It still gives me nightmares...

Birthday Night

It was my 48th birthday and my wife planned a 'one night' camp in a forest which was about 8 km far from where we lived. For the record, camping was my passion and I would go for camping very often till my late 30s, so this was the best birthday plan my wife could ever give me that time. My wife and I had gone for camping together about 5-6 times before but after that night, my wife never want to go for camping ever again.

We left by 5 that evening. We didn't experience anything odd or paranormal until midnight so I'll just skip to the part where it all began. It was around 1:00 at night when my wife and I decided to go inside our tent and spend the rest of the night in there. After a good hour or two we finally decided to sleep. Now it was around 3:00 - 3:30 in the morning, my wife was half asleep but I couldn't sleep for lord knows what reason. I turned to my left, facing my back towards my wife now and that is when I heard some footsteps coming from the woods. I'm sure it wasn't any animal because I can make out the difference between the steps of an animal and a human by now. It was normal to expect people around there but at that time? it was a bit odd and also we hadn't heard anyone or didn't feel anyone's presence from the evening so I was sure that it wasn't any other camper. After a minute I heard the footsteps again and it was coming closer to our tent. whoever was out there was so close to our tent that I could hear it breathing. The footsteps stopped when it reached the opening of our tent. I could see his shadow now. I made no sound and turned so I could have a better view of the man. He started moving again, now circling the tent. At this point the feeling inside my stomach told me something wasn't right I turned to my wife and tried waking her up covering her mouth and whispering in her ears " wake up there's someone outside our tent'' I don't know if he heard that but exactly after I finished my sentence I heard a ripping sound from the back of my shoulder I turned and I felt my heart drop from my chest when I saw that the man had ripped cut the tent with the help of a knife. I held my wife's hand and she grabbed our phones and the car key and we ran straight to our car not caring about how much noise we made. Once we were in the car I turned the engine on while my wife contacted the cops. I looked at the man for the last time as I started driving and even in the dark I could see that creepy smile on his face it was then when I realized that he had slashed all four tires of the car. We gave each other a look and my wife screamed her lungs out pointing at the window behind me. I could literally feel his presence so close to me. I looked behind and there he was standing with a long knife in his hand and that creepy smile on his face.

He kept banging all the windows of the car and screaming my name. My wife is one strong person but now she was crying. I had to protect her and we didn't know how far were the cops so I unlocked the car and was about to open the door when I heard the cops coming. He ran into the woods as soon as he heard it too. The cops couldn't find him. We collected our stuff and the cops rode us to our house. What scares me to the date is.. How did he know my name and what did he want from us? What could've happened if I was asleep that night or if we didn't make it to the car or if the cops didn't come on time? He is still out there, free and with half information about me.