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There are times in our life that can define us. Tell us who we are. We go around thinking we know how the world works, and then these moments hit us like a freight train.

Suddenly we realize that we know nothing at all.

This is one of those instances. And it’s something that you won’t be prepared for, no matter how much you think you could be. I thought I was. I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong.

But maybe your experience will be different than mine? Maybe you can press your luck.

If so, listen closely. What follows may save your life, should you see the Wandering Campfire…

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It likes the dark. This fact has been confirmed by all eyewitnesses. Some say that it’s the shadows which attract the flickers of the blaze. Others claim the light of the embers comes first and the darkness follows. One thing is for certain: only at night will you see it.

Not an ordinary night of course, otherwise every Tom, Frank and Harry would see the damned thing. That would be making things easy… and that’s not how it works. It needs to be on the blackest night of the year, the kind of night where you can’t even see your hand in front of your face without a flashlight. You need to be stumbling. You need to be lost so it can be found.

A map won’t help you, but going deeper into the woods definitely will. In the forests it can stay hidden, it can trick you. This is its turf, and you’re just an intruder after all.

So find a place that makes you feel uneasy. Where there are no signs of life for miles. It may take some time, days perhaps. But then, if you’re taking this journey you know that what lies ahead isn’t meant for the faint of heart. Your time is already stolen from you the moment you start to look.

By then it’s already too late, once you have passed the last known memories of civilization. You’ll keep going of course, deeper into the forest to listen to nature, but you shouldn’t expect to come back.

Those that do come back are changed. One woman said she was enlightened. The universe suddenly turned upside down and yet it all made sense, she said. More than it ever had. The unknown is tangible, if but for a moment, but don’t expect it to suddenly be understood.

Expect only your world to be transformed as well.

I had already seen my fair share of bad luck before I went into the woods that day, having just come out of drug rehab but a week before. The accident had changed me. Rotted my insides and made me bitter. My wife, gone. No longer was I the stable rock she knew.

I needed purpose again.

Find the fire, my best friend Trudy told me. Trudy had been in and out of rehab several times before I showed up, so much so that the staff there called him a regular customer.

We bonded because we were broken, and I could see glimmers of myself in him. A man that lost everything, struggling to keep going for no reason at all. Trudy admitted that he had tried suicide several times, but the world kept pulling him back.

He was the one that told me about the wandering campfire, during a therapy session of all places. The interventionist had asked, was there anything in this world that could give him a reason to go on?

Trudy paused, thoughtful. Reflective. There was hurt in his eyes. Like he was trying to suppress an old wound and at the same time, someone was pouring salt into it.

I’ll never forget what he said.

Nobody has a reason to go on, not really. We tell ourselves we do and we keep suffering. Life is pain, I’ve accepted that. Death is a release, but it’s a give and take. You won’t get that freedom unless you give up everything. And that last bit of suffering… it can be hard to let it go. Because it’s final, it’s absolute. And that is terrifying…

Then he took a sip of water and I swear no one could hear a pin drop. He had more to say.

There’s a story I heard, he said looking at me with dead eyes, about a campfire that moves in the darkest forest on earth. It’s a legend, probably older than all of us combined but it’s one that has always stuck with me. This lonesome burning signal, beckoning anyone who dares to come find it. Offering something more freeing than death.

And what does it give? I can’t believe the the staff asked this, maybe they hoped that Trudy would break from the story and realize he was speaking gibberish. Or maybe they were genuinely intrigued. I think that’s the beauty of it. When you hear about something more exhilarating than life or death. Something unknown is the only force more powerful than that.

He said he didn’t know, he never had the guts to go look. Something told him that if he did… it would be beyond his comprehension to even explain. And that was more terrifying than anything he had ever experienced in life or in death.

After the session I pulled him aside. Asking more about the strange wandering fire. Something like that couldn’t be real? And if it was, what would make it so tantalizing to risk everything for?

Trudy smiled. He knew I was thinking of searching for it, once I was clean. The world is made of more than what’s real and what’s not. We both know that, he told me.

