The Night Hag

Photo by Jeffrey Keenan on Unsplash

If you’re reading this, something bad happened to me. I can’t go into the details, though. I don’t have time for that. But there’s one thing you must know, nonetheless.

Something wicked roams these highlands, deep into the jagged mountains and far away from the nearest civilisation.

My boyfriend, Rami, and I only wanted to set off on an adventure and hike these virgin hills untouched by humanity. Had I known what I now knew, I wouldn’t have insisted on coming here.

Rami had always been the more careful one out of the two of us. He was raised in these highlands and knew that one could never be too careful around these rolled hills.

It was the second day of our hike.

We put the tent up a little further from the area reserved for the campers. There was no reason behind this decision, not one worth pondering, at the very least.

Socially, I was a wreck. Rami said I might be on the autism spectrum. I didn’t like being around other people, not to mention talking to them.

My boyfriend, of course, was a pleasant exception. We met back in college during an elective course (English Literature Criticism) and clicked right away. But enough of that.

Time flew by before either of us knew it. The overcast sky darkened and the grey clouds obscured the twinkling stars in the otherwise clear welkin.

When the downpour picked up and drenched everything in ice-cold drops, we retreated to the tent and decided to sleep to the sound of raindrops.

Things, as you are now aware, didn’t go as we planned.

I woke up to pee in the dead of night. I wasn’t much of a drinker and the tiny glass I had hours before wouldn’t let me doze off.

So, I unzipped the tent and stepped out.

The rain had slowed down and the weather become less frigid. Squatting down in one corner of the woods, I stared up at the clearing sky and observed the thousands of stars greeting back.

But not for long.

A scream jolted me back to reality. It came from within the wooded hill to my right. Growing louder, a shrill scream of a woman in great distress chilled me to the bone.

I pulled up my trousers and ventured into the depths without a second thought.

As soon as I set foot in the wooded vicinity, the screams faded away as if they were never there, to begin with. For the briefest of seconds, I thought my mind conjured up all of this.

Until then.

A scrawny figure emerged from the dark, shadowy and almost invisible to the naked eye. Hunching forwards like an old woman, the unfamiliar figure drew closer.

“W- who’s this?”

No answer.

I backed away, wetting my lips. “H- hello?” I only looked away for a second when the woman, as if by magic, stood only a few steps away from me.

In the panicked state I was in, I lost my footing trying to make a break for it and fell.

Grimacing, I shut my eyes and awaited the inevitable. But nothing happened. The scuffing woman trod past me and carried on towards the unzipped tent.

I held my breath as a wolfish grin appeared on her hideous face full of blemishes.

Rami!

But my legs wouldn’t move. Paralysed by an invisible force, I watched as the woman entered the tent.

That was when I finally realised what the woman was. A night hag.

Riding my boyfriend, the hag screamed her head off, louder and louder, until every other sound drowned out into the void – even my own irregular heartbeat.

Her slinging tongue was as long as her grimy hair. Her limbs were as thick as the legs of a deer – growing longer and longer with no end in sight until they no longer fit inside the tent.

I stifled a harrowing scream, covering my mouth to keep it from escaping. Before I knew it, I found myself in front of the tent.

The hag dug its teeth into my boyfriend, savouring his flesh with its crooked tongue and rotting teeth full of maggots.

When she turned to face me, the crimson blood smeared on her ugly face washed away the blemishes and turned her into a beautiful woman.

I backed away.

The hag shoved my boyfriend’s lifeless body into the pool of blood beneath him and came closer, taking her sweet time.

“W- what do you… do you—”

I followed the hag’s sinister eyes to the wooded hill behind me.

She wasn’t the only one hiding in plain sight. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dark figures emerged from within the murk and drew closer.

With their outstretched hands, they chanted a macabre song and demanded I give up. But I couldn’t throw in the towel without putting up a fight.

“Let… let me live! Let me—”

She placed a skeletal finger on her plump lips and hushed me, now crimson red and swollen like a young woman’s.

“Then you must become one of us…”

“W- what?” I briefly looked away. “What do I… what do I have to do to- to become one of you?”

She pointed at the tenth. Rami was still alive. His face was unrecognisable, torn and ripped apart, so that the flesh underneath his skin was visible.

I knew what she wanted me to do.

I loved Rami, I really did. He was the best thing that ever happened to me.

But the thing is, he shouldn’t have cheated on me.

The End.