Chapter 680

The mountain path wound upwards, a ribbon of grey dust clinging to the steep incline. Sunlight, fractured by the thick canopy above, dappled the forest floor in shifting mosaics. She hiked alone, the crunch of her boots on the loose stones the only sound for a long time.

A deep breath filled her lungs with the sharp, pine-scented air. This was why she came, to these places where the world felt stripped back to something essential, something ancient.

She'd read about this trail online, in a corner of the internet devoted to lesser-known hikes, whispered secrets of the wilderness. The reviews mentioned solitude, stunning vistas, and a certain… quality.

They never quite described it, that quality, only hinted at something more than scenery. Intrigued, she drove for hours, parked at the trailhead, and started to climb.

The air grew cooler as she gained altitude. The trees, initially welcoming, began to seem taller, more densely packed, their branches intertwining to form a darker ceiling. The sounds of the forest changed too.

The cheerful chirping of birds faded, replaced by a profound quiet, a stillness that pressed against her ears. It was not a comfortable silence, but one that felt expectant, watchful.

Then she saw them.

Around a bend in the trail, where the trees thinned slightly to reveal a rocky outcrop, a group stood gathered. Hikers, she assumed at first, though something about them made her pause. They were still, impossibly so.

Even in resting groups, there was always some small movement – adjusting packs, talking, shifting weight. These figures were statues.

They were dressed in hiking gear, weathered boots, sturdy pants, and jackets in muted colors that seemed to blend into the greys and browns of the woods.

Each carried a backpack, and some had trekking poles planted in the ground beside them. From a distance, they appeared unremarkable, a group pausing to admire the view, perhaps.

But as she drew nearer, the unmoving quality became unsettling. She slowed her pace, her boots crunching louder in the intensified silence.

She should say something, she thought. Politeness dictated a greeting, a nod, some acknowledgment of their shared space on the trail. Yet, a knot of unease tightened in her stomach, holding back the words.

She was close enough now to make out details. Their faces were turned away from her, mostly, directed towards the unseen vista beyond the trees. Those she could see directly were pale, almost translucent in the filtered light.

Their eyes were… odd. They were open, but they didn't seem to see. They lacked the tiny movements, the subtle adjustments that gave life to a human look. They were fixed, staring into nothing.

A prickle of fear ran down her spine. This was not right. Hikers did not stand like this. Hikers moved, breathed, lived. These… things… felt drained of life.

She wanted to turn back, to retrace her steps down the mountain, to leave this unnatural stillness behind. But a morbid fascination, a cold dread, held her rooted to the spot.

She took another step, and another. She had to pass them. The trail was narrow here, carved into the side of the slope. There was no way around. She would have to walk right through them, this silent, staring group.

As she came abreast of the first figure, a woman with long, grey hair pulled back in a braid, a whisper brushed against her ear. Not a sound spoken aloud, but a sensation, a chill that resonated deep inside her bones. It was as if the silence itself had found a way to communicate.

She flinched, her breath catching in her throat. Had she imagined it? The forest was playing tricks on her, the altitude, the isolation.

She forced herself to keep walking, her heart hammering against her ribs. She avoided looking directly at them now, keeping her eyes straight ahead on the trail, willing herself to reach the other side of the group.

Another whisper, closer this time, colder. It felt like a breath from a tomb, brushing her skin. She could not make out words, not exactly, but the feeling, the intent, was unmistakable. It was sadness. A vast, bottomless sorrow that seemed to seep from the very air around them.

She quickened her pace, practically jogging now, desperate to escape the oppressive presence of these silent figures. She risked a glance back as she cleared the last of them. They had not moved. They stood exactly as before, still statues in the woods, staring out at nothing.

She ran for a while, until her lungs burned and her legs ached. She didn't know what she was running from, exactly, but she knew she had to get away. She had to put distance between herself and that unnerving quiet, those vacant eyes, that suffocating sadness.

Finally, she stopped, leaning against a tree, gasping for air. Her hands trembled, and her skin was cold despite the exertion. What had that been? Who were they? Were they even… human? The thought sent another shiver of fear through her. They felt… spectral. Like ghosts caught in some eternal hike.

She decided to continue upwards. Turning back now felt like admitting defeat, like letting fear dictate her path.

Besides, the sun was still high, and she was curious, despite the dread. Curious about the vista they were all staring at, curious about the strange quality the online reviews had hinted at.

As she climbed higher, the forest changed again. The trees became more skeletal, their branches twisted and gnarled, reaching like bony fingers towards the sky.

The ground underfoot turned rocky, barren in places, with patches of moss that seemed to glow with an unnatural phosphorescence in the deepening shade.

The air grew colder still, biting at her exposed skin. The silence deepened, becoming absolute now, a vacuum that seemed to swallow sound.

Even her own breathing felt muffled, distant. It was as if the mountain itself was silencing her, pressing down on her senses, isolating her in its cold embrace.

Then she reached the vista.

It was breathtaking, in a way that stole the air from her lungs and sent a new kind of fear, a more profound terror, creeping into her heart. The trees opened onto a vast bowl-shaped valley, ringed by jagged peaks that clawed at the sky.

