#
At the base of the mountains, the air bit at exposed skin, sharp enough to steal the breath from your lungs. Around jagged stone outcrops, a persistent fog curled and swirled, like the remnants of an ancient beast stirring uneasily in its sleep. Liv squinted at the horizon, where the path twisted upward, disappearing into the looming cliffs. Her camera, mounted on a helmet, caught her every movement—smooth, controlled, always performing. The stream numbers ticked higher, and with them, her pulse quickened.
“This is it,” she said, her voice coming through her comm, clear and authoritative. With a quick glance, her eyes flicked to the locals—grim-faced and muttering, their trembling hands lifting toward the sky, driven more by fear than by cold.
“Can’t go up there. Not safe,” one shouted in a thick accent, a gnarled hand reaching out to stop her.
Liv didn’t break her stride.
“We’ve prepared for this for weeks,” she called back, eyes ahead. "We’ll be fine."
As her camera’s red light blinked on, streaming live to thousands, the numbers climbed like a crescendo in the back of her mind. With practiced ease, she flashed a smile to the lens—a smile that could melt tension in any room.
“What’s that?” Anya’s voice cracked over the comms, tense, sharp.
Liv glanced sideways. Anya crouched, eyes fixated on weathered runes etched into the stone.
“They’re old," Anya muttered, fingers tracing the symbols, the camera aimed at them. "Vuorenpeikko… or so the legends say. The mountain spirits… guardians, maybe. They don't like intruders."
Liv rolled her eyes but didn’t answer. Since their landing, Anya had been obsessed with old stories, now reciting the runes in a singsong voice as she translated fragments of lore from memory. Ahead, Liv kept walking, tuning out the strange whispers crackling through the static of her comm feed. She’d dealt with this kind of nonsense before.
“Not a single issue with the tech, right?” she asked, glancing at Kai.
He launched drones, fingers dancing over holographic controls, face lit by their glow. The sky had shifted into muted grays, and the fog, though dense, didn’t slow him down.
“I’ve got eyes everywhere,” Kai grinned, though the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that made Liv uneasy.
He launched another drone, but then his expression changed. The grin slipped away.
“Wait… that’s not right,” he muttered. He tapped at the controller, frowning as the drone's feed sputtered.
"What's going on?" Liv demanded, pausing.
“There’s something in the thermal feed.” Kai’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t get a clear lock on it... but it's big. Real big.”
Anya, still crouched, slowly turned toward Kai. The runes no longer seemed as interesting as whatever Kai had seen. “What do you mean, ‘big’? Like a bear?”
“Not a bear,” Kai replied, voice tight. “The feed’s losing signal... something's jamming it.”
"Keep it together," Liv said, striding toward him. Her confidence never wavered. "You’ve dealt with glitches before.”
“I’m not talking about a glitch,” Kai replied, the words heavy between them. "Something’s interfering with the signal. Something... active."
With a frustrated mutter, he tapped the screen again, cursing as the drone’s thermal image wavered, struggling to stay locked onto its target. Just a moment later, the screen went black.
“Lost signal,” he said flatly.
The hairs on Liv’s neck prickled, but she masked it with a scoff. “It’s just a malfunction. You can fix it, right?”
Before Kai could respond, Anya stood abruptly. “It’s a sign. You heard the legends.” She stared into the fog, eyes wide. “They said the Vuorenpeikko—whatever it is—guards the pass. It’ll appear if we aren’t worthy.”
“You believe that?” Liv scoffed, already stepping forward again, determined to keep the stream going, the thrill of the climb buzzing through her veins.
Anya didn’t answer immediately. She was looking into the fog, face pale under the growing twilight.
Liv noticed her hesitation, and doubt crept in. But it was fleeting.
“Come on, we’re wasting time.” Liv’s voice was steely, authoritative, as always. “Let’s go."
Something wasn’t right. Mid-sentence, a crackle of static cut through her words—the kind that signaled more than just a technical glitch. At the edge of the clearing, Anya stood motionless, eyes fixed on the fog, her fingers twitching nervously at her side.
#
As night fell, it swallowed the jagged cliffs in a cloak of darkness. With the dropping temperature, the fog thickened—curling like a living thing around their ankles, creeping steadily up their legs. Liv's headlamp cut through the blackness, its beam flickering as though it, too, was losing patience with the journey. The last remnants of daylight clung desperately to the horizon, but soon, even that would be gone.
Jonas, normally the most steady of them all, was jittery. His eyes darted from side to side, his breath ragged.
"Liv," he said, voice shaking. "We need to turn back. Now."
