My name is Laura, and I need to warn you about something I’ve experienced—something that I can’t explain, but that I know is real. It started a few weeks ago, during what was supposed to be a peaceful hike in the woods near Belleville, the small town where I grew up.
I’ve always loved the woods. They were my escape, a place where I could clear my head and forget about the stresses of life. I knew those trails like the back of my hand, having wandered them since I was a child. But something has changed in those woods, something that’s watching me.
It was a late afternoon when I set out on my usual trail. The sun was dipping low in the sky, casting long shadows across the forest floor. The air was cool, with just a hint of the coming autumn, and the only sounds were the crunch of leaves beneath my boots and the distant chirping of birds.
At first, everything was normal. I walked for about an hour, enjoying the solitude, until I noticed something strange. The woods had grown unnaturally quiet. The birds had stopped singing, and the usual rustling of small animals in the underbrush was absent. The only sound was the wind, whispering through the trees.
I tried to shake off the unease that settled over me, but as I continued along the trail, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that I was being watched. It wasn’t just a fleeting paranoia—it was an intense, suffocating sensation, like a pair of eyes were boring into my back.
I stopped and turned around, scanning the trees for any sign of movement. But there was nothing, just the darkening woods and the shadows that seemed to stretch and shift in the fading light. I told myself it was just my imagination, that I was being ridiculous, and kept walking.
But the feeling didn’t go away. In fact, it got worse. Every step I took seemed to echo in the silence, and the shadows grew longer, darker, as if they were reaching out to touch me. The trees, once so familiar, now seemed alien, twisted into unnatural shapes that loomed over me like silent sentinels.
I picked up my pace, my heart pounding in my chest. I just wanted to get out of there, to reach the clearing at the end of the trail where the woods opened up and the sky was visible again. But no matter how fast I walked, the clearing never seemed to come.
That’s when I realized something was very wrong. I had been on this trail hundreds of times, and I knew exactly how long it should take to reach the clearing. But the more I walked, the more the path seemed to twist and turn back on itself, as if the woods were deliberately leading me in circles.
Panic set in, and I broke into a run, the branches clawing at my clothes and hair as I tore through the underbrush. The woods were no longer silent—there was a low, rhythmic sound that seemed to pulse through the air, like a heartbeat. It felt as though the forest itself was alive, and that it was watching me with an intelligence that was both ancient and malevolent.
I stumbled and fell, my hands sinking into the cold, damp earth. When I looked up, I saw them—eyes. Hundreds of them, peering out at me from the shadows between the trees. They were everywhere, glowing faintly in the dim light, unblinking and unfeeling. They weren’t human—there was something deeply wrong about them, something that made my skin crawl and my blood run cold.
I scrambled to my feet and ran, not caring where I was going, just desperate to escape those eyes. The trail seemed to twist beneath my feet, the trees closing in around me as I sprinted through the darkness. The heartbeat in the air grew louder, more insistent, matching the frantic pounding of my own heart.
Finally, I broke through the trees and into the clearing. I collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, my body trembling with exhaustion and fear. The sun had almost set, and the sky was painted with the deep reds and purples of dusk. The eyes were gone, and the woods were silent once more.
But I knew they were still there, just beyond the edge of the clearing, watching and waiting.
I didn’t go back into those woods after that. I couldn’t. Every time I looked out toward the tree line, I felt those eyes on me, felt the woods reaching out to pull me back in. I started having nightmares, dreams where the trees moved on their own, and the ground opened up beneath me, swallowing me whole.
But the thing is, these nightmares—this feeling of being watched—they didn’t start with that hike. I’ve been having these dreams since I was ten years old. They come and go, but they’re always the same: I’m walking through the woods, the shadows closing in around me, and then the eyes appear, watching me, following me, until I wake up, drenched in sweat.
I always thought it was just a recurring nightmare, a childhood fear that I’d outgrow. But after what happened in the woods, I’m not so sure. It’s like the dreams were a warning, trying to prepare me for what was out there, for what’s been waiting for me all this time.
And now, I can’t escape it. The eyes aren’t just in my dreams anymore—they’re here, in the real world, watching me from the woods. I can feel them, even when I’m not looking. They’re always there, just beyond the edge of my vision, waiting for me to make a mistake, to go back into the woods.
I don’t know what those woods are, or what they want, but I know they’re not natural. There’s something in them, something that sees and knows, something that’s been there for longer than any of us can imagine. And whatever it is, it’s not finished with me.
I’m writing this as a warning. If you live near Belleville, stay away from the woods. Don’t go near them, don’t walk the trails, don’t even look at them if you can help it. Because once they notice you, once they start watching, they won’t stop.
And they won’t let you go.
