Before you read this, I must warn you. This is no fairy tale for children, with a happy-go-lucky ending. I won't break it to you lightly or add anything to make it more readable. This story is not for the squeamish or weak-hearted. If you get scared of campfire stories, amusement park rides, or horror movies, stop reading NOW for this story is much worse. If you’re still here, brace yourself for the cold hard truth about how I, 14-year-old Mason Christopher, survived the worst.


It was a Friday afternoon in the month of August and the sun was shining high in the heavens. It was a moderately cloudy day, just enough to provide the momentary cool shade of a cloud every now and then. It was an all-around beautiful day, or it would’ve been if I hadn’t been crammed in a car with my mom, my dad, my little brother and a ton of climbing and camping gear.
Everyone was sweaty and trying to find a way to cool off, windows down, AC cranked to the max, and everybody panting like dogs. That is except for my little brother, Eli. He was much worse. The little guy was eight and a half years old and he had been whining the whole trip! It was unbearable. Though all I could do was wait and hope that we would soon get to the Andes mountain range where I could get away from the stench of body odor and into the fresh air, but we still had quite a ways to go.
You may be wondering exactly what we were doing, heading to the Andes with my eight-year-old brother. My family had always been kind of extremists and we loved to do different sports. Though, my favorite thing out of all was rock climbing. I had gone on my first real rock climbing trip with my dad when I was seven. We didn’t climb very high but I was instantly in love with the adrenalin rush, and now, the view. Oh, my gosh, the views are the most amazing. Just looking out across the land and seeing the landscape laid out for miles is one of the best thrills you can get. Anyways, we thought it about time we introduced my brother to this great sport and see if he enjoyed it.
So when my dad suggested that we take a trip to the Andes, we thought it would be great. We had checked the weather forecast and done all of the research and this seemed like the perfect place and time to go. We hopped on a plane and flew to Argentina and then drove the rest of the way. Only later would we regret ever getting on that plane.

