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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/OriontheGuyMan on 2026-05-25 05:28:00+00:00.

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Every detail of the day I lost her has been on replay in my mind since the second I walked onto the back porch and saw that she wasn’t there. It was a warm summer. We lived in a small town, the only notable feature being a government run pharmaceutical plant on the edge of town bordering the woods. The forests were vast, very easy to get lost in. Our house was situated right on the edge of the woods. The property line of our back yard ended under the shade of trees.

My daughter, Sarah, was on the swing in the backyard. Her mother had passed away the year prior, and let me say that raising a nine year old girl by yourself is not easy, but she was my everything.

“Look how high I’m getting!” she shouted as she came close to clearing the bar, making me more than a little nervous.

“Be careful, sweetie,” I replied. The single person swing set, which I had installed myself to the best of my abilities, creaked and swayed. Seeing the writing on the wall, I dashed forward. It fell. Sarah scraped her knee on the dirt.

I rushed next to her, expecting tears. She had surprised me. She looked up, pain under her smile. “Did you see how high I got?”

“Yeah...” I said, unsure of what else to say. “Yeah I did. When I get this fixed, maybe try not going as high.” I laughed and pat her head. “Stay put. I’m going to grab some bandages and some antibiotic.”

“Okay,” she said in that sweet little voice of hers. I walked into our house from the wood steps of the back porch and turned into the bathroom. I opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed some large bandages and antibiotic cream.

I walked back onto the porch, my eyes fixed on the spot she fell. She wasn’t there.

“Sarah?” I called out. I held my breathe. I went down the wood steps, each footstep echoing in my ear. “Hey, kiddo! This isn’t funny! Come out!” My voice echoed.

I walked towards the fallen swing. “Sarah!” I yelled as my walk transitioned into panicked running. I screamed her name, over and over until it hurt. I called the police, probably sounding damn near incoherent.

A search party was formed that night. The town sheriff brought dogs with him to try and catch her sent. I was with a group heading down the center of the woods. It was the only place ahe could have gone. No one had seen her anywhere in town. Sherif Perkins was with me. He was about ten years my senior, grey hairs just forming on his head.

“We’ll find her, John,” he kept telling me and patting my shoulder. It did little to ease my fears. A couple of his deputies led the search parties on our flanks, spaced out enough to be out of view.

Branches crunched underfoot as we walked through the forest. We must have been a good mile or two in when I heard one of the dogs barking from the group on our left. It was barely audible, nearly swallowed by the vastness of the forest. Not thinking, I ran in the direction of the sound. If it was my daughter, I wanted to know, and I wanted to know now.

The barking cut off abruptly. I swore I heard someone scream. I broke through a set of bushes and saw the dog next to an old birch. It was missing its front half. The leash lay on the ground next to it, torn towards where it attached to the collar. My eyes followed the leash to its holder. What remained of the deputy holding the leash wasn’t much. His head and half his torso were missing, up to his chest. Blood soaked the dirt around the old birch. I stared, dumbfounded. I heard the rustle of branches to my left and whipped my head around, nearly stumbling. I saw the rest of the group that must have been accompanying the deputy. They stared in horror at the bodies and then back at me. One of them, a woman in her sixties who we all referred to as Ms. Erika was the first to speak. “What happened? Was it a bear?”

I had no words. I looked back at the bodies. The way the deputy’s torso looked reminded me of how my daughter used to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I had found the thought ridiculous at the time.

They called off the search after that. I never accepted it. I packed a rucksack and a tent. I also took my old shotgun, a family heirloom. I was going to have my own search for her.

I started my journey at five in the morning on a Tuesday. No rhyme or reason to it. I stepped out into the backyard and stopped at the edge of the woods. I turned to look at the house one last time. “I’m not coming back until I have her,” I said to myself.

