PART 6: THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE SCARED TO CAMP IN THE DARK DIVIDE WASHINGTON – Bigfoot Stories
The first knock came from inside my chest.
I felt it before I heard it.
A dull impact beneath my ribs.
Knock.
I grabbed my chest.
The woman screamed.
The second came harder.
Knock.
My knees nearly buckled.
The third made every monitor in the room flicker back to life.
Knock.
Then came the fourth.
KNOCK.
Every screen displayed the same image.
My face.
Not the older version.
Not the thing wearing my face.
Mine.
Except my eyes were closed.
The image looked like a photograph.
Then my eyes opened.
I stared at the monitors.
The woman whispered:
“That’s not possible.”
“What?”
She pointed at the screen.
The image of me was breathing.
Slowly.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
The face on the monitors smiled.
Then all the screens went black.
The room fell silent.
I could still feel something moving beneath my ribs.
Not my heartbeat.
Something else.
Something that was keeping time with it.
I pressed my palm against my chest.
“Get it out.”
The woman looked terrified.
“I can’t.”
“Then tell me how.”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you’ve been waiting for me.”
“I’ve been waiting for the thing that came back.”
I stared at her.
“You still think I’m not me.”
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
“I don’t know what you are.”
Another vibration passed through my body.
This time, the walls responded.
The roots surrounding the chamber began moving.
Slowly.
They twisted against the stone.
The entire underground facility seemed to breathe.
The woman grabbed the lantern.
“We need to get out.”
“Where?”
“The surface.”
“What about the door?”
“We can’t use it.”
“Why?”
“Because the door isn’t a door anymore.”
I looked behind us.
The steel entrance had changed.
Roots had grown across it.
Thick black roots.
They pulsed like veins.
The woman stepped closer.
“They’re sealing us in.”
“Who?”
She looked at me.
“The forest.”
We ran.
The tunnel seemed longer than before.
Every few seconds, the ground shook.
Behind us came a scraping sound.
Something was following.
I didn’t look back.
Neither did the woman.
We reached the chamber with the photographs.
The walls were different.
Every photograph was turned toward us.
Thousands of faces staring.
But one photograph stood out.
A picture of the six of us.
I stopped.
The woman kept moving.
“Don’t.”
I ignored her.
I walked toward the photograph.
There was something written on the back.
I turned it over.
A sentence.
ONLY FIVE CAME BACK.
Below it, someone had added another line.
BUT SIX WERE RETURNED.
My blood went cold.
I looked at the woman.
“What does that mean?”
She stopped.
Her face had gone pale.
“You remember now.”
“Not enough.”
“You will.”
A sound came from the tunnel.
A low growl.
The woman grabbed my arm.
“Come on.”
We reached the stairs.
I climbed.
The cabin was above us.
But when I opened the door, I didn’t see the cabin.
I saw my childhood home.
The one I had lived in as a boy.
The hallway.
The old carpet.
My mother’s photographs on the wall.
The smell of coffee.
Morning sunlight through the kitchen window.
I stood frozen.
The woman whispered behind me:
“Don’t go inside.”
I couldn’t hear her.
My mother was standing in the kitchen.
She looked exactly as I remembered her.
Young.
Healthy.
Alive.
She turned.
“Elias?”
My breath caught.
“Mom?”
She smiled.
“You’re home.”
I stepped forward.
The woman grabbed me.
“That’s not your mother.”
My mother looked at her.
Her smile disappeared.
Then her face changed.
Not dramatically.
Just slightly.
Her eyes became too dark.
Her smile became too wide.
And her voice changed.
“You always were a difficult child.”
The room flickered.
The house disappeared.
I was back inside the cabin.
The woman was still holding my arm.
“What was that?”
“The forest.”
“It showed me my mother.”
“It shows you what you want.”
“Why?”
“To make you open the door.”
I looked toward the cabin windows.
Outside, the forest was moving.
Trees bent toward us.
Branches scraping across the roof.
Something enormous passed behind the cabin.
The woman whispered:
“We have to reach the creek.”
“Why?”
“The water is the boundary.”
We ran outside.
My dog was waiting on the opposite bank.
He was barking furiously.
Then I saw the trees.
They were closing in.
Not swaying.
Moving.
Roots tore through the ground.
Branches twisted downward.
The forest was physically changing.
The woman shouted:
“Run!”
We crossed the creek.
The moment my feet touched the opposite bank, everything stopped.
The trees became still.
The roots froze.
The wind died.
Silence.
I looked back.
The woman stood beside me.
“What just happened?”
“The boundary.”
She pointed toward the creek.
“Nothing from the other side can cross without permission.”
I remembered the message.
They’re already inside.
Something had crossed.
Something wearing my face.
I looked at the woman.
“Then how did it get across?”
She didn’t answer.
“How?”
She stared at me.
“You brought it.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
“What?”
“When you returned.”
I looked at the forest.
The cabin was barely visible between the trees.
“You mean I’m connected to it.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You are it.”
I stared at her.
Then my dog began growling.
Not at the forest.
At me.
I slowly turned.
My dog backed away.
His ears were flattened.
He was terrified.
I looked down at my hands.
There was blood on them.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
I wiped one palm against my jacket.
More blood appeared.
Then I felt something underneath my skin.
A movement.
Like fingers crawling through my veins.
I screamed.
The woman grabbed my wrist.
The symbol on my skin was changing.
The circle was opening.
A black line appeared down the center.
The woman whispered:
“It’s starting.”
“What is?”
“The separation.”
“What separation?”
She looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“Your body is trying to remember what it was before.”
My heart stopped.
“What was I?”
She didn’t answer.
Then a voice came from the forest.
“Ask her.”
I turned.
Nobody.
The voice came again.