And then he admitted how he really knew about the campfire. He has seen it, in his near death experiences. A flickering blaze that was tugging at his soul.

“The fire could be the end. The end of everything. Or it could be the beginning. We don’t know,” he admitted.

And I still don’t, of course. Not even after what I have seen.

That night when I went, I brought with me supplies for three days. A bedroll, some water, some food, a hunting rifle to scare off wildlife. Nothing that would slow me down. Trudy had told me that once I found it, the chase would be on. The fire would draw me further away from reality and closer to the truth. The closest thing to the truth I would ever experience.

I kept my senses about me at first, I think that’s part of the way it draws you in. There was nothing about the woods that made me feel comfortable. It had been ages since I actually went for a hike of any kind, not since before my accident. The world hasn’t felt safe to even dare to explore. And I haven’t had the energy to consider going out. But the stories of the campfire made me have that desire again.

A reason to keep going. I’ve never been one to believe in ghosts… never even believed in god. So what made the campfire different?

It was the way people described their experiences. It felt authentic. It felt real.

I knew some of them were fake, those were easy enough to sift through. When you feel the leaves crunching under your feet and you don’t know where you are, and the stars and the sky start to all blend together… there is no faking that.

And that was what I was beginning to feel as the night got darker. The forest was closing in. The instructions told me to draw symbols on the forest floor. Not to help me find my home… but to help the campfire find me.

The first sign you will get is a smell. Most campfires have an earthy scent to them. Something that makes you feel connected to nature. A soothing aroma that makes you feel comfortable.

When you stand in the darkness and you etch those ancient runes in the dark, you aren’t inviting anything that could be remotely considered pleasant.

The smell will hit you the same way you feel when you have seen a dead body, animal or human, making you want to turn your head and vomit. I made the mistake of eating before I even left the roads, so as it wafted over me I began to hurl up my guts. Feeling dizzy and faint, I could hardly keep myself standing. The world was spinning and I felt that I was going to fall off.

This can last a few minutes or even a few hours but the important thing is to go toward the smell. That repugnant odor is the only evidence you have so far that will connect you to the beyond. It’s the first step to recognizing this reality you experience isn’t so easily understood.

As you keep moving, your first encounter with the campfire will be the most difficult. You’ll see a flicker of fire that is gently nudging itself in and out of the darkness. Between the trees it’s hardly visible at all, and you may tell yourself that your eyes are playing tricks on you. Because it will seem as though each time you look away, the campfire will move.

The key is to stay focused. No matter how much your eyes burn, or how difficult it will feel to walk.

Your legs will be heavy. Your hands might be numb.

But it will be a black hole drawing you toward it. The closer you get the faster it will come to you.

There will be something different for everyone at that first sighting. But there will always be a place to sit down. The fire will fill you with anxiety as you get close. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stick up as I stood there, facing it and realizing that the legends were all real.

Part of me wanted to turn and run away. How far would it take me to return to the real world? An hour? A day? Could I ever return at all?

The mesmerizing flames told me that it wouldn’t be possible. Instead I would need to wait and watch and see where the campfire took me.

My journey into the beyond was starting here.

You must offer the campfire something that you can’t afford to lose. That is a part of the ritual that never waivers. It can be anything that was a part of your life. Perhaps an important item given to you by a loved one. Something that you didn’t want to leave behind. A picture or a piece of jewelry. The instructions tell you that if the offering isn’t good enough, the campfire will simply diffuse and the forest will return. You only get one chance.

I didn’t want to risk losing this opportunity.

I took out the Swiss Army knife and held my hand near the log that was closest to the fire. The blade touched my ring finger and I closed my eyes, wondering if it would make any sense to even pray.

I pressed down as hard as I could, blood spilling out as flesh was torn away. The blade made a quick cut, it was final and couldn’t be taken back. The finger was severed from my body. At the same time I pressed my bleeding hand toward my jacket, trying to hold back a scream.

This was my offering and I knew the fire would realize it’s meaning, because attached to the flesh was my last memory of my wife. That golden ring that I vowed to keep no matter what. My last tangible connection to this world and my first big step to the world beyond.

