Few places on earth offer one the chance to see and experience the otherworldly. As if following nature being driven out of ever-growing civilization, spirits and their ilk seem to have fled the scene for the most part. A stone's throw away from most of these bastions of humanity, however, haunts tend to accompany the changing scenery and the rural. The haunted house on the edge of town that nobody has lived in, an old quarry just outside the city limits, the paranormal cannot impede progress and gets lost amongst the changing times.

One can, if they're lucky, visit such sites. One can conversely be unlucky enough to stumble upon such a place when they intend no such thing, and following this streak of ill-luck one can also find themselves in this awful place when the spirits inhabiting it are feeling well enough to toy with our mortal selves.

Alaska is a land with many such places, a history long mired in mysticism and prone to forgetfulness. This is not surprising, however, as the land quickly swallows up any property that has been vacant for but a blink of an eye. The near vengefulness one can feel from the forest as it reclaims plots is a feeling locals know all too well, it has become so innocent and commonplace in their minds that they rarely bat an eye at it. I myself bought into this complacency, not thinking for a second in the alien speed at which the forest grasps it's tendrils around the developed.

In my youth, I was well familiar with the local paranormal. The wendingo-like and greatly feared kooshda and kooshdakhaa (or land otter men) which one would turn into should they drown (but would be safe from, should they be properly respected), for instance, were a tale all knew well. Stories about how Raven brought the sun into the world by tricking mortals, or people being killed by animal/people hybrids that they had crossed. Romps and youthful adventures in the soggy old-growth forests were no stranger to the hushed talk about khaa yakghwahéiyagu, and how we would bravely fight it off if we encountered it. Ghost stories about the loggers that died in horrific accidents were shared around the campfire on beaches at night with more of a tone of factual retelling rather than entertainment. The occult was hard to avoid in this locale, we were even taught about it in school. These were things we had to learn for our safety.

My partner in our various adventures and raids upon the decrepit, musty ruins of houses left from when the logging company left town was Josh. Josh moved in from down south because his parents wanted a more quiet life, and his father was to work on the engines of the state ferry. Often would we come to debates regarding the lofty and fantastic claims of the local lore, and to my frustration my friend could not see how the air around the entire island was thick with the others. The natives who first lived in the area believed in a system of dual dichotomy: Animals live in the wet and cold outdoors, humans live in the warm and dry indoors, for example, the dark forest and the light of the wide open water. If something exists, there is an opposite to it, and we as humans are no different. There are Others.

These musings and warnings always fell upon deaf ears, but this was changed eventually. We were on another adventure one day in summer, walking along the craggy salt-swept beaches during a balmy day where the beach baking in the summer sun produced a thick, sweet fishy smell. Our beachcombing adventures often produced fantastic results, having found anything from a chunk of dock that had broken away from a storm to gigantic barrels, and we always found neat things in the long-abandoned houses that lined the beaches. The warm summer day instilled a renewed will in us, though, and we bypassed our usual haunts and pushed further down the beach, until the houses stopped and we were in unfamiliar territory. Such a beautiful day was spotted with relaxing on the beach and enjoying the bounties of the sea (a local saying of the natives went: "When the tide is out, the table is set"), including various kinds of seaweed.

Our continued adventures brought us to a strange area where a cliff suddenly jutted up, and continued along the coast. The almost artificialness of the disarmingly high cliff was staggering, the dark grey rock contrasting wildly with the lush green forest and the grey and nearly bone-white rocks of the beach. Continuing on, we came upon a dark indentation into the side of this cliff, large enough for a handful of kids to sit in comfortably for a fort, but the strangest thing was the weathered grey log with notches cut out into it that traversed a part of the cliff that wasn't so steep. The idea of adventure got the best of us, and we readily began climbing up into the unknown. Very soon, however, branches and underbrush clogged the way, requiring us to lean very close to the log and shimmy up it slowly, crawling against the branches scraping our backs. Light was dim and the smell of the wet earth inches from our face was strong, the log seemed to go on forever and get more slippery and moldy. Turning back was not an option, not because we were too headstrong to, but crawling backwards all the way would have been dangerous.

When me and my colleague finally made it to the top, our short jaunt left us surprisingly winded. Our perseverance rewarded us, however, as we were obviously at an old homestead!