I stepped through the tree line, carefully stepping over branches as I trekked deeper and deeper into the woods. Around noon, I had reached a creek and situated myself next to an oak. I had brought cans of food, enough to last a month if accompanied with some foraging. My legs ached, but I didn’t plan on staying long. I popped open a can of spam and took a fork out the rucksack. I ate straight out the can. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Each can was small enough to fit a good bit of into the rucksack.

As I sat against the oak my eyes fell on the creek, watching the water carry a twig away. My mind searched through possibilities. She could have followed the creek. I thought. She’s a smart kid.

The other matter is trying to find out why she had entered the forest. She wasn’t the type to run off. Our property was so far from the road that it was unlikely anyone kidnapped her, unless they were living in the woods, which was just as unlikely.

As my frustration grew at the hopelessness of my situation, a thin reddish brown object floated down the creek towards me. I had been so lost in thought that I nearly missed it. I reached down, my fingers dipping into the cool water, and grabbed hold of it. It was tough woven cloth. I held it up to examine it. It was a dog collar, belonging to the dead deputy’s dog.

Bear attack always seemed unlikely to me. The biggest they got around here were black bears. I’d never heard of a black bear doing that to a man. There was no mauling, no scratching, just one or two clean bites.

My mind tried to deny the possibility, but the thought had become present in my head since I discovered those bodies. Whatever it was that did that to the deputy could have done that to Sarah.

I made a determination then to hunt the thing and cut it open. Only then could I be sure. I swallowed the horror of that realization, determining to unpack emotions when it laid dead and open in front of me. The worst news would still be better than not knowing.

My boots squished into the mud as I followed the creek. Any animal would need to stop for water eventually, and whatever it was must have held onto the collar and dropped it somewhere up ahead.

About a mile up stream, towards a bend that crossed under a fallen tree, I tripped on a branch. I fell down, catching myself with my hands as my palms slid across the smooth stones that lined the creek bed. My shirt and pants soaked in water. I felt it flow down my boots, soaking my socks.

I picked myself up and dusted the mud off as best as I could. The water didn’t feel terrible in the summer heat, but night would not be kind to me. I sighed and stepped out the creak. It was going to be dark in a few hours anyway. I set my rucksack down in a small clearing where I would set camp and make fire. I walked past a maple tree to grab some fallen branches.

As I picked up a nice thin branch covered in small twigs, good for getting a fire going, I nearly missed the swinging shadow at my feet. I looked up.

It was a swing. The ropes were dried deer intestines, and the seat was a ribcage, probably dear bones. It was absurdly large. It’s mocking me, I thought, not really sure what it was.

I held the terror down, suppressing any images of what it could be in the woods that took her, which I was certain at this point was what happened. It had to have been the same thing that killed the deputy.

The macabre swing rocked back and forth, sun glistening off the shiny pink ropes. Behind me a stick crunched. I dove into a bush laying next to the maple tree.

Light was dim coming through the brush, and a sharp point in one of the branches poked uncomfortably at my arm and neck. I peered through the leaves, one hand on the shotgun still slung around my shoulder.

Up a hill and around the maple tree a figure came into view. I had been expecting a monstrosity, something otherworldly. Instead, it was a man. He was dressed in black military gear, a mask covered his face. In his hands was an AR style rifle.

Behind him emerged another armed man in the same attire. He was holding my rucksack. “No sign of the civilian,” the first armed man said, “but I’d say that’s pretty clear evidence that she’s nearby.” He was looking in the direction of the gorey swing.

“It,” the second one corrected him. “Don’t humanize it. That’ll only make things harder.”

My body ached from the position I had to lay in, but I dared not move. The two men walked down the tiny slope next to the tree and towards the swing. As they passed the bush I hid in, something else came into view. A hand, maybe two feet long and a foot wide, rested on the ground next to the bush. The fingernails were blackened, overgrown, thick, and chipped. The skin was grey and torn, wrapped tightly over the muscle, bone, and cartilage beneath.

I held back a scream. I don’t know what I imagined I’d find after seeing that cruel mockery of a swing set. The type of creature that could leave something like that was beyond my knowledge. But in that moment, as I sh...

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