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The first thing I did was burst out of the confining car and walk to the edge of the railing lining the cliff that we were camping next too, to take in the view. Laid out in front of me was a valley filled with grass, with some trees skirting the edges and a river flowing through the middle of it all. Surrounding this were hills leading up to the base of the soaring mountain that we were now on. I turned around and looked up to the snowy peaks, hoping that someday I would be able to climb that high.
Seeing as my dad and I had been camping more than anybody else in the family, we decided to set up the tents, while my brother assisted my mom in unpacking the rest of our gear. It took us about an hour to get unpacked. When we were done, it was only 4:30 P.M, so I decided to leave camp and go for a hike a little ways up the mountain. “Hey,” my father called out, “Mason, be back by six! And wait do you have your phone?”
“Yup” I answered half-heartedly as I explored further up the trail. Walking up the rough dirt lane, I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I was really going to do, just that I wanted to enjoy the fresh mountain breeze and the great feeling of using my muscles after that terrible car ride.
Not even twenty minutes later, I encountered a fork in the path - well, not exactly a fork. The path continued in an obvious direction, but there was a sort of clearing off to my right with trees, shrubs, tall grass, and other things of that nature. Looking at both of my options, I saw that, as the path continued, it ran across the very edge of the mountain, which sounded pretty exciting to me, but my second option veered away from the cliff and into the mountain and looked very intriguing and fun to explore. After observing both paths, I noticed that to my right there were some animal trails, deer, rabbit, etc. My curiosity getting the better of me, I had to explore the animal trodden grass.
I slowly began to regret choosing these trails over the amazing view. Behind that tall, soothing grass were plants covered in burrs and numerous thorn bushels. Though being the determined person that I am, I felt I had to keep following these trails in hope of finding something worth my time. Soon, my clothes were coated in patches of spiky brown balls and I had numerous scratches but, thankfully, there was no blood, though the rest was still good enough reason for me to head back. I had just turned around when I heard a stick crack beneath my foot - no, not under my foot. It had come from somewhere off to my left. I froze so I wouldn’t scare whatever it was off. Slowly, I rotated my head and saw a tall dark figure looming in the shadows of some trees. I thought it could be a bear, so I slowly approached the tree line to get a better view of the creature, but on my way I tripped and fell face down on the ground.
When I looked up, to my surprise, the figure was still in my view! It had only turned and moved slightly, probably in reaction to my fall. I got on my hands and knees and started army crawling through the grass, always keeping in mind that I couldn't get too close because bears could be aggressive, especially if this was a mamma bear protecting her cubs.
As I approached, the image became clearer and I discovered it was only trees and wildlife mangled together. I got up and ran inside the tree line to examine this spectacle. I was in complete disbelief. The figure had looked so lifelike and I could’ve sworn I saw some movement. Then a gust of wind blew through the trees and the entanglement swayed to and fro, leading me to conclude that it must have been the wind that made the figure move.
I took out my cellphone to check the time and it was only 5:30, so I decided to find a nice tree some ways into the woods to sit against and relax. Walking along, I encountered one with a perfect groove to fit my back. There I sat with the branches keeping the sun’s waves off of me and the air warm with the scent of nature.
Surrounded by all this I sat for a long while before my legs started to cramp and I needed to get up and stretch. Being bored of sitting, I slowly began to wander, until I stumbled upon a cave. The entrance was rounded off for the most part, and it was about 10 feet high. As I searched deeper into the cave with my eyes, I found that this opening soon became a large cavern that you could easily fit a one story house into. I thought about going inside but I didn’t have a flashlight and it was getting dark – WAIT! It’s getting dark! The thought suddenly sprung into my head that I was supposed to be back by six, and now, looking at the daylight that was left, I frantically took out my cell and checked the time. 6:30?! Oh no, I thought to myself. It took at least half an hour to get here. So at that moment I turned and sprinted towards the edge of the forest but I tripped on something. Because of my hurry, I didn’t dare look back, but if I had, it might have saved me for I would have seen that a freshly broken log was what had made me fall.

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A look of relief passed over my mother’s face when my father and I came walking down the path that led to our camp.
“Where have you been?” she exclaimed. “I was so worried about you.” See, when I came running out of that outcropping and onto the path I ran right into my father, who had come out to look for me. After an explanation of what I was doing and where I had been, we had hurried back to camp.
Following a quick reunion with my mother, we all relaxed and started a toasty campfire to sit by as night approached. No sooner did my brother run out of my parent’s tent carrying marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate chanting, “Smores, smores, smores!” We chowed down on gooey marshmallowy goodness until it was time to get some sleep, at which my brother and I crawled into our tent and we both nuzzled into our sleeping bags and fell asleep.
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I awoke to the crashing of thunder and the thudding of rain against my tent. With sleep still in my eyes, I peeked out of the zipper door and looked toward the sky, hoping that this storm wouldn’t be so bad that we would have to postpone our climb.
Rain poured onto my face as I watched bolts of lightning tear across the sky and I took in the fact that this could potentially make the mountain unstable and not just postpone, but cancel our climb. I started to recede back into my tent, for I was already starting to get soaked when, despite my lack of sleep, the realization hit me that our car wasn’t where we had parked it. I darted out into the rain and frantically searched the surrounding area in search of our jeep. My jaw dropped as I saw it being edged toward the cliff by the wind.

“MOM, DAD,” I screamed as I ran towards their tent, “the car!” My parents ran out just in time to see the Jeep teetering on the edge. We all sprinted towards it in an effort to stop it from falling, but with a flash of lighting, it fell off the edge.

“No!” my parents called out in unison. Only I was silent, for I was searching the darkness for a shadow that had appeared in the corner of my eye when the lightning flashed.

