Evadore Hill was located in the southwest corner of Bellford County. A secluded settlement far away from the nearest civilisation.
The handful of people who lived there were part of a tight-knit community of farmers, fishermen, and herders in the foothills of one of the larger mountains in the area.
Its mountainous scenery and solitary atmosphere made a name for itself among local tourists, who either camped on the outskirts in the summer or stayed over in one of the many mountain huts during the wintry months.
I lived my entire life in this highland and never ventured outside the mountains. My parents conceived me when they were in their late 40s, so I grew up as an only child in a population that mostly consisted of the elderly.
My mum passed away giving birth to me. I didn’t know much about her; my dad was a man of few words and showed me some tough love growing up so that I wouldn’t need a motherly figure in my life.
I spent most days helping my dad out in the mountain hut we inherited from my great-great-grandfather back in the 1950s. The workload was moderate for a young woman in her mid-twenties.
My dad, who neared his 80s on the other hand, carried boxes from the storage shed to the kitchen, prepared meals for the hikers two times a day, and gathered logs to fire the hearth all by himself.
While I wasn’t as strong as I looked from the outside, I took it upon myself to secretly gather firewood every night as time allowed.
My dad didn’t like me roaming around in the wee hours though, so I snuck out only when I knew he had dozed off.
Naturally, I knew my way around these mountains like the back of my hand and never encountered anything remotely scary.
Our community lived in harmony with nature and the animals dwelling in these highlands for such long that the beasts, which consisted of mostly deer, goats or brown hares, stayed at bay.
Sometimes, however, you’d cast a glimpse at the morning sky and see an eagle hunt for prey. But they weren’t nocturnal birds, and you could hardly find one hovering in the night sky.
It was an unusual night and an even more unusual day when I snuck out to gather firewood as per my routine. This being the middle of winter, we weren’t expecting hikers, so I spent most of the day reading a Choose Your own Adventure book.
I think it was sometime after three o’clock that my dad knocked on my bedroom door upstairs and said we had a guest.
Since my dad had arthritis in his knees, he asked if I could fetch him some ingredients for pumpkin soup at the storage shed.
Even though I actively looked around the hut at the time, I never saw a glimpse of the guest, due to the unusual time frame.
Then came nightfall. As per routine, I took with me a thick rope, a cane basket, a flashlight, gears to hook onto the rugged mountains just in case, and a rusty axe that belonged to my deceased mum.
By the time the clock struck one in the witching hour, I had cut off just enough wood to call it a night and return to the hut.
Pretty satisfied with myself, I hummed as I hiked through the fading mountain trail and was almost halfway up when I noticed that the lights were switched on.
My dad, albeit up in years, was very stingy. It was the only trait of his that I disliked. Besides, I had never witnessed to find my dad awake upon returning home.
I put the basket away and scanned the vicinity with my flashlight. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Still ill at ease, I sprinted the rest of the way up and left everything else behind but the flashlight. As I inched closer, I noticed that the front door was cracked open.
My heart stopped. Fearing the worst, I pushed the door open and looked around the hut. No one was here.
“Dad?”
When I didn’t receive a response, I ran upstairs to the attic. The first thing that arrested me was the trail of blood on the floorboards leading into the ajar attic door. I broke off halfway up the wooden staircase and clutched to the bannister.
As I took a hesitant step forwards, a distant din reached my ears from the outside and I cowered in place.
A hooded figure entered through the front door. I held my breath, keeping my head low. The stranger, a guy whose face was completely covered up, took a gander at the rickety staircase, wiping his bloody hands with a towel, and then broke off momentarily.
“Anyone there?”
I tried to lower myself as much as possible as the footsteps approached.
“Hello?”
Shutting my eyes, I wished upon the stars for a miracle. The floorboards creaked. I flew my eyes open, pushed the stranger down the stairs and ran into the attic.
Everything happened so fast. I turned the doorknob and locked the intruder out. When I shifted my eyes from the door to the carnage, my darting eyes landed on my dad’s lifeless body in a pool of blood.
He had been dragged from the top of the stairs to the far-right corner of the attic. I crouched beside him and shook him, convulsing out of control and fraught with horror.
But my dad remained unresponsive. A blunt object had hit his head from the side. I couldn’t see the murder weapon anywhere around. I flinched. The guy banged on the door.
“Hey, you! Open the door!”
I gulped. My frantic eyes scanned the attic, trying to find something – anything – to subdue the intruder but failed. We used the attic to accommodate the hikers, so my parents were very keen on locking everything that could potentially be used as a weapon out of sight and reach.
