As I walked, the snow crunched beneath my rubber boots. Every so often I would step on a twig, sending a cracking sound into the air as it snapped in half. There was no wind, and almost no noise besides my footsteps, and the birds calling.
Hunting was a big pastime of mine. I would spend hours walking through the large forest, tracking down animals. I would venture out into any weather, it didn’t matter if it was raining, freezing, or blistering hot. It had been snowing a lot lately, which was good news to me, as I loved snow.
I was making my way over to a favorite spot of mine, a large pond in the middle of these woods. As I trodded along, I took in the scenery. It was beautiful, like a winter wonderland. Despite my happy thoughts, I couldn’t help but think of an awful incident that happened ten or so years back. A young man, around the age of twenty, went out hiking in this forest. When he never came home, the authorities were called, and they went out to find him. Sadly, what they found was his lifeless body, sunken to the bottom of the pond. The poor boy had drowned, and every time I went to that pond, I thought about how it was his grave. Since the accident, the children of the town would tell ghost stories about the forest, and would dare each other to see how far they could go out into it.
I reached the pond, frozen and glistening. It was so cold, I knew that I shouldn’t stay out to long. I started to make my way over to a large boulder. I liked to sit on it, and watch for wildlife. As I came to it, however, my foot got caught on a root jutting up from the ground. My body twisted, and I fell over. I fell flat on my stomach, and my rifle flew from my grasp. It landed on the ice of the frozen pond, and slid a little ways out.
I cursed to myself quietly, and stood up. I had to get it back, but I had to be careful not to slip and fall again. I carefully placed my foot on the ice. Then the other one. I started to walk across. I got to my rifle, and bent down slowly to pick it up. At that moment, I heard a loud crack.
Suddenly, the ice beneath me fell into the frigid water, and I fell along with it.
The water felt like fangs bitting into my skin, and my muscles tensed up and became stiff. I thrashed and gasped for air, trying to pull myself out of the hole in the ice, but it was so cold, and it hurt. Water began to fill my boots, making them like heavy weights. I started to sink downwards. I continued to thrash, only wearing myself out. I couldn’t see in the dark, murky water, and I feared trying to open my eyes, as the water was so cold. I couldn’t let myself hit the pond’s bottom, I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the hole I fell through, and I would be trapped. I fought for my life, I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to end up like the poor boy from years ago.
I became light headed, and knew that it was over. However, just when I thought I was a dead man, I could make out something reaching into the water. It was a hand. I saw it moving, and reaching down within arms reach of me. I shot my own hands out, and grabbed onto it. It pulled me up, and my head emerged from the water. I kept my eyes closed and my head down, and with the person’s help I was pulled completly out of the pond.
“Oh….God…thank you, thank God you were here……” I said in a quiet, raspy voice. I opened my eyes to see my savior, but to my great surprise, there was no one there. I looked around, glancing everywhere, but there was no one anywhere.
I never went back to that pond. Whenever the children would tell ghost stories about the drowned boy in the woods, I would listen, because I was sure that I owed him my life.
Credit To – Mara
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good job would eat again
Short and sweet I like it
I really liked this one! He sounds like a cool dead guy
Can I do a reading of this on YouTube? Enjoyed this short, but sweet story quite a bit!
Yes, of course!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8DvSN0FHgA
It’s done, sorry if I butchered your story :) I always like to ask the author or in the very least, announce my intentions giving the author a way to contact me before just blatantly stealing their material for my own use. As the permission was given for this site to use it, but not to others.
Always good to ask! Let me know if you hate it and want me to take it down :P
Well done! I like it very much! Keep reading Creepypastas, you have a good voice and style.
that was alright
iit was great and also….there is a pond in the woods and guess wut…a girl died there…..
anyway it was awesome i give it a …. 1000000 / 10
I can see this scaring a certain group of people. I think most veterans here won’t be too frightened by this tale, we’re mildly desensitized. One thing can be appreciated here – the effort. Thank you for sharing the story. Fix a few bumps – such as the eyes being closed, and add a creep factor if you want to scare a wider range of people. Otherwise, thank you. Stay creepy. :)
Perfect 100/10
Short, but sweet!
The only glaring problem I have (that I really just can’t get past) is that the man in the story didn’t want to open his eyes, yet he saw a hand reach out to him from above and then once again, he’s back to keeping his eyes closed.
That… and I didn’t feel creeped out. Nice story. Nice idea. I come here to be creeped out, but you uplifted me instead. So… thanks.
Short and sweet. Good job. Avoided cliches without being overly complicated. 7.5/10
There were some things that I caught my eye on in the first paragraph.
“As I walked, the snow crunched beneath my rubber boots. Every so often I would step on a twig, sending a cracking sound into the air as it snapped in half. There was no wind, and almost no noise besides my footsteps, and the birds calling.”
I would rewrite it to avoid redundancy and to strengthen the last sentence, thusly:
The snow crunched beneath my rubber boots. (No need to tell us you’re waking.) Every so often I would step on a twig, sending a crack into the still air. (You don’t need to tell us it snapped in half.) The only other sounds were the calls of distant birds. (Try not to say ‘almost no’. If there was ‘almost no’ noise besides that of your feet, and the birds, we want to know what the other sounds were. On the other hand, simply declaring that there was no other sound makes for a stronger, bolder, clearer statement.)
These are just matters of housekeeping, general clarity, and style. Take my opinions with a grain of salt. The story, which is the most important part, was excellent.
Those are all matters of opinion, for sure. Myself, I feel like the original is better than your edits on all counts. That’s not to be critical of you, style is a very personal thing, but to offer another opinion.
There IS an unnecessary comma in the last sentence of that paragraph, but with internet fiction like this, grammar errors are best ignored unless they’re so prevalent as to distract from the story or so egregious as to make the meaning of the story unclear.
I’d also rewrite the sentence about the pond being the boy’s grave. Since the body was found (and presumably buried), it wouldn’t have technically been his grave, just the place where he met his doom.
Awe that was a nice story! More touching than creepy.
I liked it. You didn’t take too long on descriptions, and yet I could see it. I was worried it would be some cliché about “Oh, he drowned here, but there was some other thing that pulled him in and it got me too.” But it wasn’t and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised ! Nicely done. 8.5/10
That was beautiful. Great story! 10/10