Chapter 4 – The Horror at Hoia Forest

I used to be one of those people who did not believe in the supernatural, monsters, demons, vampires and all the things that should not be.

However, for the past 6 years, I have been constantly proven wrong and I was shown by forces beyond my reach and understanding that we are not alone, we were never alone and we will never be alone. I have seen things that can churn your stomach, that can make your heart stop beating or even question your existence.

This time I will tell you about one of my vacations that I will never forget and that I wish I could take back. But as you may well know from the stories you have read so far, strange things seem to follow me since I have become a Freemason. No matter what happened, I always managed to stay lucid and keep my composure until the very end of these strange occurrences.

For us, Freemasons, summers are usually off, we do not have any kind of official gatherings, however we do meet like friends in the White Meetings, as we call them, we just eat foods and drink wine, like normal people. I have had many of those, some of them really pleasant because you get to talk to some good people about great things, but there also are evil people there as well so it is kind of a battle of the forces of good and evil. Some of the them want evil to reign supreme, and some just want to destroy every vile thing that the Freemasons stand for. Their Temple of Lies will fall one day and their False God will burn in the purging fires of all that should protect us.

Last summer, before this whole crazy pandemic happened (I also have a story on this as well, it will come at a later stage, I do not want to scare more than you are right now, reader), we were invited by some Freemasons friends to spend a few days on a lovely property just a bit outside of the city of Cluj-Napoca in Romania, a very beautiful city indeed, great food, great people and you should visit if you have the chance.

Most of us have regular 9 to 5 jobs, of course, so we decided we should spend a weekend there, booked a flight and we got there in about an hour on a Friday night. The property was filled with one room little houses, so that all Brothers could relax and rest good. We went in, we made ourselves comfortable, changed to a casual attire and went outside to socialize.

The property was placed in the heart of nature, far away from inquiring eyes. It was surrounded by a thick forest called Hoia, its trees were very oddly bent like they have seen the horrors of the world, and behind it a river was rapidly streaming away into the silence of the night…

I am a really big fan of barbecues so it was my idea to not go to a restaurant in the city, instead we should have a nice BBQ done at the property by ourselves, because it would give us a better vibe, given the whole rustic scenery. Everyone agreed and we proceeded on lighting the thing up.

After a few hours or so, when we were almost ending our small party, we heard screaming voices echoing from the woods, unaware of the dangers we we will face later on; so me and four other Brothers took our flashlights and decided to go and see where the screaming was coming from. I was scared to see what terrors the night will bring upon us because the things we faced in the past were absolutely horrifying.

As we delved deeper into the forest, after what seemed and felt like almost an eternity, not knowing what fate we will have, we were starting to get closer to the source of the screaming. As we were approaching, we started seeing the river and on its edge there was a woman wearing a white dress that seemed to be made of clouds, almost vaporous.

Then she turned… her face was the whitest white I have ever seen, her eyes were so dark that they could have looked straight into your soul, leaving you petrified, a statue. The most scaring part was that on her face was what appeared to be some sort of black blood dripping down from her eyes. She started coming at us hastily, so we started running but… when we turned around another four women were standing mid-air, floating and watching down on us, almost like they were the hunter and we were the hunted. The creatures of the night needed to feed.

I know some of the Eastern European legends and so given that we were in Romania I remember hearing stories about the so-called ‘iele’, which were spirits of tormented women who only wanted to prey on men, making them go absolutely insane. The legend says that you must not speak to them nor say their name. And so, they started singing and dancing in circles around us… two brothers started crying in absolute fear and the rest of us were mesmerized by them…

Then, like touched by grace, I snapped out of it and yelled: “Do not look at them and close your eyes!” Said and done. Except for one of our Brothers….

His gaze could not turn away from the the spirits and then one came close to him:

“Would you come with us, handsome? She said, slowly caressing his face.

“Yes…. I want to…” he said, not even finishing his sentence. They raised him up the air and then they disappeared with them in the depths of the dark forest.

“Nooooo!” I yelled. “Brothers, snap out of it, we have to go after him.”

We started running like madmen, not knowing where we were going or what fate awaited us. We started searching, looking for houses in the forest, for lights, for a single trace of our Brother. And before we knew it, morning came. The first rays of sun shining shyly, almost afraid to enter the forest.

After our searches came to no avail, we found our way back to the houses and decided to rest for a couple of hours before going back to the woods. We were severely dehydrated and frightened to our very bones. As we were approaching the property, the rest of our Brothers were outside waiting.

“Hey, guys! We’re back, you will not believe what happened to us.” we yelled collectively, almost running out of breath.”

They all stepped aside, revealing our lost Brother sitting in a chair, with his head lowered and… his physical appearance was changed, his hair turned white, he looked like he lost 20 pounds, and he was almost a vegetable, could not speak, all he was doing was to mumble incoherently.

“We told them what happened, they were in shock, but they also knew what horrors live with us in places where we, humans, should not go and they understood the grave situation we were in.”

We all decided to stay a few more days. We called the ambulance, we invented a story about how he woke up like that because we obviously could not say the real story and then they took him to the local psychiatric hospital for tests, where he still is confined to this very day.

After a few days passed, the doctor called one of us and the diagnosis was… severe schizophrenia combined with dementia. The doctor told us that our Brother always has hallucinations about five women that try to take him away from the hospital.

Some other times he starts dancing by himself in the padded room.

Brother, I am sorry we could not save you. Truly sorry.