That cold bitter night was what had started it all. It has been ingrained into my memory, and every once in a while even the simplest of sounds or tasks bring me back to that moment. The blaring of a car horn or the slam of a door reminds me of what I had seen that night, and even as I recount it now a shudder runs through just at the thought. It has been the cause of the dark thoughts that occupy my head now, and I fear that they will become too overwhelming for me. Even now I stare off to the small revolver resting on my nightstand. What I had witnessed that night had been of a dark nature; the sight of the mangled body of the little girl that had gone missing days before, laying in the woods haunts me to this day.
The weeks leading up to this event had been of great excitement for me. I had just passed my law school exams and had gotten accepted into an internship in a small law firm in the town of Greenwich. Ready to begin a new chapter of my life I hopeful for the future, I was a young man filled with ambition and drive then. Looking back now I feel as though that night in the forest that young man had been left behind me in the haunting darkness of the woods.
Almost instantly I had felt a sense of home in that town, the locals had been welcoming and even though my new occupation was draining and stressful at times, I had found ways to ease my mind, hikes in the surrounding forest of Greenwich being one of them. Greenwich was known for its forest, one because of its natural beauty, and two because of the dark history that surrounded the place. Getting acquainted with some of the locals I had learned the history of the area. In 1972 the forest first came into the limelight of America’s newspapers when it was discovered that a satanic group known as The Disciples of Baphomet were found conducting gruesome satanic rituals in the forest. The police found the corpse’s of three children that had gone missing a few weeks back, and when questioned on the topic of these murders the leader of the group had responded by telling the police that they had been conducting sacrificial rituals for the creature they referred to as Baphomet and had reported the creature as inhabiting the forest. All members of the group were put on death row because of their crimes and the public outrage against them. Later in 1982, exactly ten years after The Disciples of Baphomet trial, three kids went missing again and their mangled corpses were found in the surrounding forest of Greenwich. Ever since then the parents of Greenwich kept their children away from the forest especially when the anniversary of the trials grew near, and the lore of the creature known as Baphomet haunted the town.
I had made hiking through the forest an almost daily pattern. Even though the locals had warned me against it I had perceived the lore as exactly what I had thought it to be at the time, a story. It was like the drew me in and had an atmosphere of calmness that created a feeling contentedness and peace of mind within me. That terrible night I had laid restless in my bed as the moonlight has shown from the window. It had felt as though all of a sudden this need to get up had filled me. A need so profound that I decided to leave the house and take a walk in the woods, a place of solace and peace. The moonlight placed a grey tint over the familiar woods, and the dark shadowy branches of the trees seemed to claw out at me. Time seemed to disappear here and I hadn’t realized how long my body had wandered through that place. It was like my mind was in a haze and had lost all understanding of time and direction. When I came to a stop a loud animal like sound had broken me out of the haze. Past the trees, the sight I saw has never left me. A large shadow creature with the head similar to that of a horse and the torso of a tall bony ape. Its claws were deep inside the flesh of a young girl with blood running down and dripping on the mossy forest floor. It let out another harrowing scream and its dark eyes met with mine. Its gaze was like a portal to hell and after that, all I remember is being found the morning right outside the edge of the woods. I had been in a state of shock for the next few days. My mind never recovered from that night and soon after that event, I decided to as far away from Greenwich as possible. The image of the eyes of the creature and to this day haunts my dreams. I don’t know how much of this I can take and the thoughts of finally relieving myself of this burden fill my mind daily. I write this now as I have decided that I no longer want to live with this event ingrained in my memory; the only option I have is death.
