Here in Utah County there's a lovely hike to Stewart Falls, a waterfall fed by the glacier on the north side of Mount Timpanogos. I'm not a big hiker -- it doesn't go well with my Oreo habit -- so I miscalculated the time. I stayed too long on a Saturday afternoon, and evening came fast. I found myself hiking back in the darkness without a flashlight.
Yes, I'm a genius. Shut up.
Fortunately (so I thought) I saw some light not far off the trail -- if I was even still on the trail -- and I decided to venture towards it. Maybe it was a camper who could spare a flashlight?
It was not.
As I got closer I could hear voices, and could tell the light was flickering - clearly from a flame. Before I could call out, I noticed that the voices had stopped momentarily. They were no longer talking; instead they were chanting, I kid you not. Like, weird, Latin-sounding Gregorian-monk-style crap. Only these were no monks. They were college-aged students, from the little I could see. Men and women much younger than myself. More than that I couldn't tell in the dark.
I turned around, not wanting to interrupt whatever the hell was going on (chanting in the woods at night freaks me out, I discovered), but I tripped in the darkness and made an audible shout as I skinned my knee.
The chanting immediately stopped.
Look, I don't know how they moved so fast, but some of the weird monk-dudes grabbed me before I was all the way back on my feet, and dragged me into the light. It wasn't a campfire, turns out. It was candles.
They were all dressed in black pants and shirts -- no cloaks and hoods, thankfully -- and they looked more than a little pissed. I said the first thing that came to mind.
"Sorry I'm late!"
That seemed to surprise them. One of the dudes actually let go of me; a pimply-faced girl across from us looked suddenly relieved.
"Who are you?!" the guy still holding me said.
"I'm new," I said. "I couldn't get here any earlier, I work on Saturdays--"
"Who are you!" the guy barked again. He was about my size, but younger and more spry than I am. I didn't think I could run away in the darkness and get very far.
"I don't think we should use our real names," I said, stalling. Honestly, I didn't know what these kids were up to, but I didn't want to die in the woods. I have many more Oreos left to eat in this life.
"He's right," the pimply girl said. "Sounds like he's legit."
"What's your chatroom username, then?" asked Doubting Thomas, still holding me tight.
"R. S. T." I answered. My actual initials. "What's yours?"
"Skullfrenzy," he said.
I stuck out my free hand. "Good to meet you."
It. Actually. Worked. He actually shook my hand. Then he apologized. Look, maybe there was an RST in their chatroom, maybe not, but somehow I'd bluffed my way into a cult, and if that meant I'd get to eat Oreos again, fine, sign me up and teach me to chant.
I'll tell you, that was a weird night. I extemporized some harmonies with the weird chant, and they seemed okay with the fact that I wasn't actually singing the words. There was some dancing in a circle around the candles, a wolf-howling thing, a small animal sacrifice (squirrel? chipmunk? Who knows), and then some run-of-the-mill magic incantations.
And that's my problem. They cast a spell on me. To track me.
Turns out, if I understood them correctly, that I need to log in as "rst" within a week, or they're going to hunt me down and make me the next sacrifice. The spell lets them sense which direction to go to find me. Great. So, one problem.
I still don't know which site I'm supposed to log in to.
So I'm joining every site. Steem is one of many I've signed up for today. Hopefully one of these will be the right site, and I can contact Skullfrenzy and say "Hey, sup dawg, way to gut that rodent" and they won't come looking for me.
In the meantime, I'm eating Oreos like each one is my last. And Skullfrenzy, if you're reading this, I'm just kidding, I'm totally part of the cult, and this is just a funny story. Ha ha.