𝙼𝚢 𝙵𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜

Story 15: Do Not Leave the Path 🎃

The wind, a skeletal hand scraping against the night, clawed at the gnarled branches of the ancient oaks lining the path. It was a night like this, 25 winters ago, that my uncle Pavel, a man of meticulous schedules and quiet anxieties, walked the bone-chilling path from Tarrytown to Sleepy Hollow. He was returning home from his work.

Pavel, a young accountant who works for a small company in Tarrytown, He was a brave man and wasn't easily spooked. But even his spirit felt thin as the mist clung to the frosted fields that night. The moon, a prisoner behind bars of cloud, offered no solace. Only the distant hooting of an owl, like laughter choked in a throat of bone, kept him company.

He trudged the rutted earth, his breath escaping in ragged whispers before him. The familiar path, normally etched in his mind as clearly as the columns in his ledgers, seemed to twist and turn with a malevolent intent. The shadows, usually playful companions, now lurked like predators, their hungry eyes glinting in the moonlight's pale imitation.

Then there was a rustle and a sigh in the dead leaves. He spun, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Nothing. Just the skeletal trees swaying in the icy wind, their bare branches like accusing fingers against the black.

He pressed on, each step a victory against the rising tide of fear. And then he saw it. A shape, indistinct in the fog, slumped by the path's edge. A figure shrouded in white, like a snowdrift stained with the crimson of a forgotten sin.

Pavel, though a shiver ran down his spine like a fleeing mouse, was no coward. He approached cautiously; his eyes wide as balance sheets. As he drew near, the stench hit him-a cloying sweetness, heavy with the damp earth and the whisper of decay. The white shape resolved into a human form, face obscured by a shroud, body twisted at an unnatural angle.

His breath hitched, and his mind, usually as sharp as his pencil point, reeled. This was no late traveller seeking shelter. A cold dread, sharp as the wind's bite, pierced his soul. He wanted to run and scream, but his throat locked tight, like a rusted hinge on a door to oblivion.

He stumbled back, his foot catching on a gnarled root. He fell, the silence broken only by the clatter of his briefcase against the frozen ground. As he scrambled to his feet, the shrouded figure stirred. It rose, a phantom draped in death, its head lolling back, its face hidden. But from the hollow beneath the shroud, a sound emerged. A raspy whisper, slithering into his ears, was cold and alien, carrying the weight of a thousand tormented souls.

"Stay," it rasped, the sound burrowing under his skin like a maggot. "Stay, do not leave the path."

Terror, a white-hot poker, jabbed at his insides. He lunged for his briefcase, his hands shaking like a leaf in a storm. He found it, cold and slick, and turned, ready to face the nightmare.

But the path was empty. The white figure, the scent, the bone-chilling whisper-all gone. Only the wind remained, its mournful song mocking him. He sprinted, fearful of a whip cracking at his heels. He didn't care where the path led, as long as it took him away from that desolate stretch of earth. My uncle thought about how he would go home now; there was no house on the side of the road where he could take shelter for the night. He was scared and tired, but then he remembered there was a small shop a little further away, and the shopkeeper used to live behind the shop itself. So, he thought that he would go to that shop in any way possible. Hope touched his heart.

While reciting prayers and breathing heavily, he reached the shop, and he started calling the shopkeeper loudly. Hearing my uncle's call, the shopkeeper came out of the shop and was angry and shouted, "Why are you calling and calling at this time of night?" My uncle then said, "Brother, first give me shelter in your shop, then I will tell you everything." Later, the shopkeeper gave my uncle shelter in his shop for that night. After that, my uncle went home in the morning, and then he left the job in the city. And he never walked on that road at night ever again.

Pavel never walked that path again; the memory of that night remains a haunting echo in his eyes to this day. Some villagers say that they heard it too. The raspy whisper, cold and alien, in the path from Tarrytown to Sleepy Hollow echoing in the darkness of night, "Stay, stay... do not leave the path.".

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