Ordinarily, I would pride myself on being a woman of logic and reasoning who would scoff at something as silly as superstition or curses. But deep in the dark woods where the imagination is left to wander in the silent beauty of nature, one's mind become susceptible to such innately primitive ideas. I was no exception, as on a hike deep into the mountainous forests of the North Eastern regions alone I strayed from the path with the insane idea of blazing my own trail.
It had been a windy day in August, one of my last hikes of the warm season in 2017, as I trekked along a well known trail leading to an observation tower. But it was on this trip in particular that I decided to divert from the trail to follow a faint deer-trampled path I discovered which drifted off to the East in a completely unknown direction from the tower. Feeling whimsically adventurous, I hobbled over fallen tree trunks, skirted through dense brush and brambles, and climbed between some rather treacherous rock ledges. These rock spires jutted up from within the mountain in random places most likely due to the shifting tectonic plates beneath this region forcing the rock layers out of the earth, blocking the path and forcing the hiker to crawl precariously between or over them.
It was while traversing this unknown region that I made a rather interesting discovery. Hanging from a low branch of a tree tied by a crimson thread was a red translucent dragon pendant. The sunlight gleaming through the dragon gave the pendant an ominous red glow as it dangled from the tree branch, swaying and twirling with the wind. The pendant was dirt crusted, as through it had been dug up and then hung in the tree, but it was unclear where it had come from and the location was so remote and secluded that the owner had to be long gone.
Seeing the pendant, the treasure hunter inside me decided to take it with me to clean it and study it closer back at home in the workshop. But this decision was where my trouble started. Sometime between retrieving the pendant and the hike onward into the unknown, I somehow managed to drop my compass. I had been using this to keep track of my general direction to not stray too far from the path to the tower, in fear of becoming like many of the other hikes known for getting lost and perishing in these vast forests. Without my compass, I could resort to using the GPS in my phone to track my location by satellite and point me in the right direction. But much to my dismay, the phone which had been fully charged when I started my hike, and which I had only used once to take a selfie by the sign post of the trail, was suddenly drained of battery and refused to turn on. Feeling panic beginning to swell within me, I tried to stay calm and simply turned my direction around from where I had been heading. But this wasn't much help, most of the forest looked alike and my own footprints were masked by the wind shifting the fallen leaves.
I wandered on for what seemed like an eternity, my fears growing as well as my curiosity. Several times I took the dragon pendant out of my pocket and turned it over in my hand, my thumb sweeping away caked layers of dirt from the glowing translucent red material, which felt soft and flexible but held it's form. Superstitious thoughts began to churn in my mind, wondering if the pendant had been abandoned there on purpose due perhaps to the misfortune it brought the holder. Misplacing my compass, my phone dying, and losing my way in the forest all contributed to the paranoia that I was in possession of some cursed relic inhibiting me from leaving these woods. But for some reason I clung onto the artifact out of a strange obsession with it and a fascination for it's origin. Or perhaps it was out of sheer obstinance that I carried it with me instead of tossing it away, part of me refusing to succumb to these ridiculous ideas. So I trudged on, the pendant in my pocket, blindly forward into the forest.
It was nearly nightfall when the familiar sound of traffic caught my attention. To my joy, in the distance I could spot the blur of cars zipping by. Running, (or what could best be described as running when leaping over fallen trees and crawling through rocks and bushes), I frantically rushed toward the promise of freedom and laughed aloud with relief. Following the road and some sign posts, I managed to find my way back to my car where I was able to plug in my phone to charge it.
So clearly the pendant wasn't actually cursed and getting lost can be attributed to my own recklessness of leaving the trail without preparations. But it shows how quickly one's mind resorts to superstitions when fear and panic overwhelm the more logical sections of the brain. This was a terrifying but memorable experience for me. In the end, I walked away with a better understanding of the dangers of hiking alone without means of navigation, a better appreciation for trail markers, and of course with a neat dragon pendant which I still have to this day.
I have yet to find out what this pendant is, why it was made, or why it was in the woods. If anyone has any information to share about it, feel free to contact me.
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