Beware the Hárí

Lost

He searched and searched to find the path, but he could not find it. The fog seemingly grew thicker and the trees more dead the longer he kept searching. After what felt like hours Eynræð was exhausted. He sat down under a tree to rest while he gathered his thoughts. "What is this fog? And why can't I find the path?" He asks himself, panic beginning to get the best of him. The forest was oddly silent. No crows cawing, no animals scurrying amongst the underbrush, and no wind blew. There was only total silence. It is then that Eynræð realized that every tree he could see was dead, and the ground was only ice and rocky soil. "Where am I? This place is nothing like I've ever seen" He says to himself. He then remembered the words of Wæsfaðir. "A dead Elm tree is a sign of powerful malevolent spirits, but only a few spirits can kill an entire forest of Elm". He then realized that every tree around him was a dead Elm tree. "Surely that crazy superstitious man couldn't have been right about the spirits" He thinks to himself. But he then remembers the warning about the Hárí. He had traveled a forest path at night and a woman in the shadows had led him off his path into a forest of fog and dead elms. "Dýrja óssr" Eynræð exclaims aloud, realizing the grave mistake he had made. Full of fear he leaves behind everything he was carrying and runs ahead, desperate to find a way back onto the path. He searched and searched, growing ever more hungry, tired, and thirsty. But he couldn't find anything. No life, no water, no path. Nothing but a cold, foggy, dead forest. He would keep searching until eventually, he collapsed from exhaustion. "After I rest I will keep going," he says to himself as his eyes slowly closed, drifting out of consciousness.