The house on the hill wasn't overgrown, but surrounded by the tall grass that grew along the beaches, as if it had completely replaced the lawn and the perimeter of the yard hadn't changed. It was painted white, with the wood underneath the paint bearing the token greyness wood takes on when exposed to the salty sea air, making it appear uniformly one color from a distance. The cliff jutted out towards the sea in a U shape, on which scrub brush and grass was growing heavily and awkwardly, in unnatural patterns. The memory of this place brings a tear and feeling of paranoia to me to this very day, nearly 10 years later. The grass should not have been there, the house with it's large windows facing the sea felt wrong and foreboding, but the worst was the smell. Good god, the smell. My friend and myself were assaulted with the scent of flowers and smoke, sweet but with gross enough overtones to cause one's disgust and a feeling they should cover their mouth. The bushes in the part of the cliff that protruded out towards the ocean like the bow of a boat were unnerving, as our familiarity with the local flora granted us the knowledge the plants grew thick and in large groves, not in splotchy patches of sickly high growth. We were shaken by our very short survey of the area, a quick glance around was enough to cause our nerves to become rattled. We could no longer hear the ocean lapping lazily against the beach, the slight breeze we felt below had stopped, and though the sun shined readily there was no heat to be had.

Josh and myself had a specific pattern to when we find a new location; we would search the grounds first for anything interesting before moving on to any buildings. Our first location was the protruding part of the cliff, with the bizarre growth of bushes. What we found first was more terrifying than it should have been- the tide was in. Being on an island and at such low sea level, the tide comes in very quickly, making travel on the beaches impassible in some places. We would have to go through the woods if we wanted to go back. Secondly, our height. We were high enough from the beach that a fall would be certain death, and high enough up that the sound of the fervent tide-changing waves barely reached us. A perverse feeling of dread began to worm its way into our psyche as we continued looking. A sudden realization came to me and my colleague almost simultaneously- we were in a playground. The familiarities of the shapes we found by barely pushing the bushes to the side confirmed that these strange formations the bushes were making was merely nature reclaiming the roundabout, table, and teeter-otter, all of which covered in ichor-colored rust that appeared to be more a covering of otherworldly lichen. And that smell... that decadent, awful, ever prevailing smell!

It was around this time the feeling of dread took over completely, causing us to shake and gasp breathless. The paths around the playground equipment weren't from use, something was causing the plants to grow specifically to envelope the artificial. Objects seemed to vibrate, the house in the distance seemingly sending off irregular waves of disgust, pain, and hatred. My friend began darting back and forth looking at the bushes roughly where we emerged from the log ladder, however fruitlessly, before stopping and turning around to look at me with eyes that I will never forget. If nothing else from that day was terrifying, my friends, the look in those eyes will haunt me forever. The helplessness, the dread, the confusion and panic. As he continued this stare towards me, possibly through me, he stated as though he was reading something from a dictionary in a shaking voice: "Something bad happened here."

I will admit with great humility, to whoever is reading this, I committed possibly the most terrible thing in my life at that very moment. I ran. I ran into the woods and did not look behind me to see if my friend was following. I jumped over rotting fallen trees and ducked under mossy, decaying branches, my body having taken over from an instinct that recalled an ancient ancestor's dealings with the Others and the unnatural. The sunlight began to filter in from the thick canopy of the ancient cedar and pines, until I was met with a place where I could exit that evil forest onto a section of beach, collapsing amongst the rough sand and rounded rocks, gasping as I stared at the tree line. A continued moment of fear gripped me and I leaped backwards as I saw something emerge after me, but a great wave of relief washed over me as I saw it was Josh. We sat on the beach and stared at the treeline for a great long while, I cannot say for sure how long we were there for. We sauntered home in a defeated, shocked sort of silence, no words were needed for what we experienced. We parted ways that night, and I neither of us spoke of this for many years, though truth be told we will only retell the story to others. I have never mentioned the place to him, though we have grown apart by time and distance, no barrier will ever erase the memory of his face and the primal terror that shone in his eyes.

To those who are reading, I promise you that spirits still exist, in a different capacity than they had in the past. Should you find yourself so lucky, or unlucky though the case may be, to stumble upon a forgotten spot where mysticism still runs strong through the Earth, remember that these are the places where the old khaa yakghwaheiyagu still remain, but the most terrifying and strong force of the paranormal around us is that of nature herself.