A hiker decided to go on a hike by himself. Something he was not very used to. The whole day was normal. Trees and bushes engulfed his surroundings. He enjoyed being outdoors in the mountains. Nothing seemed strange to him, that was until he was making his way back to his car. He figured an eight hour hike was good enough. The sky was already getting dark and he needed to get back, fast. What was odd was how much he didn’t recognize the trail back. He began to panic.

Night had already taken over and all he had was a flashlight and no clue on how to get back. He knew it was already too late and too dangerous to keep going through the perilous forest. He began to worry that he would have no shelter for the night when almost luckily enough, he stumbled across a broken-down cabin. It was dark, and seemed like no one had visited it in years, but he knew it was the only place where he could rest until daylight, especially since his flashlight was running out of battery. He knocked on the door a few times but no one answered, so he let himself in where strangely enough, a perfect bed fitted for one person awaited him in the center. He knew that if the owner came back he could explain himself, he was sure that the owner wouldn’t mind, or was even probably dead. So he went ahead and got himself comfortable in bed. As he tried to sleep, he couldn’t ignore the collection of paintings around the room; portraits of strange looking people all peering at him, each wearing a smile that sent chills up his spine. Not too long after his exhaustion from the hike got the best of him and he was able to ignore the faces.

The next morning he got up early and was shocked to see that there were no paintings around the room, but windows.

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© SALONI