I Think Something Is Following This Investigation

I've rewritten this article three times maybe four i don't know i feel like im losing my mind

The first version sounded ridiculous.

The second sounded paranoid.

The third sounded like I was trying too hard to convince myself everything was normal.

So I'm just going to write what happened.

For the last six months I've spent almost every day investigating the disappearances connected to Hawkthorne. I've spoken to families, witnesses, former police officers, local historians, people who refuse to have their names published because they're genuinely afraid.

At first, I assumed fear was doing what fear always does. It fills in blanks. It creates patterns. It makes ordinary events feel significant. but lately I've been struggling to explain some things.

A few weeks ago, I began noticing someone standing near the edge of locations I was investigating. Not close enough to identify. Never close enough to photograph clearly. Just far enough away that I could convince myself I was mistaken.

The first time was outside an abandoned farmhouse.

The second was near the eastern trail entrance.

The third was in a service station car park nearly forty miles away from Hawkthorne.

Every time I looked directly at them, they seemed wrong somehow. Not physically wrong. Just... difficult to focus on. And trust me i was debating getting myself sectioned maybe i have exposed myself to too many of these cases and it's all caught up with my head and it's telling me to stop or to take a break

I told myself it was exhaustion.

I haven't mentioned this to most of the team. If you're reading this, some of them are probably learning about it at the same time as you.

The rational explanation is that I'm tired.

I haven't taken a proper day off in months.

I've spent countless nights reviewing witness statements, archived reports, mountains of footage that most people would dismiss immediately.

I know prolonged exposure to this kind of work can affect your judgement.

I know that.

The problem is that the witnesses keep describing the same thing.

People who have never met each other.

People from different towns.

Different decades.

Different backgrounds.

Yet somehow they tell remarkably similar stories.

They describe feeling watched before a disappearance occurs. Stalked even.

They describe seeing someone standing where no one should be standing.

They describe the sensation that something has noticed them.

Not that they're watching it.

That it's watching them.

Last night, I received an email from a former resident of Hawkthorne.

It contained only one sentence.

"The moment you start looking for it, it starts looking back."

I wish I could tell you I laughed and deleted it.

Instead, I spent half an hour checking every window in my house.

I don't know what's happening anymore.

Maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Maybe stress is getting the better of me.

Maybe I've become too invested in this investigation.

But I keep coming back to one thought.

Every witness we've spoken to believed they were imagining things right up until the moment something happened.

If this article sounds different from my usual reporting, that's because it is.

I'm not writing this as an investigator.

I'm writing it as someone who is increasingly concerned that whatever is responsible for the disappearances may be aware that we're investigating it.

And if that's true, then I suspect this article won't be the last time I write about it.

Because over the last few days, I've started noticing something else.

It's calling my name