“Ask her what happened to the sixth person.”
I looked at the woman.
“Who was the sixth person?”
She closed her eyes.
“I told you.”
“Tell me again.”
“You.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“There were six people in the photograph.”
“Yes.”
“But you said only five came back.”
“Yes.”
“Then who came back?”
She looked at me.
“Me.”
I waited.
“Thomas.”
“Dead.”
“Ruth.”
“Dead.”
“Walter.”
“Missing.”
“Daniel.”
“Taken.”
I stared at her.
“That’s four.”
She nodded.
“And you.”
“That’s five.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Then who was the sixth?”
She whispered:
“The thing that came back wearing your face.”
The forest went silent.
My dog stopped growling.
The woman looked over my shoulder.
I slowly turned.
The older version of me stood on the other side of the creek.
He was watching us.
His face looked exactly like mine.
Except his eyes were black.
He smiled.
“You finally understand.”
The woman raised the rifle.
The thing laughed.
“Still using weapons?”
She fired.
The bullet crossed the creek.
It struck him in the chest.
He staggered backward.
Then looked down at the wound.
No blood.
Just darkness.
He looked up.
“That won’t work.”
He stepped toward the water.
The woman shouted:
“Don’t cross!”
He stopped.
His foot hovered over the creek.
Then he smiled.
“She never told you why.”
I looked at the woman.
The thing continued.
“The boundary doesn’t keep us out.”
He pointed at me.
“It keeps him in.”
The woman lowered the rifle.
The thing smiled.
“Ask her what you are.”
I turned toward the woman.
She was crying.
“What am I?”
She couldn’t answer.
“What am I?”
Finally, she whispered:
“You’re the lock.”
The world seemed to go silent.
“The lock?”
She nodded.
“Forty years ago, something came through the door.”
She looked toward the forest.
“You were the only thing capable of holding it here.”
I stared at my hands.
“Then why did I come back?”
“Because the lock is breaking.”
The thing across the creek laughed.
“And when it breaks…”
The ground shook.
The water in the creek began flowing backward.
The woman grabbed my arm.
“We need to go.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Where?”
She pointed toward the mountains.
“There’s another entrance.”
“To what?”
“The original cave.”
I stared at her.
“You said the door was beneath the forest.”
“It is.”
“Then why are we going back?”
She looked at me.
“Because the only way to close it…”
She paused.
“…is to open it completely.”
The thing across the creek smiled.
“She’s lying.”
I looked at him.
He pointed toward the woman.
“She knows what happened last time.”
The woman raised the rifle again.
“Don’t listen.”
The thing laughed.
“She brought you back.”
The woman froze.
I turned toward her.
“What did he mean?”
She didn’t answer.
“Did you bring me back?”
Silence.
Then she whispered:
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“I found the body.”
“What body?”
“Yours.”
I stared at her.
She continued.
“Forty years ago, after the cave collapsed, we found your body.”
“You said I disappeared.”
“We thought you were dead.”
“Then what?”
“We buried you.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“You buried me?”
“Yes.”
“Then how am I here?”
She looked at the symbol on my wrist.
“Because forty years later, someone dug you back up.”
“Who?”
She looked toward the forest.
“The forest.”
A deep vibration rolled beneath our feet.
Then the creek split.
The water pulled apart down the middle.
Something enormous moved beneath it.
The thing across the creek smiled.
“He’s awake.”
I looked at the woman.
“Who?”
She didn’t answer.
The ground cracked.
A massive black root erupted from beneath the creek.
Then another.
Then another.
The entire forest began shaking.
Birds fled.
Trees split.
The mountains seemed to groan.
And beneath the earth came a sound so deep I felt it inside my bones.
A heartbeat.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then four.
The woman whispered:
“The heart.”
I stared at the ground.
“What heart?”
“The heart of the forest.”
The thing across the creek laughed.
“Not the forest.”
He looked directly at me.
“His heart.”
The earth opened.
A hole appeared beneath the creek.
Inside was darkness.
But something was glowing in that darkness.
Red.
Pulsing.
Like a gigantic human heart.
The woman grabbed my hand.
“Don’t look.”
I looked anyway.
And immediately remembered.
Everything.
The cave.
The six people.
The black door.
The thing behind it.
My own blood.
The sacrifice.
The reason I opened the door.
And the truth about what happened afterward.
I remembered screaming.
I remembered the thing entering me.
I remembered my friends trying to stop it.
I remembered the woman stabbing me.
I remembered dying.
And I remembered opening my eyes forty years later.
Not in a grave.
Not in a hospital.
But beneath the forest.
Inside the thing.
I fell to my knees.
The woman stood over me.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at her.
“You didn’t bring me back.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
I touched my chest.
The fourth knock came again.
KNOCK.
Then another.
KNOCK.
The woman stepped backward.
I understood.
The heart beneath the forest wasn’t waking up.
It had been beating inside me all along.
I looked toward the thing across the creek.
It was no longer smiling.
For the first time, it looked afraid.
“You know now,” it whispered.
I stood.
“What?”
The thing backed away.
“You were never the lock.”
The woman raised the rifle.
But I stopped her.
Because I already knew the truth.
I looked at the black heart beneath the creek.
Then at the thing wearing my face.
And finally at the woman who had spent forty years hiding what happened.
“You’ve got it backwards.”
The fourth knock sounded again.
This time, the entire forest answered.
Thousands of knocks.
From the trees.
From the ground.
From the mountains.
From beneath the creek.
The woman dropped the rifle.
“What did you do?”
I looked at her.
“I remembered.”
The thing wearing my face screamed.
Not in anger.
In terror.
Because it knew what I had finally understood.
I wasn’t the lock.
I was the door.
And forty years ago…
I had never opened it from the outside.
I had opened it from within.
