Entering the Supernatural Village
Liana Hart had always considered herself a practical woman.
At twenty-eight years old, the beautiful blonde office analyst worked for a property development company in New York. Her days were usually filled with spreadsheets, meetings, and endless reports. Ghost stories and supernatural legends were things she laughed at during coffee breaks.
That changed on a rainy Thursday morning.
"I need a team to inspect a piece of land outside the city," her boss, Mr. Coleman, announced during a meeting. "We're considering buying it for a future development project."
Liana glanced at her coworkers.
"Where exactly?" asked Daniel.
"About four hours north. Near an old forest. The owners want a full report by tomorrow."
"Sounds exciting," Sarah said with a grin.
"Or boring," Liana replied.
Everyone laughed.
By noon, Liana, Daniel, Sarah, and another coworker named Marcus were driving through winding roads surrounded by dense woods. The farther they traveled, the fewer signs of civilization they saw.
Rain clouds covered the sky.
The GPS signal disappeared.
Daniel frowned at the dashboard. "No signal. That's normal this far from the city. We'll just have to rely on the map."
Marcus shifted uneasily in his seat and looked out the window. "I hate places like this. Nothing but trees for miles."
Sarah laughed as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Relax. I've listened to enough paranormal podcasts to know this is exactly how every haunted story begins."
"Great," Marcus muttered. "Now we're officially in a horror movie."
"Relax," Liana said. "We're just inspecting land."
Hours later, they arrived at the location listed in the documents.
The area was strangely quiet.
Tall trees surrounded an open field. No houses. No roads. Nothing.
"This can't be right," Sarah said.
Daniel checked the coordinates again.
"It's right here."
As they walked deeper into the area, a thick fog slowly rolled between the trees.
"Did that appear out of nowhere?" Marcus asked.
No one answered.
The forest had suddenly become silent.
Even the birds had stopped singing.
Then they saw it.
A narrow dirt road.
"Was that here before?" Liana whispered.
The road stretched into the fog.
At the end of it stood a village.
Old wooden houses lined both sides of the path. Smoke rose from chimneys. Lanterns hung outside doors despite it being daytime.
"How is this place not on any map?" Daniel asked.
"Maybe it's just another abandoned house settlement that people forgot about," Sarah said.
But it wasn't.
People were watching them.
Dozens of villagers stood silently outside their homes.
None of them smiled.
None of them spoke.
They simply stared.
Liana felt a chill run down her spine.
"Hello?" she called.
No response.
Then an elderly woman stepped forward.
Her eyes looked unnaturally pale.
"Visitors," she said softly.
The villagers immediately turned and walked away.
"That's not creepy at all," Marcus muttered.
The old woman pointed toward a large building near the center of the village.
"Stay at the inn tonight."
"Actually, we're just passing through," Liana replied.
The old woman's expression darkened.
"No one leaves after sunset."
Without another word, she disappeared into the crowd.
The group exchanged nervous looks.
"Let's inspect the area and get out of here," Daniel said.
But every road they tried somehow led back to the village square.
Again.
And again.
And again.
It was as if the village refused to let them leave.
By evening, panic was beginning to spread among them.
"This isn't possible," Sarah said.
"We're walking in circles."
"Maybe we're lost."
"Inside a village?" Marcus snapped.
The sun disappeared behind the trees.
Darkness came unnaturally fast.
The villagers emerged from their homes carrying lanterns.
Every single one of them was heading toward the forest.
"What are they doing?" Liana asked.
A little girl suddenly appeared beside her.
Liana nearly screamed.
"You shouldn't watch," the girl whispered.
"Watch what?"
The girl's eyes slowly turned completely black.
"Them feeding the forest."
Then she vanished.
Not walked away.
Vanished.
Liana's blood ran cold.
"Did you guys see that?"
The others nodded silently.
They had seen it too.
That night they stayed at the inn.
No one slept.
Around midnight, strange sounds echoed outside.
Whispers.
Crying.
Something scratching the walls.
Liana looked through the window.
Her heart nearly stopped.
Villagers were standing outside.
Hundreds of them.
Perfectly still.
Looking directly at the inn.
One by one, they began smiling.
Their mouths stretched impossibly wide.
Far wider than any human mouth should.
