Schwarzwald

The travel guide warned us not to go into the forest at night. To stay near the edge of the trees and stick to the paths. We didn’t think anything of it, after all the stories are nothing more than legends. Scary little stories to keep children from running around in the forest. We should have listened.

My friends and I travelled to Europe, we had just graduated college and we wanted to do some exploring before settling down. We made the decision to go on a trip to explore the legends of Europe, it seemed like a smart idea at the time. We would go to castles that were said to be haunted, visit locations that the stories say have fae and other mythical creatures in them. It seemed fun, until we went to Germany.

Germany was to be the last end of our trip, we wanted to see the black forest known to the germans as Schwarzwald. All we wanted to do was take a tour and see where the Grimm Fairy Tales originated from. The tour guide gave us some basic rules to follow while in the Forest. They were simple, don’t go into the forest alone, don’t go into the forest at night, if you hear whispers and see lights run. We laughed at the last one, they were obviously trying to scare us.

After the tour in which we stayed on the trails and explored the forest, we had headed back to our hotel. Sometime in between sitting in the hotel room and going to dinner we came up with the idea of going back into the forest. Just the three of us, at night. We didn’t think anything about it after all the stories are just that, stories. So after dinner we packed some flashlights and water bottles and made our way to the forest.

Everything was fine for the first half hour or so, we just wandered around joking and trying to scare each other. That’s when I got an idea, I’d turn off my flashlight and run ahead and scare them when they come by. It seemed perfect at the time they were going to be coming that way and they would never expect it. So I slowed down waited until I was far enough behind, then I turned my flashlight off. I followed their flashlights for a while before running in the general direction ahead. Once I came to a stop after running for 5 minutes or so I turned in circles looking for their light. It was only then that I remember the first rule, never go into the forest alone. I didn’t think about it still, it’s fine I’m not alone they are just a little behind I guess I ran farther than I thought. That’s where it began.

I heard a whisper coming from my left side, I knew it had to be one of my friends trying to scare me. They must have realized what I planned to do so they decided to team up and scare me instead. I turned my flashlight on and looked around the area. There was nothing there, I heard the whisper again right in front of me so I pointed the flashlight in the general area and began walking towards it. As I neared the area I thought I heard the whisper from a new voice whispered ahead of me again. Looking around me, I shrugged and continued on.

Looking back on this now I realized just how many mistakes I made, I should have stayed with my friends, I shouldn’t have agreed to come at night, but most importantly I shouldn’t have followed the whispers. At this point I had followed the whispers for what seemed like half and hour. That’s when I saw the light, a small glowing light that seemed to be around eye level deeper into the forest. Right as I began to near the light that’s when I heard it, back from the way I came, two piercing screams. I freaked out and began running towards the light. Right as I neared the light I saw something. When I saw it I realized what the Grimm Fairy Tales were about. They weren’t Fairy Tales, they were nightmares fueled by this Thing. I turned around and ran, I didn’t stop running until the trees began to thin and I could see the lights of the town. I ran back into the hotel and went straight to our room.

The next day I went down to the police station and explained to them that we went into the woods the night before, that we got seperated and they haven’t come back. A search party was made to go looking for them, the tour guide had taken one look at me and said “You saw it, your friends paid the price. They are one with Schwarzwald now,”. They were never found, it was almost as if they didn’t exist. After a week of searching, I had to head back to the States, our trip was over for me, but for them it would never end.