I ran towards the edge, where I presumed the shadow had been. At the spot I had seen the shadow I found, what I thought to be, freshly made human tracks - though
I now realize they weren't human, but I couldn’t have told at that time, in the darkness with much more on my mind than what had made these tracks. Someone had driven our car off the cliff!
This couldn’t get any worse, I thought to myself, but I spoke too soon. Suddenly, the wind picked up and our tents were uprooted from their posts and carried off the cliff as well. My brother, just waking up, started screaming and crying. My father cursed. “What are we going to do?” he howled over the wind.
Instantly the cave came into my mind. “I know a place. Just pack up our gear.” We hurriedly grabbed everything we could carry and headed towards the cave, with myself leading.
By the time we got to the entrance we were soaked to the bone and being in a freezing, dark cave didn’t help our situation at all. We all sat there huddled together when my dad got up and walked out of the cave.

“Where are you going?” my mom called after him.
“I am not going to freeze to death in that cave,” he replied and off he went in search of some somewhat dry firewood. Meanwhile, the rest of us changed out of our wet clothes and found some rocks to drape them over. We then curled up inside our sleeping bags in an attempt to warm ourselves.
I laid there thinking about how this could have happened. We had checked the weather and it had said it would be sunny the whole weekend. I mean, I guess there were times when they were wrong but by so much as this? I thought we were just lucky that this cave was here to provide us with some form of shelter.
My mind soon began wandering and exploring different subjects, such as who would have been in the Andes in the same spot as us, why would they sabotage our car, and what we would do in the morning when I began to think about that figure in the trees and the shadow from the lightning. Though it was very tall it almost looked like the sha-.... I couldn’t even finish the thought before my dad came in with two arm loads of firewood and asked me to get the torch. So, reluctantly, I got out of my sleeping bag and ran across the cold rock floor to rummage through our bags for our blowtorch. I pulled it out of the side pocket of one of our duffel bags and ran it over to my father before scuttling back to my sleeping bag. In a small amount of time there was a medium-sized fire in the center of the cavern, so I scooted myself towards it and fell asleep beside the warmth as my father went outside to collect more firewood for the night.


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I was again awoken by an unpleasant noise but this time it wasn’t as sudden. It was a slowly building rumble. I looked towards the entrance to the cave and saw that it was still pouring. I was just stretching from my sleep on the hard floor when I heard a great boom and all of the light in the cavern disappeared. The rumbling had stopped too. Getting out my phone for light, I searched around for the torch and found it next to the fire. I then turned it on and found some wood to burn. Once the cavern had light going through it, I saw that my parents had woken up and that the entrance was sealed off by earth! the rain had definitely loosened the ground, so much that it caused a landslide and had now sealed off our only way out!

“Dad....” I said in a nervous tone, “how are we going to get back to camp?”

“It will be okay,” he reassured us. “We can call for help.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” I repeated to calm my nerves. “We will get...” and at that moment I realized there had been no crying that usually went along with a scary occurrence. “Where is Eli?!” I asked my parents, who both were observing the wall of dirt/mud. A look of fright appeared on both of their faces as they comprehended that the wall wasn’t their only problem.