"Don't look at them!" Sarah screamed.
Suddenly a loud knock echoed through the building.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
The front door shook violently.
Then came a voice.
"Let us inside."
Another voice joined.
"We are hungry."
Then dozens more.
"LET US INSIDE."
The walls trembled.
The lanterns flickered.
The windows cracked.
Marcus grabbed a chair.
"What are they?"
No one answered.
Because deep down they already knew.
Those things outside were not human.
The knocking continued until dawn.
When sunlight arrived, the villagers were gone.
But something worse had happened.
Daniel had disappeared.
Only muddy footprints remained beside his bed.
The group searched desperately.
They eventually found him near the forest.
Standing motionless.
Facing the trees.
"Daniel!" Liana shouted.
Slowly he turned around.
His face was pale.
His eyes were empty.
"They showed me," he whispered.
"Showed you what?"
"What's beneath the village."
A horrifying scream erupted from the forest.
The ground began shaking.
Trees bent violently as if caught in an invisible storm.
The fog returned thicker than before, carrying a rotten smell that made Liana cover her nose.
Then the earth split open.
A deep, slow breath echoed from beneath the village.
It sounded impossibly large.
Every breath made the ground tremble beneath their feet.
Something enormous moved below them.
For a brief moment, an enormous eye opened inside the crack.
It was far too large to belong to any living creature.
It stared upward.
Blink.
Once.
Then it disappeared back into the darkness.
Not an animal.
Not a person.
Something ancient.
Something impossible.
The villagers gathered around the crack in the ground.
One by one they stepped into it.
Smiling.
Laughing.
Disappearing into the darkness below.
The old woman appeared once more.
She looked directly at Liana.
"You do not belong here."
"What is this place?" Liana cried.
The old woman smiled sadly.
"A place between places."
"How do we leave?"
"You already forgot."
The ground shook harder.
The sky turned black.
The village began collapsing.
Houses twisted.
Roads cracked.
The villagers screamed as their bodies stretched into shadowy forms.
Liana grabbed Sarah's hand.
"Run!"
They ran toward the forest.
The world around them dissolved into darkness.
Screams echoed everywhere.
Something chased them between the trees.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Then everything went black.
Complete darkness.
Silence.
Nothing.
When Liana opened her eyes, bright white lights blinded her.
Machines beeped nearby.
A nurse gasped.
"She's awake!"
Liana sat up slowly.
She was in a hospital room.
Sarah occupied the bed beside her.
Marcus was asleep in another room.
"What happened?" Liana whispered.
A police officer entered.
"You've been unconscious for nearly two days."
"Where's Daniel?"
The officer looked confused.
"Who?"
"Daniel. He was with us."
"There were only three of you when the rescue team found you."
Liana stared at him.
"That's impossible."
The officer shook his head.
"You were discovered deep inside the forest. No village. No buildings. Nothing."
"That's not true."
"We searched the entire area."
The officer placed several photographs on the bed.
Liana's hands trembled.
The pictures showed only trees.
Endless forest.
No road.
No village.
No inn.
No villagers.
Nothing.
"Witnesses say a storm hit shortly after you entered the woods," the officer continued. "You were found unconscious near an old clearing."
Liana felt cold.
Very cold.
"How long were we there?"
"About three hours."
Her heart stopped.
Three hours?
They had spent days inside the village.
Maybe longer.
Weeks later, Liana tried to move on with her life.
She returned to work.
Everyone assumed the incident was caused by exposure, stress, or hallucinations.
Everyone except Liana.
Because every night she dreamed of the village.
Every night she heard the knocking.
And every night she remembered something new.
Something she had forgotten.
The truth.
The village had never appeared after they entered the forest.
It had been there from the very beginning.
The moment they stepped beyond the tree line, they had already crossed into another realm.
The field.
The road.
The villagers.
The inn.
Everything.
None of it had existed in the human world.
They had unknowingly wandered into a supernatural domain hidden between reality and something far older.
And somehow, against impossible odds, they had escaped.
One night, months later, Liana discovered a folded piece of paper inside her jacket pocket.
A pocket she had not used since that day.
Her blood froze.
It was a map.
Drawn in faded ink.
At the center was a small handwritten message.
We are waiting for your return.
Below the message was a single name.
Daniel.
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