Midnight in the wood. Everyone said if you went to the wood at midnight you would see your true self in the mist. It was a stupid legend, fit to entertain highschoolers and frighten children. Yet here he was.
If it weren’t for the strangeness of the last few days, he would never have even considered coming. The October chill was bone biting under the trees, and he hated hiking. But things had happened. Things that could not be ignored. Even chasing a stupid story was better than that.
He stamped his feet and shoved his numb hands deeper into his coat pockets. Mist rose from the rotting loam inder his feet, enveloping him with suffocating speed. He gasped for air, only to realize that he hadn’t been suffocating at all, merely holding his breath. His eyes darted from one side to the other, and he swiveled nervously, his rapid breathing creating temporary pockets in the mist.
A blinding light brought his hand to his eyes, a shield against the pain. A shadow rushed across the light, and he squinted through his fingers, his heart pounding, trying to discern the threat. His eyes widened as an impossibly large hand, the mirror image of his own, parted the mist. Another joined it, lifting into the light without being illuminated by it. Shaking, he followed the second hand as it rose above a faceless head.
The shadow giant stood facing him, seemingly frozen, and he let out a sharp chuckle at his own gullibility. Just a play of light and shadows, someone playing a long standing joke on the town, no doubt. At the sound of his voice, two eyes snapped open in the shadow head, freezing his breath in his lungs. Their glowing pinpoints burned whitehot into his brain. He didn’t even hear his own scream.
They found him the next morning, stiff and frozen, eyes staring in horror with the image of the shadow etched into his eyes.
The Word Worker 
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