The bleeding was still throbbing through my body as I picked up the raggedly piece of flesh and tossed it into the fire.

The inferno blazed up, clouding my vision as I covered my eyes instinctively.

Then the fire began to move. It had accepted the finger and was taking me somewhere else.

I had only but a moment to grab my things and rush through the woods toward it.

I wish I had hesitated. I wish I hadn’t taken this insane journey. But I knew there was no turning back, more so than ever before.

Past the point of no return, the wandering campfire was guiding me to the ultimate truth of existence. And I was dragged toward it like a fish with a hook in its mouth.

As you move forward, it will feel as though you have gone nowhere. Have you ever driven through a long dark tunnel? The kind that shows a glimmer of light but the walls blend together over and over as you go further down it?

This is what the forest will do to you. The trees will seemingly push themselves apart and then fall back into place as the campfire moves. At first it will be a gentle flow, the ground itself won’t move, or at least it won’t seem to. The closest way to describe it is walking on a treadmill. You go down that same path over and over, a carrot dangling in your face that tells you that you will reach the finish line. And yet each step you make toward the campfire, it’s a little further away.

Then the fire will start to feel further away. Again, nothing will change around you but as you begin to walk toward it, it may feel as though the forest is going in reverse. Except every part of you knows that you are going forward. Trying to reach for that inescapable feeling of purpose that it is tantalizingly offering to you. And then the forest will continue to fall away, the trees, the sky, the stars. Eventually nothing will be left except for the campfire itself. The darkness of the ground will make you think that you are falling. And you can’t stop it now. It’s rushing toward you again, and you feel that you are going to fall into the blaze.

Finally, you are exactly where this force of nature wants you. The fire is larger now, almost as if it’s encompassing the entire forest.

And then you will need to sit and wait. There is nothing to sit on of course, only darkness. You must close your eyes and trust that you don’t fall. The rest will happen automatically. You will feel that you are sitting in a cold hard chair, and the fire will flicker and invite you to touch it.

There won’t be any warmth. You will feel colder than you have ever felt in your entire life. This sense of dread will wash over you.

And you will feel that you are constantly waiting for something. All sense of time, night and day or anything you once were clinging to us is going to be gone.

Then, across the fire… you will see a figure. A darkness that stands tall and silently across the fire, an evil that you know is from beyond any hell you could ever conjure up.

I felt something heavy on my chest, a hot coal burning my skin. I couldn’t speak and I knew that the instructions told me I shouldn’t. This was time to listen. The shadow would do the talking. It uttered my name first, as it seemed to sit down. I numbly nodded, a breath of icy air hitting my bones.

“Do you understand where you are?” it asked.

I couldn’t help but to be surprised. It was offering me the chance to answer. Something I was sure I wasn’t supposed to do. Instead I kept quiet as it repeated the question several times, until at last it became angry and tossed embers toward my face.

“If you don’t know; then what brought you here?”

The fires hit me and I instinctively screamed. I thought that moment was my last in this life, instead the shadow simply lingered. Waiting for me to actually tell my story.

“I… I was in an accident… about 18 months ago,” I said, hardly recognizing my own voice. Was I really doing the talking or was it still the shadow? It felt as though we both shared the same resonance in that moment.

“My wife and I… we were… going to this function. It was a horrible storm. I told her we shouldn’t go. She insisted that it mattered. But the ice on the road… black ice. I couldn’t see it. I hit it hard and my reflexes got the better of me… The car tumbled end over end down the highway. We collided with four other cars. I felt everything. The intense pain shook through my body, and it kept me awake as I saw bodies piling up around me….”

“Eight cars… at least thirteen dead. Several children included…. Along with my wife. The news called it the worst accident in the history of the state in the past ten years. I don’t know if that’s true. But… I died that day. I saw everything that I ever loved taken from me and I was one of the few still standing. One of the few that crawled out with hardly anything but bruises….”

