I was unsure what direction I wanted to go with this. I started writing it as a story about a boy and a dog celebrating Christmas, but it turned into a holiday journal entry following the lost media horror trope and somewhat resembling the legend of the Wendigo in Native American folklore. I have no idea how this happened, but I can’t say I am upset with the result. 12/21/03 I was 13 at the time. Young, foolish, and happy. It was the 21st of December, 1996, 6:30 pm. It was cold up in the small Tuscarora Mountain village, where I lived with my mama and my sister, and a thick layer of snow was covering the ground. The sun had already set, and the bitter cold nipped at my nose as I worked chopping wood at the edge of the forest, only the light of my gas lamp to see where I was swinging my hatchet. Now, I knew the rules of the mountains. Everyone did. Never go out at night, close your curtains and don’t look into the forest at night, don’t look closely at the trees, never answer to your name being called, and if you see something strange, ignore it. My mama always made sure to remind me, and never let me go out after sun-down. Except, on this night, my mama wasn’t there to stop me. No, she was helpin’ out at the local church’s Christmas tree sale, leavin’ me alone. And I had decided that just this one time, I would break the rules. What I didn’t know at the time was that I would see something that would haunt my nightmares for a long, long time afterwards. It wasn’t long before the wind had picked up and my hands had grown numb enough that I couldn’t swing my hatchet much longer before accidentally embedding it in my shin, so I decided to head in. But as soon as I turned to the house, a gust of freezing wind swept through, blowing out my gas lamp. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise, but I convinced myself that everything was ok. That was, before I took a step towards my house and heard a child’s giggle behind me. I froze. It sounded like my sister, but that was impossible, since my sister was with my mama at the church. I didn’t dare look behind me. Soon, the giggles and laughter turned to screams and I covered my ears, desperately trying to block the sound out, but no matter what I did, I still heard that wretched screaming. Suddenly, the screaming cut off. I hesitantly removed my hands from my ears, and that’s when I heard it. The voice of my sister, calling my name from far away, a soft, eerie whisper. “Ooooooh Hayyydenn~. Hayyyydennn~! Hayden!” It called. Or at least, it sounded far away. But the