“Eli,” we all screamed into the darkness in hope of hearing a response, but there was none. I ran to our pile of gear and grabbed our flashlights and gave one to each of my parents, and kept one for myself. We searched for what seemed like numerous agonizing hours until I found something that made me stop dead in my tracks, a trace of blood. I shakily began to follow it in fear of what I might discover. As I walked further, the cave narrowed into more of a path and the droplets of blood became puddles. Then, it abruptly stopped.
I moved my flashlight beam further along the ground, looking for any other signs and
I did find one but it was not anything I had expected or wanted. There lying in the middle of the path was a severed human foot - not just any human foot... it was my brothers. I dropped the flashlight and ran crying towards my parents with that picture imprinted into my brain. A foot, just a foot, chopped off - no, not chopped off. It had been torn off. There had been ridges in the muscle, caked with blood and bits of flesh were hanging from the bone with half of the calf left hanging off the back. The bone was jagged too, as if it had been snapped off of his body and then just tossed aside like it was nothing.
I bawled and bawled into my mother’s arms as I thought about the terrible end my brother must have met, all the while both of my parents trying to figure out what was going on.
“He.... he’s....... gone,” I murmured through sobs.
“What do you mean?” my mom replied. “He’s not gone. We’ll find him.”
“I did...”
“Did what?”
“Find him.”
“Where honey?” I couldn’t respond, only point towards where I had found that gruesome sight. My mom and dad both went towards where I had pointed, flashlights in hand. A scream. Then there was sobbing, only sobbing for my brother that we would never see again.
“Whyyyyy?” my mother shouted into the darkness. I sat there alone, tears streaking down my face, on the cold, unforgiving cave floor. I got up and walked to my parents. We sat there weeping in sorrow for a long time before anyone said something.
“Tim,” my mother said to my father, “we have to call for help.”
“I tried,” he replied solemnly.
“And?”
“No signal.”
“How will we get out?”
“I don’t know.” I began to despair. All of the things that I would lose!- that we would lose. Friends, family, pets, our lives. We have to get out. I couldn’t leave all of that behind. Wait, I thought to myself, don’t most cave systems have more than one exit or entrance?
I told my dad and he agreed that it would be the only way. We began to look for a different route than the one that that thing had gone down. We searched every corner of the cavern and found nothing. We were almost out of hope for survival when my mother screamed at us, “Mason, Tim, come over here!” We ran to see what the problem was but discovered that there was no problem, but a solution. My mother had been going to collect our dry clothes when she discovered an opening in the cavern wall behind one of the rocks we hung our clothes on. It was only a few feet high but it was better than following the creature that had taken my brother. I got on my hands and knees to look inside and found that the tunnel continued at this height for quite a while.
Everyone agreed that this was our only option and we had to leave as soon as possible. We couldn’t take all of our things so we packed a backpack each with all of the essentials we thought we needed and we headed into the tunnel.
My father led with the flashlight. We thought keeping only one on at a time would make them last longer. My mother followed and I took up the rear. Each of us, except my father, for he had to see the path ahead, pushed our backpack in front of us as we inched our way along the ground. All of us were cold and cramped and we couldn’t wait to get out of this tiny tunnel but that wouldn’t happen any time soon.
We were in that tunnel for what felt like days. Though we did sleep, we couldn’t tell what time it was because our phones had ran out of battery and we had no other way of finding out.
Finally one morning, or what I thought was morning, as we were crawling along I heard a little rumbling.
“Everybody stop,” I commanded.
“What?” my mother questioned me.
“Shhhhh.” I listened. Wuuushhhhh. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah,” my father proclaimed, “sounds like.... like rushing water.” We all moved faster towards the sound with renewed hope of escape. When we emerged from the tunnel, there was a river running through the cave. Every one of us knelt beside it and took long drinks from the freshwater stream before stepping back to stretch and rest.
We all knew that this river could potentially lead us out of the mountain, but should we go upstream or down? Looking down both ways, we discussed which way would be most likely to lead us to safety. None of us really had any ideas or theories on where each side would lead until I remembered seeing a river flowing through the valley, yet it had no definite source. The source of the river must have been within this very mountain and this river before us must be the same one I had seen days before! I told my parents about my findings and they agreed that our best bet at survival would be to go in the direction of the river’s current.
The path along the water’s edge wasn’t small but it also wasn’t big enough for two people to safely walk side by side, so we walked in single file, in the same way we had made it through the tunnel. We traveled for a long ways before stopping to drink and eat what little food we had left. When we did so my feet were in so much pain that I could swear they had been broken, even though I knew that was impossible, but we had to keep going if we were to make it out of that mountain.
Not long after we stopped to rest, the current in the water began to pick up and become increasingly loud. I asked my parents if I could move to the front to see why this was happening and they were okay with it so I ran past them and turned on my own flashlight. I tried to stay near the group, because I didn’t want to be in the dark alone, but I also really wanted to see what was the cause of the waters recent behavior. Slowly getting closer to the river, I observed the currents to see if there were any signs as to what might be happening but as I was doing so, the floor dropped from under me and I plummeted down a cliff, along with the river.
Time slowed down as I hopelessly clawed for something to grab onto but the wall was slick with water. I thought I was going to die, when my shirt got caught on something and I was dangling above the darkness. I reached up to find what had saved me and.... it was the arm of my father! He had jumped down to save me while my mother held his legs! I made it back up and hugged them both so hard that I thought they might have lost their breath but I was too filled with glee to care.