So I sprinted to the casement window instead and forced it open as much as I could. I pressed myself out of the gap between the glass and the window frame, as the intruder kicked his way into the attic.
I jumped out just as he broke in. Luckily, I landed on a heap of haystacks and didn’t break any bones, although I got scratched on the side of my abdomen.
When I looked up, the hooded guy was staring at me from the half-open window.
With no other option but to fetch my axe, I dashed down the mountain trail and hoped that the intruder couldn’t see in which direction I was headed towards in the pitch-black dark.
I tripped at some point, my feet catching onto something, perhaps a rock, and rolled down the trail until I managed to clutch onto something on the wet grass and dug my nails into the soil.
My little adventure must’ve been audible, for the next thing I knew was the sound of footsteps rushing down the trail.
Stumbling back on my feet, I veered off the main trail, ditching my plan to fetch the axe, and trekked as far away from the main trail as I could.
I found a hiding spot under an uprooted tree and cowered under it not long after. The guy had at that point stopped dead at the main trail I had just veered off from.
His voice was audible from this distance thanks to the echo. While I was in great distress, influenced by the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I found the guy’s distant voice disarming for reasons I couldn’t account for.
He was speaking as if he were talking to a child playing hide and seek in the dead of night.
“Can you hear me? Listen, I know what this looks like. But there’s a misunderstanding. I’m- I’m not whatever you think I am, okay?”
I cast a glimpse towards the main trail, and the sudden beam of a flashlight blinded my vision. I recoiled and covered my mouth to stifle the gasp.
“That man broke into my room and tried to kill me. I- I had to do something or else… or else I would end up like my sister.”
Frowning, I relaxed, blinking repeatedly. What in the world was he talking about? Why would my dad hurt him? It made no sense!
“Did you know that man? I heard he had a wife and daughter…”
I played with my trembling hands. The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder. Did he know I was here?
“My younger sister went missing on this mountain trail a decade ago. She complained of a headache and told her friends she would wait for them at that hut… but she wasn’t there when they returned to fetch her. That man told her friends she had never come to the hut.”
The footsteps briefly stopped. The beam of light focused on me. He knew I was there.
“But you know what? She never left that mountain trail. The police found footage of her friends entering and leaving, but there’s only a record of my sister entering this trail.”
I shut my eyes. My heart was about to rip out of my chest. A lump formed in my throat, tightening around it and squeezing out the air in my lungs.
“Her name is Ahu. Have you ever seen her around here? You must have, I’m sure. She- she should be your age.”
Bewildered, I stepped forward and locked eyes with the stranger. He turned off the flashlight. How did he… How did he know my name? Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at me, his hands reaching out and his feet inching closer. I backed away.
“Ahu…?”
“S- stay away from! I’ll- I’ll kill you if you come closer!”
He dropped his head. The tears running down his face were a haunting sight. His bleak mind seemingly occupied with dismal thoughts. When he lifted his head again, he was weeping like a child.
“I’ve waited so long to find you—”
“Cut the crap! Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“It’s me. Ahu, it’s me.”
“I said don’t come any closer!”
“What did he… What happened to you?”
Inching closer to the edge of the cliff we were on, I knew time was running out. He reached out his arms to me, trying to pull me closer. With a distorted expression on my hardened face, I backed away yet again.
“I said don’t…!”
As he lurched forward to embrace me, I stepped aside. The stranger hurled down into the abyss and merged with the darkness. I listened to the thud of his body hitting the rocks before returning to the main trail.
My mind was spinning like a top, and my thoughts were all over the place. I didn’t even notice I was barefoot until I reached the hut and entered the warmth.
Taken aback, I noticed the blazing hearth and looked up at the staircase.
“Dad?”
Dragging my feet across the grating floorboards, I grabbed the handrails and was about to ascend to the attic when I felt someone breathing against my neck.
As I turned around, someone hit me across the face with a rock and I collapsed at the bottom of the stairs.
My dad stooped over and beamed with his uneven and rotting teeth. He grabbed my arms and dragged me to the storage shed.
Despite his hunched and delicate frame, he placed my crippled body on the wooden table in the centre of the shed and secured my arms to it.
“Be a good girl and nothing will happen to you.”
I spoke in a whisper. “Dad? What are you…” His wide grin stopped me, something in those otherwise warm eyes turned cold. “Who… are you?”
“Your dad.”
“No, I…” As he injected something into my arm, my eyelids grew heavy and the beat of my heart slowed. “Why are you… doing this?”
Before everything turned dark, he whispered something that I would soon forget.
“Because I can. Now be a good girl and go to sleep. This time, you’ll be my wife.”
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