"Those that did see their tormentor... They typically weren't only scarred mentally, they don't want to be noticed, truly seeing them for what they are, is a great offense"
-Unknown
This story is amongst those that have little evidence to support their claims, as it comes from an unverified, first hand account found on the internet, however, deep investigations have allowed some to find out that it just might, not be fiction.
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It took place during the summer, a young man, whom will be called John for simplicity sake, had gone camping in the wilderness with three of his friends.
This wasn't just a hot summer, the heat wave was particularly intense, not drinking water regularly would expose anyone to dehydration under the scorching light of the sun.
Still, for the group of four, the time spent camping would be cooler under the shadows of a dense portion's of Bell Forest, this forest was natural wonder after all, barely touched by human hands, the place had seemingly never seen actual human settlements, it was a mostly unexplored swath of land, with mountains, meadows, lakes and much more.
There was no better place to camp or hike, John and his friends had, in fact, heard of the more unsavory rumors about the place, after the streaks of strange events, people had started talking about all kinds of stuff.
Be it aliens or old creatures from folklore, if one listened to all that was being said, everything was to blame for the what had happened.
They paid it no mind however.
As they traveled to the area they had scouted ahead of times, the place they would set up camp, they noticed something they hadn't seen the first time, as it turns out, there was some sort of cabin deep in the woods, they could barely make it out and only saw a portion of its roof but they noted that someone was perhaps living there.
Although, it was more likely that this wasn't a home and just a place for the owner and their family to hang out from time to time, as was the case with most of the cabins one could see in Bell Forest.
Not being concerned in the slighest, they put up their tents, lit up a fire and simply enjoyed their time.
The woods weren't noisy, some birds chirped here and there, the sound of small animals darting around, out of sight could be heard sometimes, nothing seemed amiss.
Typically, when reading stories of the woods, the person telling the story would say that the forest suddenly grew still and silent, as if a predator had arrived in the vicinity but there was no such thing for John and his group of friend, the forest stayed lively for the whole duration of their trip.
One night, some time after their arrival, the five of them were sitting around the fire, the night was dark and they were all sitting apart from one another.
On John's right, his best friend seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep while sitting, further away, also on his right, his friend's girlfriend looked to her right, away from John, looking bothered by something.
On his left, his other friend was simply staring at the fire, his head in the clouds.
Opposite to where he was standing, another of his friends was sitting with his head hanging low, his elbows resting on his knees as he grabbed the back of his head, probably thinking about something as well.
He looked back down, before frowning and looking back up, to his right, his left, in front of him.
He thought he was delirious but he counted four people excluding himself.
They were supposed to only be four of them, including John himself and yet, five people were sitting around that campfire.
He took a good look at each of the people's faces, recognising his friends and meeting his best friend's girlfriend concerned expression before turning to the man sitting while staring at the ground.
In the ambient darkness, only illuminated by the flames of the campfire, he squinted his eyes at the man, or so he thought it was a man, taking a good look, he realised that this person looked for like a shadow than anything else.
Dressed completely in black, from their shoes to gloves, to whatever was wrapped around their head, was it not for the fire, they would be pretty much invisible.
John didn't know what to do, should he speak up to this person? What attitude should he adopt with this stranger?
They had definitely suck up on all of them, he had no clue how long they had been sitting there, he couldn't remember for the life of him if he had even seen them sit down.
As if sensing that they had been noticed, the person raised their head and stared directly at John.
John fell backwards and screamed, thinking that this person's eyes were made of fire itself.
Only later, would he realise that it had seemed this way because the person in question was wearing, highly reflective, round goggles.
"Are you alright John?" the figure, now definitely a man, said in a concerned tone, although it sounded as if it was said with a slight smile.
The girlfriend had already crawled away, not even taking time to stand up before trying to get away from this stranger.
The man's head was wrapped in some sort of pitch black bandages, resulting in a slight muffle in his voice, still, he was casual enough that his two friends, which had been completely unaware, either half-asleep or off into his own mind, didn't realised the clear discrepancy immediately.
Only after John yelled some more and pointed at the intruder in their group did they turn around and acknowledged his presence.
The man's body shape apppeared all wrong due to the fact that he was wearing a dark cloak, an article of clothing that one wouldn't expect to see in the modern era.
He started moving his head from side to side and stomping at the ground at the group, his arms having been retreated underneath the cloak while his sudden movements only served to terrify the group even further.
In a swift action, the moved his body unnaturally and slashed at one of John's friends, leaving deep gash before retreating away from the fire and into the darkness, the sound of him running in a wide circle around them while laughing his ass off overtook the night.
The four of them quickly ran for their car and locked themselves inside but as it turns out, their gasoline had been siphoned, leaving them stuck inside as the man continued to scare them throughout the entirety of the night.
Running up to the windows or climbing on the roof of the car, he scratched at the car and popped their tires, only going away when the sun was about to rise.
Leaving behind a small 'goodbye' written on a window with the blood that had gotten stuck on the blade of his knife.
Much to their horror, they also noticed that the glovebox had been filled with leaves and branches, he had even managed to get inside before going to sit with them at the fire.
The group had to walk the way to a nearby city before being able to call for the police.
However, the investigation uncovered nothing.