appeared. You then walk up to the Ferris wheel and you get on it but as you get to the top of the Ferris wheel you see a pair of red glowing eyes waiting for you and you climbs off the Ferris wheel onto one of the roller coaster tracks and you run to the bottom shooting at the wendigo and at the bottom you jump off running to the cabin but its not there. The cabin is gone like it disappeared and there's only a decomposing body of a man with a note in his hand saying “I swear the cabin was right here” but it's gone. Where did it go?
10pm: On Our Own
After the cabin disappeared you ran to the Ferris wheel and got in and waited for hours till the next day but at around 2am you see the beast dragging a deer carcass into the woods and then you hear the beast feasting on the deer carcass on the ground. As you look over the edge you see the beast's huge red eyes through the foliage and it looks like it's staring at you causing you to sweat and panic.
9am: The Fog
The next day you wake up to rain falling from the sky and fog forming at the bottom. As you get up to go out hunting you hear something moving up the Ferris wheel and the beast is climbing up the Ferris wheel using the fog as camouflage to sneak up on you and you get up and start running down the tracks and as it gets to the lowest track you jump off running into the forest undetected.
10:30am: The Weakness
After running away from the beast undetected you decides to look around for the fire pit again and you pull out your map but it's different from before and it's showing the cabin inside the huge cave you were in earlier but knows you will never go back in there but then you sees a huge structure on the map some building ruins and you travels in that direction. As you get to the building you find a huge pool of oil and you know that this is the firepit, THE WEAKNESS.
11am: The Ruins Of Death
After finding the Sacrificial pit you looked around for the runes but they are all gone. they are not there and you decide to search for them. As you get ready to search you hear a growl in the distance and you hide around a corner in the ruins and the wendigo runs through the oil pit near you and it has picked up your scent. After seeing the wendigo walk into the oil pit you get an idea on how to kill the Wendigo.
11am: Hide and Seek
As The Wendigo picks up your scent it can hear you right behind it and you slowly walk around the ruin building corner as the wendigo turns around. And you're undetected but now it's a game of hide and seek but instead of being out and nothing bad happens except for sadness and accusations of cheating your life's on the line either you run away and avoid it or you die in the most gruesome way. limbs getting ripped. As the wendigo is looking for you, you lay down inside a small bush that camouflages you and the wendigo walks right past you but the beast knows your there and it turns around and screams in your face and out of shock you shoot it in the face but it does damage the shot blew a hole in the head of the beast. It seems that in the area near the oil pit the creature takes damage and you run away as it is trying to heal its wounds.
12am: Old As Time
As you are running away from the wendigo it chases you and you trip on a branch and you fall into a small old mine going underground and you go in but it's not a cave it's just a dead end with native American stone carvings on the wall. Then you turn on your flash light and the drawings are horrifying with a drawing of the wendigo ripping someone apart and also 3 drawings of 3 of the Runes. you grab 3 rocks and start to carve the runes into each rock and you put each rock into your bag. As you're about to leave you see the beast walking across the tunnel entrance but you are unseen but as you hear it walk away you slowly walk out of the tunnel towards the ruins and place the 3 runes on each table and now there's 5 left with 8 surrounding tables.
1pm: The Beginning of the End
After an hour of searching and thankfully no sightings of the wendigo you have found 2 new runes which were actually carved onto 2 of the glowing deer skulls and is your now walking to the ruins to place the new runes with only 2 left to find and as soon as you puts the 2 runes on the tables a flock of birds fly over your head as if there flying away from something and then you look up and the huge beast is stalking you from the trees and you pretend to not see the beast but you grab your rifle and shoots at the beast but it doesn't have any effect even though its near the oil pit it doesn't get hurt but then you realizes it not the area that hurts the beast it's when the oil is attached to the wendigo and you run off as the wendigo jumps from tree to tree following you. But as soon as you run and hide inside of a hollow tree the wendigo gets down from the trees and scans the area to find him.
5pm: Eve Of DEATH
After 4 hours of hiding from the wendigo it gets dark and it leaves to go hunt for some food as it's given up finding you. And you get out of the tree and you look for the last runes but there's only one place you haven't checked for the runes and that place is the caves. As you try to regret your decision of coming to this place you go into the cave and you get chills down your spine but suddenly you see a wall full of cave painting and you follows a trail of cave painting until you find the next 2 runes, you grab 2 rocks from the ground and carves the symbols into them with your knife but after finishing the 1st one and you're halfway done with the second one you hear the echo of the beast dragging 2 deer carcass into the cave and you turn your light off and you try your best to use the natural light to finish the carving and you finish the carving and you try sneaking out of the cave but as soon as you reach the entrance you step on a twig and the beast turns around looking at you and scream as you go running of and the beast follows.
5:15pm: The Trap Card
As the beast is following you, you pull out your map and realize that the ruins are near where you are and you lure the beast to the oil pit and as the beast gets in the oil pit you shoot its arm clean off and it runs away to the direction of the cave. As you take a sigh of relief you walk over to the last 2 tables and you put the last 2 runes on them and they start to glow a deep red. Then you look down and there's a trail of oil going into a goblet and you get what you have to do and you prepare for the trap
7pm: The End Of The Line
After preparing the trap you get into position and you pull out a flare gun out of your bag and load it with a flare and you shoot it into the air and a red glow covers the forest and it creates a huge light in the sky. Then you hear the roar of the beast in the distance and you shoot a shot in the air to cause noise to lure in the beast. As the red gaze covers the forest the creature sprints to you and you see him on the other side of the oil pit and you shoot the beast and it sprints right towards you and as it gets to the oil pit it runs in and a red force field surrounds the beast and it punches the sides of the barrier and then you walk over to the goblet loading the flare and shooting it into the cauldron.
As the cauldron starts to light on fire it lights a trail of oil into the pit and it starts to burn and the beast screams as it is lit on fire and is dragged down to hell. As the fires dull you see a ghostly figure step out of the flames and approach you. “You've Freed me from the monsters I became, thank you.” “I went searching for my two girls, And lost my way in this cursed forest”
“Eventually I found one of my children down by a stream. She had broken her leg and was slumped up against a tree stump, no sign of her sister.” “she wouldn't wake up, I sat with her for days and days” “I'm not proud of what I did, but i was desperate and it's what she would have wanted” “Thank you for freeing me, we can now be at peace together”. and the ghostly figure fades into nothing
Upon Returning to the mother you inform her of what happened to her children and husband. At first she is horrified but then she thanks you for saving her husband from the monster he became and she is pleased she now has closure and she can move on. As you get back to your own house you feel the peace of those who died in the forest. And you lay on your couch and you feel proud of making the forest a safer place.
THE END
Spirit Of The woodlands: A Wendigo story
Based On The Video Game "Folklore Hunter"
Such a cool story!!!! 🖤