Liv didn't glance at him. She was too busy checking her equipment, adjusting the camera feed, making sure the angle was perfect. The audience was still watching. The numbers hadn't dipped. In fact, they were climbing again.
“No,” she replied, her voice firm. Her breath came in steady bursts, and her eyes never wavered from the path ahead. “We’re close, Jonas. I know it.”
Jonas gripped the straps of his pack tighter, his knuckles whitening. “Liv, stop. This is crazy. We’ve lost two hours to the fog already. We don’t even know what’s out there anymore—whatever’s messing with the signal, it’s not just tech failure. It’s something.”
She turned, her gaze as sharp as the mountain wind. “You don’t get it, do you? This is it. We’re not backing down.”
The words hit Jonas like a slap. He stepped forward, desperation creeping into his voice. “This isn’t about your reputation, Liv. You can’t keep pushing us like this. We’ve already lost someone.”
She stiffened. For a split second, her resolve faltered, then returned, cold and cutting.
"One person," she said, as though that could justify it. "One person doesn’t matter if we make history here. If we find it, all of this—all of it—will be worth it."
“I don’t give a damn about making history!” Jonas shot back, his voice rising. “I care about getting out alive. You’re not listening. We’re losing people, Liv.”
No answer came. Around them, the fog had thickened, shrinking the world until the mountain seemed to press in from all sides. In the silence, the air hummed with tension.
Anya’s voice, sharp and unnerving, broke the silence. “We’re not losing people,” she said quietly, her tone filled with something Liv couldn’t quite place. “We’re losing our way.”
Liv’s gaze snapped to her. Anya crouched, the runes glowing faintly in the dim light, her fingers trembling as she traced them.
"Look at these," Anya murmured, almost to herself. "They're not warnings, Liv. They’re instructions. The Vuorenpeikko isn't a legend. It’s not a myth. It’s bound to the land... by ritual."
The coldness of her words settled over the group like a shroud.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Liv demanded, though the words felt hollow in her throat.
Anya looked up, her face pale, her eyes wide. “The troll. The one you keep saying is a myth. It’s real. And it’s bound here. By something older than us.”
“Bound?” Jonas scoffed, but there was a tremor in his voice. “Like some kind of... curse?”
Anya shook her head slowly. “Not a curse. A binding. A ritual. The runes—they’re not telling a story. They’re marking a place. A place where something was trapped.”
The wind howled around them, and in the distance, a shape shifted, flickering at the edge of the fog. No one spoke for a moment, the weight of Anya’s words hanging in the freezing air.
Jonas looked over his shoulder, his face pale. “Where’s Kai?”
They all turned, their hearts sinking as they realized he had vanished.
“He was right there,” Liv said, her voice thin. Her eyes scanned the fog, the trees, the craggy stones. “Kai? Kai, respond.” Her call was swallowed by the fog, unanswered.
Jonas’s hand gripped her arm, urgency in his touch. “We have to go. Now.”
Liv tore her arm away. “No. I’m not leaving without finding it.” Her voice was icy, her gaze hard as stone. “I’m not letting this slip through my fingers. Not again.”
Jonas stepped toward her, panic now palpable in his voice. “Liv, you’re not thinking straight. Someone else could vanish, too. Someone else—I—could vanish. You’ve seen what’s out there. We can’t keep pretending this is just some hike, some challenge for the stream.”
Liv opened her mouth to argue, but before a single word escaped, a low, guttural growl rippled through the fog—a sound neither natural nor human. Something ancient. Something monstrous.
The group froze.
Anya’s hand trembled, her camera forgotten at her side as she whispered, “It’s here.”
Liv's heartbeat quickened, but she refused to back down. She had come this far. The audience was still watching. Her mind was locked on one thing: the discovery, the unveiling of something monumental, something that could cement her place in history.
But as the growl sounded again, closer, it was clear to everyone—something else was already marking them. And it wasn’t interested in fame or glory.
Jonas backed away slowly. “Liv—please. We’re already too far in. We’re lost.”
Liv’s breath was tight in her chest, her resolve faltering, but she wouldn’t let herself be swayed. Not yet. Not when they were so close. She’d been down this road before, haunted by failure. The fear of it clawed at her insides.
She took a step forward into the fog. "No. We can't stop. We’re almost there."
And then, another scream echoed from the fog. This time, it wasn’t distant. It was close.
Too close.
