Skinwalker Stories from Reddit

Story 23 : Skin-Walker

Written by : u/Truth_By_Fire

Year written : 2012

I won't reveal who I am, or much about where I live...and to be honest, it's been a few months since this happened. But I just came to terms with it now, and I have to warn people about what's out there, what they knew, what we don't. Warning: this is a very long read, and some of the content below is very disturbing. But I can't hold back. Here's my story:

Occasionally, I like to go hiking with my friends. There's not much more to do, honestly. We live in a small mountain town in Colorado. It was fun at first, but by now, we know the trails by heart. By the end of last Summer, there was only one we hadn't tried.

Now, there's a reason for that. The trail goes right through a portion of the forest that the Ute people considered sacred. I'll admit, I have hangups when it comes to these things. You don't wear hats in a church. You don't let the American flag touch the ground. You don't trudge all over somebody's sacred land for the fun of it. Still, my friend---we'll call him Mark---convinced me to go. He said that regardless of whether I went, he'd go anyway. And since no one else was going, he managed to goad me into going with him. That's another one of my hangups: don't go hiking alone, don't let friends go hiking alone. Too many tragic news stories start that way.

So, I ended up going with him, reluctantly. The whole way there he was talking about how this was the coolest trail he'd ever been on. Yes, he had been there before, though only once. His manipulative ploy had been to get me to come with, so he could show me. He admitted this all in the casual way that friends admit being asses to friends. Sometimes, I didn't blame him. I had a tendency to have a stick up my butt...and what followed only reinforced it.

We arrived at about nine, I remember, giving us plenty of time. It was farther away from town than most trails, and it wasn't near a paved road, so there was a lot of walking just to get there. No tourist knew about it, a lot of locals and even some Ute didn't know about it. But, if you followed a game trail through a bunch of trees, it would widen out and lead its way through some mountainous, densely forested terrain.

What struck me was how quiet it was. This, apparently, was what Mark found so awesome. For some reason, in this particular place, you couldn't hear any birds chirping, or any wildlife whatsoever. It was complete and utter silence.

Eventually, I had to urinate. I stepped off of the main road, just so Mark wouldn't see me. As I was going, I spotted something through the trees. It looked like some sort of clearing, just past a shallow creek, with a log going over it. My curiosity got the better of me as I looked at the log. It didn't seem to be an act of nature. It was a makeshift bridge, I was sure.

True enough, when I tested it, it seemed to be stable. I put one foot in front of the other and crossed. When I reached the other end I pulled my way through some trees, and saw the first image of the day that I will never forget, though to many, it wouldn't have seemed like much. In front of me, there was vegetation, trees, ferns and brush, but suddenly, it all stopped. Within a perfect circle, surrounded by small, perfectly arranged rocks, there was nothing but smooth dirt.

It was strange, not in the least because the shape of the rocks was absolutely perfect. They were partially submerged in the soil, and fit together like bricks. Every single one of them was the same uniform white color, and as I got closer I saw things had been carved on them, symbols. They were old, very old. Even if I had understood them, their distinct shapes had been lost over the years.

That was strange, but what disturbed me was that this circle wasn't actually perfect. On one edge, just one, a group of rocks had been kicked up. They were scattered around, as if they actually had been a perfect brick wall, and something had shattered them. In this area, the otherwise perfectly smooth dirt had been kicked up.