Now there was the problem of dealing with the waterfall. We couldn’t tell how far the fall was or if there was any safe way to get down. We had some climbing gear but that would be no use if there was nothing to climb too. Then my father got an idea..
“Everyone turn off your flashlights,” he told us.
“Why?” my mother questioned him.
“Just do it.” Darkness filled the room and we were left with only the sound of falling water. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to do especially in this blackness. Then there was a faint glow. Though it wasn’t just a glow, it was in the shape of a half circle..... a tunnel!
I exclaimed, “Yes!”
My father smiled, “There is still hope for us yet.”
We all celebrated until we thought about how we would get over. The only way would be to throw a grappling hook over and hope it caught on. We unpacked our climbing gear and my dad started to try the grappling hook. His first few throws missed completely but he finally made one land in the tunnel. He pulled but it ripped out of place and fell into the darkness. He threw it again and hit his target once more. Before he tugged again, I saw him say a prayer. He pulled. Snap went the rope as it was pulled taught. It had caught on! We all cried out in delight.
My father went across first, to test the line, then me and finally my mother started to go. We, my dad and I, had both gotten across just fine but when my mother hooked onto the line to get across it all went wrong. She started off just fine, but then the line started to shake uneasily. The line went slack and my mom fell into the darkness below. I screamed into the darkness until I was out of breath and my vision went red. Psychotically, I clawed at the darkness, wanting my mother back, and cursed everything. I pulled the line hoping that maybe she had hung on but only a frayed rope came up. I mean who could hang on after a fall like that, but despite my hysteria, I did notice something peculiar about the rope. It didn’t look like it had snapped from the weight. There were scratches and indentations along the end and only one deep scratch had broken. It looked as if it had been clawed. I began to go ballistic at the new knowledge that something had purposely killed my mother. I ran to the edge and roared in anger and began to punch at the darkness. My father ran at me and pulled me back. He cradled me in his arms. My father and I sat there and wept for a long time until we realized we had to move on.
We made bad time down the tunnel, seeing as how we just lost... someone, and we made camp somewhere not extremely deep into it.
I had trouble falling asleep. I kept thinking about who would have been in the cave and who would have cut the line. How, just how, could I lose two of my family members? I don't remember much after that but I think I cried myself to sleep.
The next day we grabbed our backpacks and tried to get as far down the tunnel and away from those bad memories as we could, but it’s hard to run from what’s forever imprinted in your mind. As we came to the end of this tunnel, we discovered this rancid smell, like rotting flesh, and that’s exactly what it was. Right there in front of us was a cavern filled with human bones. Some still had flesh hanging off them. Though the most horrifying sight was a small child’s leg. It had a shoe next to it. A match.... to my little brother’s.
“Dad,” I warned, “we have to get out of here, now.” We both ran through the cavern as fast as we could, which didn’t turn out well. My father tripped and was impaled through the calf muscle with a jagged, human rib. He cried out in pain as blood flowed out of his wound. The sight of it made me sick to my stomach. It was like seeing a broken limb sticking out of your skin in a way so that his skin stretched up around the bone as if it hadn’t made it all the way through, but it had. You could see the torn tissue and the snapped bone. All of this at the same time and then there was the fact that the bone was not my father’s. “Dad,” I whimpered, ”Dad, you have to get up. I can’t lose you too.”
“Hey, hey,” he said between cringes of pain, ”it will be okay. You saw the glow. The exit has to be close. Get out and get help.”
“No, Dad, I can’t...”
“You have to... Now go.”
“No, Dad, no”
“Mason.... you need to go. Just promise me, promise me that you will get out alive.”
“I will, Dad. I will.” Crying, I reluctantly left the cavern and found myself in a tall, wide tunnel. I had to constantly fight the urge to go back, but then there was a growl, a scream and silence. I dropped everything, except my flashlight, and turned around to ran back, screaming, “Dad!” Re-entering the cavern I flashed my light to where my dad had been laying but he was gone and there standing in his place was a monstrous sight.
It was a creature with the build of a troll on steroids, but it had the appearance of a wolf, though not a normal wolf. It had to be at least nine feet tall and it stood on two legs. It’s muscles bulged off its body, and it had thin hair and it reeked like something that had died. On further examination I realised why. It wasn’t just missing fur, but parts of it’s own dead flesh were hanging from its body and where they used to be were gouges taken from the creatures limbs, sometimes even scraped down to the bone. The little skin that was left had patches of fur throughout. The beast had hands the size of baseball mitts and claws the size of bananas that could rip anyone in half with one sweep and it had two sets of spiked teeth coated with foam.
I couldn’t understand how the beast was still animate but that was the least of my thoughts, for I felt that I could recognize the beast and then I saw the shadow. It was cast across the cavern wall and instantly I knew it had been the same thing that I had seen in the clearing. The same thing that had destroyed our car. The same thing that had taken my brother. The same thing that had sabotaged my mother. The same thing that had killed my father.
I was so filled with rage but I knew I could never fight this thing so I ran with renewed energy from both anger and fear. I could tell that it was gaining on me but I never looked back, I just pushed myself harder to get away. Then there was a light. In front of me, after all this time there was a light, but there was the creature. I ran and I ran with hope, not knowing what for, towards that light. Then I was blind. So much sunlight after all this time almost made me collapse in pain, but I needed to put distance between myself and the cave. I finally decided to look back and what I saw made me stop dead in my tracks. The beast wasn’t following me! It had receded into its cave.
I felt so grateful and excited until I realized I was still on the mountain. I found a path and wandered into the night until I found a farm. Dehydrated and starving I walked as close as I could to their house, groaned, and collapsed. Without realizing it, I had blacked out.

