“This story took place much earlier than the previous one I told, so I was much younger.

I enlisted in the French Foreign Legion at the age of 19. Now, I cannot reveal much here, such as the country or the nature of our business there, but I will make it as understandable as possible. I was a young corporal at the time this happened, I was in the ‘2e Régiment étranger de parachutistes’ (2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment). Our unit was advancing through a landscape of mountains with dense forest and snow. Now, maybe we were delusional from the extremely cold conditions and our aching feet, but we all remember what we saw and experienced that night.

We found a small footpath leading through the mountains which the Lt. thought would be best to follow. After following the path, we got to a kind of clearing along the way, an open part that almost reached the pinnacle of the mountain. Nearby was a small hut, not far from the path. The Lt. sent three men, including me, to investigate the hut while the rest of the regiment waited on the trail.

We knocked on the door and a very old man who was native to the area opened it. He looked very tired which wasn’t surprising considering it was night time. One of the men was a translator and asked the old man in his native language if he had seen anyone else pass by on the path. The old man claimed that no one used the path except him. He said the path further down was more dense and that the land was cursed. He then closed the door and told us to leave. We informed the Lt. and his orders were to keep moving.

The old man was right, the forest got more and more dense until the trees surrounded the path on both sides. The man walking in front of me turned around and asked ‘What did you just say?’. Confused, I denied saying anything. He insisted that I had just whispered something to him, and he told me to stop playing. I know for a fact I didn’t say anything and neither did any of the other men. Suddenly, the Lt. turned around and told us to stop playing and whispering, but all of the men denied any whispering or talking. That’s common sense when you’re moving through hostile territory.

Then the weird stuff started to happen. Someone or something suddenly started throwing stones from the right side of the treeline. The Lt. shouted and warned whoever it is to stop, but it got worse. Then stones flew at us from both sides. Weird laughter and screams came from all over. A stone hit one of the men directly in his face. Armed soldiers were being made fools of by idiots with stones. That was the final straw, and the Lt. shouted ‘Vérifiez vos flancs!’ (‘Check your flanks!’). He then told us to advance and spread out among the trees. Now, one would say it could be kids or local idiots, but I could feel the evil. We all could.

As we moved deeper into the trees, I could see figures moving very fast among them. They were dark figures that looked like men. A guy a few feet away from me started praying in Spanish. The Lt. fired two shots in the air and the sounds and stones stopped. There was complete silence. We returned and kept following the trail until we got to where we needed to be. None of the men really spoke of the incident again.

There may be a lot of explanations, but no man moves as fast as those figures in the woods, nor can men make sounds like that. Maybe the old hermit wasn’t lying, maybe the land is cursed. None of us had ever experienced anything like that, nor have we experienced anything like that since. Next time, I believe we’ll listen.”

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