The Haunting of Green Mist Cave

Four kilometers from my family home lies a cavern shrouded in perpetual twilight, nestled deep within the mist-cloaked slopes of Green Mist Mountain. Locals speak of it in whispers, claiming the wind carries the cries of a hundred lost souls. That autumn, I returned with my boyfriend Chen Ye and his friends Nan, Ding Chun—four city dwellers far too curious for our own good. Over dinner, I mentioned the cursed cave: legend said a merchant caravan vanished there a century ago, and the sole survivor who staggered out with a gilded chest gouged out his own eyes three days later, staring at his reflection in a bronze mirror.

Excitement flickered in their eyes. At ten o’clock that night, we hiked into the mountain with flashlights, our boots crunching through decaying leaves. The air smelled of damp earth and something sickly sweet, like rotting fruit. A barn owl screeched overhead, mimicking a baby’s wail, and a flock of crows burst from the trees. When Chen Ye’s flashlight swept across the rock face, I saw it clearly: a half-mummified human finger embedded in the crevice, its nail caked with dark, dried mud.

The entrance was hidden beneath waist-high wild artemisia, their fronds trembling as Chen Ye pushed them aside. All breath caught in our throats—vines writhed like living things, their crimson berries oozing thick, sticky sap that glimmered like fresh blood in the beam. I touched the cave wall; its rough surface hid a slimy texture. By flashlight, I saw it was etched with hundreds of twisted faces, each groove filled with dried black paste that reeked of rancid oil—a smell that clung to the back of my throat.

“Freezing in here,” Ding Chun joked, rubbing his arms. But this wasn’t mountain chill; it was a bone-deep cold, as if someone breathed down my neck. Three meters in, a drop of water fell on my hand—warm. Looking down, the puddle at my feet reflected five shadows… but behind Chen Ye, a sixth, fainter outline lingered.

The path dead-ended abruptly. I ran my hand along the damp stone, feeling a hair-thin crack. The air seeping through smelled of iron, making my temples throb. “The wall… it’s movable.” My voice shook as we braced against it. Stone groaned like a dying beast, dust raining down to reveal a pitch-black corridor beyond.

Phone lights cut pale swaths through the dark. Nan, leading the way, suddenly stopped. His shadow stretched eerily against the cave wall, his head turning at an unnatural angle toward us. “Cut it out, Nan,” Chen Ye laughed, clapping his shoulder—then recoiled. “Why’s your shirt soaked?” Nan faced us slowly, water droplets clinging to his pallid face, though we’d entered the cave with dry clothes.

“Now that you’re here,” he said, his breath frosting in the sudden cold, “one of you must stay with me.” Ding Chun opened his mouth to curse, but I saw it: a ring of dark purple finger marks blooming beneath Nan’s Adam’s apple, as if an invisible hand squeezed his throat. Worse, the smirk on his lips mirrored the stone-carved grins we’d seen at the entrance identical.

The wooden crate waited around the corner, its surface crawling with centipede as thick as my wrist, their pincers clicking in unison. Chen Ye pried the lid open with his hiking pole, and a wave of rotting flesh hit us—not bones, but a half-decayed corpse, its eye sockets hollowed by rats. And then it laughed: a hollow, gurgling ound that echoed off the walls. Ding Chun’s flashlight dropped, revealing a silver bracelet on the corpse’s wrist, etched with the same twisted faces from the cave entrance—slowly rotating.

“It’s the treasure hunter…” I remembered the village elder’s warning: *Those who take the relics are possessed by the cave’s spirit. Before I could finish, the ceiling rumbled like thunder. “Run!” Ding Chun shouted, yanking me forward. Rocks pummeled my back as Chen Ye’s light showed the exit shrinking, the stone lips of the cave closing like a predator’s jaws.

Nan’s scream split the air. When I looked back, he was being swallowed by a collapsing wall of stone. In his final moment, his terror wasn’t real—his smile was serene, almost triumphant, as if fulfilling a pact. A falling boulder struck my temple, and as I blacked out, I saw the darkness at the corridor’s end flicker to life: countless pinpricks of light, like eyes opening from the stone carvings.

We staggered home at 3 a.m. My father’s teacup shattered when we finished our story. “You didn’t enter Green Mist Cave,” he whispered, pointing to an old photo on the wall. It showed a 1990s mountain rescue scene, five bodies buried in rubble—one clutching a broken silver bracelet etched with familiar faces. “The cave chooses a new guardian every thirty years. That rumble you heard wasn’t a collapse… it was the stone door sealing shut. And Nan…” His voice trembled. “He never came out with you, did he?”

I remembered the puddle reflection: five shadows, but only four sets of feet touching the ground.