The woods. You never really liked the woods. You never really enjoyed the endless trees and numerous animals hiding out in every corner. The silence of the night making your mind run wild with crazy scenarios, none of which have a very high probability of happening, but, you never know. There is a cabin you need to get to. Inside, all of your friends are waiting. They thought a camping trip would be a fun way to celebrate your last summer before you enroll into medical school. You would have preferred to have hosted a nice lunch, but whatever. You’re here now.
Of course, knowing your luck, you have ended up trekking to the camping grounds all alone. The last few classes you had yet to take your finals for had made you arrive late to this whole endeavor. Your friends, having gotten there before you, have set you a little trail with some rope tied to trees. It seems easy enough, just follow the path.
As you are walking along, one hand on the rope leading the way, you remember a story that your mother had told you once. A story about a creature, a heinous creature. Body emancipated, hollow features, eyes sunken in, veins opacently visible under their pale and ashy skin. Bones poking out at every corner and curve of their body. What lips they once had are now tattered and bloody. They looked like dead men walking, stalking the earth after laying in a grave for a week. Their insatiable hunger for human flesh cause them to hunt out man by man, trying to find their next meal.
The story says they came from a group of Jesuit missionaries in 1661. They were heading to the land of Algonquins, a tribe of Native Americans that lived along the forest regions of the Ottawa River. The Jesuits had come to replace and support a group that had arrived before after receiving news that they had fallen strangely ill. It was far worse than they could have ever imagined.
They had written the following:
“Those poor men… were seized with an aliment [that] makes them so ravenous for human flesh that they pounce upon women, children, and even upon men, like veritable werewolves, and devour them voraciously, without being able to appease or glut their appetite - ever seeking fresh pray, and the more greedily the more they eat.”
These men had been possessed by the mythical creature known as a wendigo.
As told in the tale, a wendigo’s hunger is never satisfied. Each bite they take makes them more esurient. In some versions of the story, they eat and eat and eat until they are flesh-starved, cannibalistic giants that tower over forest trees. They can make their presence known by letting out a incredibly horrific scream. It has been told that it sounds like a piercing, human-like screech in combination of a guttural growl, as if the humane part of the creature reveals itself for a second.
If anyone hears the screech of a wendigo, they do not live to see the sunrise.
Now that you are walking in the forest, this story playing through your head increases your paranoia exponentially. Every snap of a branch and blow of the wind sends a strike of fear through your heart. Your palms start sweating, you feel yourself start to get shaky, the trembling beginning in your hands traveling to the rest of your body in the span of just a few moments. You can feel your fear all the way from the rapidness of your pulse to the weakness in your knees. The sickly feeling is settling in your stomach.
But, wendigos aren’t real. There is no reason for you to be scared. Despite you knowing this story to be a myth, you find that the narrative is too realistic for your liking. You feel like the creature will come around a tree, bush, or rock at any moment.
“Your okay, it’s just a stupid, made up story. There’s no way that wendigos actually exist,” You say in a vain attempt to calm your nerves.
Then you hear leaves rustling behind you.
Spinning around so fast, almost losing your balance in the process, you begin to assess your options. Either you stay here and get eaten by a wendigo or you run.
Running seems like it has the better outcome but your feet are glued to the ground. The state of your panic is freezing you in terror. The pounding in your chest has now reached your ears. Your heart feels like it’s going to explode out of your rib cage. The resulting gets louder, you feel as though your seconds are running out.
You don’t want to die.
Whatever mangy beast you were expecting pops out. You cover your head with your arms, retreating to the old, child-like logic “if I can’t see them, they can’t see me.” After a few terribly long minutes, you bring your arms down, realizing that you were not eaten.
In replacement of a man-eating monster, you see a little fluffy, brown bunny.
The ridiculousness of your fright finally sinking in, you come to conclusion that you will probably not get eaten by a mythical creature. Obviously, it only exists in the legend in which it was born. You, finally, calm down. The walk seems to be a lot easier now that you have this newfound comfort. Nothing is there to hurt you.
And then you hear the screech.
