This summer I went jogging a lot on a nature trail every night because I couldn’t go to the gym because, you know, corona. One day, while just minding my own business, I suddenly hear laughter in the woods. Now, I wear noise cancelling headphones, so in order to hear someone, they've got to be right by me. So I move over thinking someone is coming up behind me and then look and no one is there. No one is anywhere. It's just me on the trail. By myself. So I take my headphones off and I hear the laughter again, but like it's a distance away. Creepy, but whatever.
The next day, as I'm headed down the street toward the entrance path to the trail, there's a kid in like his early twenties coming toward me. I turn down the path and he follows, probably 50-60 feet behind me. He's easy to see, wearing a white tshirt and khaki shorts. About two minutes in, I look behind me to see if he's getting closer and he's just gone. I think "No big deal, he probably just realized he didn't want to go on the path and turned around."
So on the path, you can stay on the main gravel path that follows the creek, or there's a small side trail that goes through the woods. I turn onto that side trail because 1. It's hilly and a challenge to jog through, and 2. I don't ever see people on it because it's a tiny dirt trail. So I'm jogging, minding my own business, listening to a podcast or some **** and I look up and suddenly this kid is just standing there, in a small clearing ahead of me next to the path. There's NO WAY he could have gotten ahead of me unless he cut through the woods and through the creek. But his white shirt is perfectly clean. And he's just standing there, staring at me and not moving. Creepy as hell. I'm totally weirded out. But like, he's kind of a little guy and I'm a pretty big guy, so I'm not worried, but more confused as hell on how he got there. Anyway, I just run past him.
Then, further ahead about 20 minutes later, I started walking. I'm kind of just checking things out and there's like, four owls in the trees above me that are kind of following me, so I'm just staring up and watching them. They keep flying ahead, landing in a tree and watching me as I catch up, then fly ahead again. I'm just minding my own business and they fly down the hill toward the creek about 30 feet from the path and I look down AND THIS KID IS STANDING THERE, NEXT TO THE CREEK STARING AT ME AGAIN. How the hell did he get ahead of me again?! At this point there's only one branch of the trail! And he's totally clean still! Not dirty, not sweating (it's like, 90 degrees outside!) and he's just staring at me!
So I'm freaked the **** out. I don't know what to do, so naturally, I stop, take off my headphones, do a sarcastic wave and say, "HI!" And he kind of stares at me for a second, cocks his head and raises his arm, but in a weird way, almost like he's never raised his arm before. Like, he's rotating it up like a robot, then rotates it back down, all while just starting at me blankly. And I realize, that was almost the EXACT same spot I heard the laughing the night before. I got the hell out of there.
About a week later I’m jogging again and I see this, right where I first saw the owls.
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