I only remember snippets of what happened. I was on a helicopter, but I couldn’t move. Black. I was in a hospital being pushed around. Black. When I finally came to, I was sore all over and when I examined myself, I realized I had stitches, bruises, IV’s and more. I was so much skinnier too. I guess my adrenaline had been the only reason I was still alive. There was a nurse next to me. “How long have I been here?” I asked.
“A few days,” Wow, I thought I must have been pretty bad.
“Did you find my family?”
The nurse pursed her lips, “The doctor will want to see you now that you're up,” and with that she left the room. The doctor came and check my bodily functions to make sure I wasn’t permanently damaged, I wasn’t, and he said I would make a full recovery.
A few days later these men showed up to ask me about my experience and I told them what I have just told you. They didn’t believe me. I argued with them but it was no use. They thought it was a crazy hallucination caused by malnutrition. Soon after their questioning, they left. I was treated differently in the hospital from then on. They took greater sympathy on me and treated me like I was stupid. Only later, when I got out of the hospital, did I understand why.
When I was let out, I was so excited to get home but they tried to put me in this van and told me I was going to get help. “I don’t need help!” I protested but that made things worse. They put me in a straight jacket and loaded me in. When I finally got out of the van, I found myself being led to an insane asylum! I struggled but there was nothing I could do. Ten years later, I “got over” the incident and they let me out.
Though I never forgot what happened over those days in the mountains. I am telling you this now because people need to hear my story. You may call me crazy but this is the truth of what happened in those mountains. If you brush this off as fiction, that’s fine but I pray you never have to live through what I did and if you do, may God be with you as he was with me.