Night Season

Elias learns some things are better off as a mystery. - Writer's Cramp Entry.

The Night Season had returned to Black Hollow National Park, an annual phenomenon where the sun abandoned the sky for a full month, leaving the vast wilderness shrouded in endless twilight. Local legends spoke of the season as a time when the barriers between the natural and supernatural grew thin, a period when strange things crept through the forests, unseen but always felt. For most, it was a time to stay away. For Park Ranger Elias Grant, it was just another job; until the murders began.

Elias had always taken the tales of the Night Season with a healthy dose of skepticism. He’d heard the stories; shadow figures moving through the trees, whispers carried by the wind, and animals behaving in ways that defied logic. But he dealt in facts, not folklore. That changed when a pair of hikers stumbled out of the woods, their faces pale, eyes wide with terror. They spoke of finding a body deep in the northern stretch of the park, near the old fire tower.

By the time Elias arrived, the scene was worse than he imagined. The victim, a local biologist named Dr. Simon Hale, lay sprawled on the frost covered ground, his throat slashed by something unnervingly precise. No sign of an animal attack, no obvious tracks, no murder weapon. Just a single symbol carved into the bark of a nearby tree; a spiral, the kind that had been appearing for decades, always during the Night Season.

With the nearest sheriff’s department hours away and unwilling to venture into Black Hollow at this time of year, it fell on Elias to uncover the truth. He combed through reports, speaking to the few locals who dared remain, piecing together fragments of information. A pattern emerged; disappearances every few years, always during the Night Season, always near the fire tower.

Then came the voices. They started as faint murmurs, just beyond the edge of his hearing. At first, Elias dismissed them as tricks of the wind, but they grew more insistent. Whispers threading through the trees, calling his name.

Determined to get to the bottom of it, Elias returned to the murder site, this time under the full embrace of the Night Season’s eerie glow. As he examined the carved spiral, a sudden gust of wind sent a flurry of dead leaves across the forest floor, revealing something he hadn’t noticed before; a trapdoor hidden beneath the underbrush. It led down into an old, forgotten tunnel system, one that predated the park itself.

Armed with a flashlight and his revolver, Elias descended. The tunnels smelled of damp earth and something older, something wrong. Symbols identical to the one carved into the tree lined the walls. He pressed forward, pulse hammering, until he found a chamber at the tunnel’s end; a ritual site, abandoned yet still humming with an unnatural presence.

At the center of the chamber stood a crude stone altar, and behind it, a figure waited. A man draped in dark, tattered robes, his face hidden by a mask of bone. "You should not have come here," the figure rasped.

Elias barely had time to react before the figure lunged. It moved with inhuman speed, its limbs twisting unnaturally. He fired a shot, but the figure barely flinched. Then the whispers became deafening, words forming at last:

"The Season calls. We need more souls."

Elias had no intention of letting that happen. If this was the force behind the killings, it ended here. He grabbed the nearest heavy object; a rusted lantern, and swung with all his might. The figure reeled, and Elias took his chance, toppling the altar. He seemingly broke whatever the figure was doing. A shriek echoed through the chamber as the symbols on the walls flared with an eerie light before vanishing.

When the echoes faded, the figure was gone. The whispers had ceased.

By the time dawn arrived; a miracle in itself Elias emerged from the tunnels, shaken but alive. The Night Season had lost its hold on Black Hollow, at least for now. The legend would live on, but so would he. And as he walked back to his ranger station, he knew one thing for certain: some mysteries were better left unsolved. But this one? He’d make damn sure it stayed buried. Who would believe him anyway.