A thick mist filled the valley floor, swirling and churning like a living entity. And in the center of the mist, something else.

A lake, or what she thought was a lake at first. But it wasn't water. It was… darkness. A pool of absolute blackness, so deep and complete that it seemed to absorb the light itself. It was still, perfectly still, reflecting nothing. It was like a hole punched into the world, a void in the heart of the mountain.

She stumbled back, a gasp escaping her lips. This was not a vista. This was an abyss. This was not beauty, but something monstrous, something fundamentally wrong. She understood now what the silent hikers were staring at. They weren't admiring the view. They were transfixed by the void.

And then she heard it.

A sound, finally, breaking the oppressive silence. Not a whisper this time, but a moan. Low, mournful, echoing across the valley. It seemed to rise from the black lake itself, a sound of infinite sorrow, of unbearable loss. It resonated in her chest, vibrating in her bones, pulling at her soul.

The moan grew louder, evolving into a chorus. Other voices joined it, whispers and sighs and sobs, all blending together into a symphony of despair. It was the sound of countless sorrows, the collective grief of ages, unleashed upon the mountain.

The mist in the valley began to swirl faster, rising up in tendrils, reaching towards her. The black lake seemed to pulse, to breathe, to draw in and exhale the darkness. The moan intensified, becoming a scream, a raw, agonizing cry that tore through the silence and ripped at her sanity.

She turned and ran. She didn't think, didn't plan, didn't even register where she was going. She just fled, driven by pure, primal terror. She scrambled back down the rocky slope, her boots slipping on the loose stones, branches tearing at her clothes, the screams echoing in her ears, chasing her.

She ran past the place where she'd seen the silent hikers, but they were gone now. The outcrop was empty, the trail deserted. Had they moved? Or had they simply… dissolved, faded back into whatever spectral realm they inhabited? She didn't know, didn't care. She just ran.

She ran until she reached the edge of the skeletal forest, back into the thicker trees, where a faint glimmer of sunlight still penetrated the canopy. The screams were fading now, becoming murmurs, then whispers, then silence again. But the sorrow remained, clinging to the air, seeping into her skin, settling in her heart.

She kept running, down and down, until she stumbled out of the woods, onto the lower slopes, where the trees were younger, greener, and the sounds of life, faint bird calls, the rustle of leaves in a gentle breeze, began to return.

She didn't stop until she reached the trailhead, her car, the solid, familiar presence of the everyday world.

She collapsed against the car door, her body shaking, her breath ragged. She looked back up at the mountain, its peak shrouded in mist, its slopes dark and silent. It looked ordinary now, peaceful even, in the fading light of day. But she knew the truth. She had seen what lay hidden within its depths, the sorrow, the void, the silent, spectral hikers forever bound to its paths.

She drove home in a daze, the image of the black lake burned into her mind, the sound of the screams echoing in her soul.

She tried to tell someone what happened, to explain the terror, the sadness, the unearthly encounter. But the words wouldn't come. They felt inadequate, clumsy, unable to capture the true horror of what she had experienced.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. The memory of the mountain began to fade, to soften around the edges. She tried to convince herself it was a dream, a hallucination brought on by exhaustion and altitude.

She tried to bury it, to forget. But the sorrow remained, a dull ache in her chest, a constant undercurrent of melancholy in her thoughts.

One day, she found herself drawn back to the internet, to the corner where she had first learned about the trail. She searched for it again, curious to see if anyone else had written about the silent hikers, the black lake, the screams.

She scrolled through the reviews, reading and rereading, searching for any mention of what she had seen.

And then she found it. A new review, posted just days ago. It was short, just a few lines. "Beautiful hike," it read. "Stunning views from the summit. Met a group of hikers near the top, very quiet, seemed lost in thought. But the real highlight was the lake. So peaceful, so still. Like looking into another world."

The words chilled her blood. "So peaceful, so still." They had not heard the screams. They had not felt the terror. They had seen only peace, only stillness. And the silent hikers… they were still there, waiting.

She looked at the date of the review. It was posted yesterday. The reviewer was still up there, on the mountain. Maybe even now, at this very moment, they were standing at the vista, staring into the black lake, lost in its deceptive peace.

A terrible thought formed in her mind, a thought that made her heart clench with ice. What if the silence, the stillness, the sorrow… what if it wasn't something to escape? What if it was something to join?

What if the black lake wasn't a void, but a destination? What if the silent hikers weren't trapped, but… choosing?

She closed her eyes, the image of the vista flashing before her, the swirling mist, the black lake, the silent figures. And she heard the moan again, not as a scream of terror this time, but as a sigh of acceptance, a welcome into the endless sorrow of the mountain.

A pull, gentle but insistent, began to tug at her, a whisper in the silence, beckoning her back.

She knew then, with a chilling certainty, that she would go back. Not to hike, not to explore, not to escape. But to stay. To join the silent group, to stand at the vista, to stare into the black lake, and to finally find peace in the bottomless sorrow of the mountain.

Her own sorrow, she realized, was not so different from theirs. And perhaps, in their shared silence, she could finally find release. The mountain was waiting. And she would answer its call.