Scary & Freaky stories: The Paranormal World

The Shadow Circle

It all started when I went for one of my late night walks as I love the countryside that surrounds where I live. I had walked for a good hour and I began to get this very strange feeling that I should walk through my local village rather than the path that directs me past my home. I found this unusual but carried on regardless. As I walked though the village I noticed that all the lights in the houses were out and the only lights I could see were the nearby lampposts. I found this strange because there are usually a few lights on in the houses when I walked through the village before at this time. As I walked on through and out of the village nothing much happened except for the strange shapes that the silhouettes of the houses made as I passed them.

Once I exited the village, I decided to get something to eat at the petrol station nearby, as I walked by the trees near the road on the way there, a human shaped shadow appeared and was moving towards me in the light of the lampposts. This didn't startle me as I assumed it was someone walking towards me. As I looked up to see who it was, there was no one there at all and I looked back down and saw that the shadow had gone. I felt weird and a bit scared but I carried on walking without hesitation. I bought a pasty and a bottle of Oasis from the station (Note: it will become apparent why I mentioned this later) but whilst I was queuing I saw a shadowy figure outside of the station but then vanish suddenly.

I exited the station and saw the figure again, and again it vanished. But this time it reappeared further down the road. I wandered towards it but it vanished and like before, it reappeared further down the road. Curiosity got the better of me and I kept following it until I got to this lit opening to the woods nearby. The figure didn't appear again but I still walked through the lit up area of woodland and as progressed through the woods I came across an opening in the woods and I could clearly see the stars above me. I started to get scared as it was very late and I started to walk back the way I came but I couldn't as the lit pathway I had followed had disappeared. It then dawned on me that there was no way that the path could have been lit as there were no lights of any sort in this area. I panicked and tried to scream but I couldn't. It was then that the true horrors began.

I then turned around to the centre of the opening and saw that it was lit dimly which was impossible as there was no lights at all that I could see. I then saw that I was surrounded by shadows in the shapes of people and then I saw shadowy figures like I saw near the petrol station appear from out of these shadows. I tried to run but there was no way out until I saw an opening as if there was one of these shadowy figures missing. As I moved towards this gap I noticed how the figures were changing into forms that I could recognize as male and female. As I passed between the gaps made by what I'd call 'female figures' I saw that they seemed to turn their heads and one of them reached out their hands as if to beckon me to stay. I don't know why but I was compelled to stay and I held onto the 'girl's' hand and as I held the others hand I felt compelled to move in a circle with the other shadows and I felt as if I was floating at not moving my legs at all even though I could see them moving. I don't know how long this went on for but it just stopped and the figures faded until they had completely vanished and the path way I had came in and it was lit like before. As I slowly wandered out I looked back at the opening and heard the distinct voice of a female saying 'come back soon' and I think she also said 'you belong' but this was not very clear which made it hard to hear. As I got home I was very tired and shaken and then realized I didn't have my pasty wrapper or oasis bottle on me which is unusual as I didn't even open them.

It was the next day that I wandered back to the woods to look for any possible reason for what I had experienced. I walked through the path I found which was a lot smaller than I remembered and as I got to the clearing I found I saw the empty bottle and wrapped and I found a strange symbol carved into the ground and surrounding trees. It looked like a circle with five weird symbols within it and the looked very hard to draw. I could find no natural explanation that could explain what happened to me.

This experience is very fresh in my mind and probably always will be. I think this can relate best to the 'shadow people phenomenon' but that is all I can say, and the symbols in the trees and ground, they are gone and it doesn't look like they were even there.