REI Co-Op Studios

That's a pile of stones.

A stump.

A bag of something.

A bag of bones, maybe.

That can't be a person.

Sitting there by the water's edge.

Motionless.

Way out here where black pines spill thick off the mountain slopes

and drown in the shores of this strange, still lake.

That can't be a person. What would anyone be doing out here?

Anyway, they would have turned around when they heard you thrashing through these woods.

They wouldn't be just sitting there, so near, so still, staring away from you out over the glassy water,

staring at nothing, staring through the strange flat light of this strange, cloudy day out over this strange still lake.

No, that can't be a person.

Hello?

They don't move, they don't turn around.

So no, that can't be a person.

It can't be a person wrapped in old, dark, dirty, shapeless cloth.

The closer you get, though, the less it looks like anything else.

A stone shifts under your foot, loud in the stillness.

But the figure doesn't turn to face you, doesn't move at all.

...