#
In the dark, the camera’s red light blinked weakly. Blood slicked Liv’s fingers, her grip on the phone unsteady as she raised it toward her face. Around her, the mist thickened, choking the air, and her breath came in ragged, uneven gasps. Of everything, only the pain in her side—a deep, gnawing ache—cut through the haze, anchoring her to the moment. The world around her blurred into shadow and fog, but she didn’t care. There was only this. Only the camera.
The screen showed her face, pale, smeared with dirt and blood, eyes wide but resigned. She was alone now. The others—Jonas, Anya, Kai—gone. Lost. Consumed.
She forced a smile, one that trembled at the edges. Her voice was hoarse, barely audible over the groaning wind.
“I—I know this is... I know this isn’t what I promised,” she began, her voice catching as she fought for coherence. “I’m not... I’m not supposed to let this happen. I should have turned back, but...” She swallowed, and the tears that had been threatening finally broke free. “But I couldn’t. I—I needed to prove something. To myself. To everyone.”
In her trembling hand, the camera shook, the phone slipping through blood-slicked fingers before she managed to steady it. Across the grainy screen, the thermal feed warped and flickered, struggling to make sense of whatever stood in front of her. The mist shifted again, and then she saw it. The figure.
It was huge.
Liv’s breath hitched in her throat, words stalling as she stared at the shape in the frame. It moved with slow, deliberate steps, its form distorting in the thermal image. The colors bled into hues of red and orange, a mass of heat too large, too otherworldly.
The Vuorenpeikko.
It stepped closer, its presence suffocating, and then, impossibly, the figure grew clearer. Its outline sharpened, and Liv’s eyes widened in disbelief as something began to form within the shifting shadow. A face. A twisted, ancient face, eyes glowing with an unsettling intelligence.
“Why do you run?” The voice came not from its mouth but through the air itself, deep and guttural, vibrating through her bones. It wasn’t a sound meant for human ears.
Liv staggered back, the phone held in front of her, shaking uncontrollably. The beast—no, the thing—was speaking.
It had a voice.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, each beat thudding like a warning. The words sounded wrong—too ancient, too heavy to fully grasp. Blinking hard, she tried to make sense of them, but they came again, clearer this time. Whether her mind was twisting the sounds into something familiar or the creature had learned to speak her language, she couldn’t tell.
“You seek answers. But do you understand the question?” The voice pressed in, filling her chest with cold weight.
As the pain in her side deepened, Liv's eyes fluttered, but she clung to the camera, kept recording—driven by a desperate instinct, as if her life depended on capturing every second. Maybe it did.
“I—I know what I’ve done,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I pushed them too hard. I thought… I thought it was about discovery, about fame. But I was wrong.” Her breath was shallow, each word a struggle. “Please... please, I just… need you to understand. I… didn’t mean to—”
Her vision blurred again, and the world tilted. With each massive step, the Vuorenpeikko advanced, its feet crunching against the rock below. The ground trembled beneath her, vibrations echoing through her chest like distant thunder. Around her, the air thickened—heavy and oppressive—pressing down until it felt like she could barely breathe.
It loomed over her, its figure filling the thermal frame completely. A jagged crown of stone-like protrusions rose from its skull, its body a tangled mass of limbs and heat, more like a mountain than a creature, ancient and powerful.
“Your kind trespasses where it does not belong.”
Barely able to keep her eyes open, Liv drifted, her body unraveling under the weight of exhaustion and injury. Yet through the haze, the Vuorenpeikko’s voice cut sharp and unyielding, anchoring her to the moment.
“You do not understand the price of your curiosity.”
Leaning down, the creature radiated heat like a furnace, waves of it rolling over her. Liv’s body jerked in response, legs buckling as she collapsed to her knees, the phone still clenched tightly in her hand. The camera’s thermal feed flickered, and in the final frames, the Vuorenpeikko’s face filled the screen—a mask of age-old stone and burning eyes. Its words were not just a warning. They were a sentence.
“This land is bound to me.”
A single step. Then the thermal feed went dark. The screen blinked to black.
#
When the phone was found hours later, after the last echoes of the creature's presence had faded, it was cold, abandoned in the dense mist where Liv had fallen. The last message—her final plea, her last moments—was embedded deep in the device’s storage, untouched by the elements.
It wasn’t long before the footage spread. A global sensation. A spark of fear and wonder ignited around the world.
Liv’s name became a whisper on the lips of the curious, the fascinated, the terrified.
But the Vuorenpeikko, with its ancient intent, was no longer a myth. It was a reality.
And soon, others would seek it too.
#
Exciting news! My book, "Cumberland Chronicles" is now available at Books2Read! If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out. Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers. Thank you for the support!
No comments:
Post a Comment