“Nice one, we will verify that story by checking if the old church exist”

“Now my turn”

________________

This took place about 10 years ago when I was a freshman in college. This is the first time I've recounted this story, in full detail, to anyone.

I attended college in a rural, mountain area in the NorthEast. A small school tucked away in the rolling hills of the mountains. The type of place where the beauty and casual grace of nature is juxtaposed by the ugliness of humanity. The newspaper was ultraconservative & you couldn't sojourn too deeply into the woods beyond a few trees without seeing some trace of meth activity.

You know the type of place I mean.

ANYWAY, one of my new friends from college discovered somehow an abandoned train trestle deep in the woods about 5 miles from campus (in no man's land, basically.) I don't remember how he found this place, because it was very much off the beaten path. 

The trestle crossed above a river which placidly flowed about 40 ft below. It was actually quite beautiful and we began going there maybe 3 times a week just chilling on the trestle, watching the water below and the open sky above. 

We'd drink forty's there, smoke a bowl there, bring girls there. We began jumping off the trestle into the water below & then climbing back up. 

It was just a very college-y thing to do. Our chill spot basically.

So one day, just needing to get away from the dorms & away from it all, I decided to go by myself to the trestle for a swim.

It was about 7pm so I still had a good hour or so of dim sunlight and I brought a flashlight for the walk home when it was sure to be dark. 

I made the trek through the pathways of the woods as I had done a hundred times before left my towel and flashlight on the trestle and jumped into the water.

The water was about 10 to 15 feet deep, I'd say. It flowed almost imperceptibly-you might as well be swimming in a stagnant pool. However, about maybe 50 yards away from the trestle, the river narrows and the current picks up significantly, then about 20 yards after that

there is a maybe 20 foot high waterfall that bubbles and splashes with extreme violence.

We used to watch large objects go over and never come up again.

So there I am, dimly bobbing my head in & out of the water. Doing underwater flips, etc.

When I pop my head out of the water, I happen to glance to the side of the river and see a man walking towards the water. The water is kind of impeding my view so I don't see him fluidly walking towards the water. I see him in different stages of being closer to the water. Like flipping through a flip book. He is 15 ft away, 10 ft away, 5 feet away.

I can barely give you a description: maybe 6ft tall, pale, skinny, black hair pulled back in a ponytail. What I DO remember most about his appearance was the extremely empty look on his face and in his eyes. Like he was doing something mundane: taking out the trash, or raking leaves. 

I'm treading water, not knowing what to think, and I see that he is no longer beside the river, he has dove in. and is swimming pin-straight directly at me SO FAST. SO FAST. I try to swim the opposite way but within a minute

I feel him grab my ankle and tug. I tried to scream but water filled my mouth. 

While I'm under water he lets go and goes up for air, then grabs back on and pulls me again.

It seems like he's done this before and I never once saw him after he jumped in the water. He's gradually pulling me to where the current picks up before the waterfall.

I start to realize this and just fucking flipping out. Kicking, screaming, cursing-to no effect.

Finally, I feel the current start the take me, and as I twist away towards the waterfall, I look back and see this, this, fucking guy just casually swimming back to where he jumped in the water. Not even looking at me. 

This is by far the scariest moment of my life as I approach the waterfall. Long story short, I go over and am underwater for a long time, over a minute. The water above, unrelentingly pushing me under.

The only reason I survived was there was a large log that had gone over and I grabbed it and leveraged it against the bottom to push me away from the crushing water. I obviously survive. 

But then I had to trek the miles back to my dorm, in the dark, without my flashlight. Every step of the way thinking he would come back to finish the job. 

The next year, a football player drowned going over that fall. The news said it was because there was an extreme current due to recent rainfall but I've always wondered about that.