“People told me it was God, a miracle to help me appreciate life. I turned to drugs. I turned to suicide. But none of it has left me satisfied. I don’t believe any of those answers. I think I had to come here… to find this fire… to see the beyond… so that I could understand…”

As I finished my story, silence loomed between us. The figure stood there, staring either at me or the campfire; saying nothing. Was it trying to determine if I should live or if I should die? I wanted my suffering to end. I wanted absolution.

Instead, a cold dead laugh rumbled through the darkness.

It made me feel like nothing.

It made me suddenly aware that my suffering, my very existence was meaningless. In the grand universe, my problems, my heartbreak… it would all be eventually consumed by a fire much like the one sitting in front of me.

“Nothingness is eternal, misery and pain are life, and endlessness is the only absolute serenity that anyone can obtain. When you kept living, you thought it meant you had purpose. You thought it might mean your life would have a reason. But no life does. Nothing does. Existence is chaos,” the shadow told me as it grew taller. Long slender arms reached up and beyond the view of the fire, like a spider's legs reaching for a prone fly that was caught in a web.

Then those arms morphed into claws, razor sharp tendrils that began to snake their way toward me.

“Let me offer you the freedom of nonexistence,” the shadow rumbled as the entire forest began to push its way back toward us. It felt that I was being swallowed whole by the woods.

The trees were melting into twisted and rotten flesh, sliding down to the ground and becoming blackened burnt fingers that were reaching to drag me to the inferno.

The branches snapped and turned toward me, the hollow wood morphing into faces of people that I had hurt. That I had harmed. All snarling and snapping their jagged teeth toward me.

Suddenly I felt the urge to run. To live. No matter the moment of suffering that I was enduring, I couldn’t end my life here.

The reflection of my wife’s face came into the campfire. Her soft eyes urged me to action. Then those same comfortable eyes turned dead, color drained. This was the end of everything. This was all that the campfire would ever offer me.

It was all that anyone could ever grasp or understand.

The shadow was covering the entire sky, it’s laughter echoing throughout the forest. Sharp spikes rippled across the floor, and the canopy became filled with falling knives. My back was torn to ribbons. My running soon became a crawl. I was falling into the earth, into this eternal wandering blaze.

All it wanted was my suffering to fuel the flame.

My legs hit the fire, scarring my back ankles and feet first as I screamed and fought. The shadow kept lurching forward, towering over me as molten fire dripped onto my face.

This is what I wanted, to suffer for my life. To pay for what I felt was my fault. But was this hell my freedom? Was my life null and void?

Something stirred deep inside me and I pushed my way toward the flame even further. I recognized this was the sacrifice I should have offered. My very soul. Only then would I get the absolution I sought.

Flames engulfed my body as I struggled to cover my eyes. The campfire grew larger and the laughter was covered over by the roaring fire.

I was falling, deeper to the depths of darkness that would melt away all of reality. Then I was rising, pushed up back to the ground. Spitting and sputtering like a newborn, I was hardly able to move as the fire disappeared and my charred and blackened body lay prone on the forest floor.

I was dead. I felt nothing. I was nothing. And then, I was opening my eyes and looking at my beautiful wife.

She looked so much younger, so kind and caring. She was standing at the campfire. About to jump in. And she was telling me that it was going to be okay.

Move on, she said. Live and love. That was what my existence needed to be. I promised her I would. I promised I would make sense of the chaos that we are given.

Then the forest sky came back, the lonesome woods. I lay there for days maybe before other hikers found me. They didn't even know if I was still human. Maybe I wasn’t anymore.

I was taken to heal, but part of me has stayed there even now. I still feel the fire everywhere I go. It burns inside me. My soul is part of this eternal endless chaos. It is consuming others, giving them a peek into the unknown.

I saw it there, beyond death. This endless madness that will devour us all. It was waiting in the fire. It was in the shadow and it is now inside me. For I am death, walking on this earth and carrying the fire where I go. Sharing my experience to others who hunger for that freedom. Enticing them to seek out the unknown.

The campfire will grow, it will always move and make use of the weak and the fragile.

But most importantly of all. It will burn.

It will burn the world.

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