The man hurriedly ran through the murky, waist-high waters of the bog, running as fast as he could against the undercurrents that violently churned beneath the water's lonely, deathly still surface.
Large, twisted trees reached high into the heavens in a mocked truimph as their roots pumped the profuse, evil waters through the towering giants, and unto the blood-crimson colored leaves, endlessly swaying in the uncertain winds.
The man, hurrying through the swamp, considered not the natural dangers that enshrouded the still, black waters under the light of the full moon, which was high in the sky, almost acting as a beacon, encircling him with a wall of unconcealing light as he toiled through the muck.
A cool wind drafted down from the treetops, blowing softly against the man's face, and parting the still waters. Looking briefly down at his reflection, the man took a step back, horrified by the visage that confronted him from the depths of the water. His face was ashen, his complexion pale, his skin gaunt over his face's frame.
The man's eyes were sunk deep into the sockets, an eerie soft green glow eminated from them.
The man, uncertain whether his eyes were deceiving him, or if a denizen of the deep was tempting him to look deeper into the depths of the swampy, heavy water, looked down at himself, no longer concerned about the impulse that drives him onward, that screams to flee, to escape.
The man's body is laced in an unfathomable white robe, his equipment all intact. The skin of his arms, his delicate hands, were pale, and for a second, the man thought he could see through it to the black trees on the horizon.
He suddenly felt so very cold, a numbness that quickly swelled through his body as his muscles refused to move. His legs, giving way, very nearly collapsed and he would have lost himself to the swamp's tender mercies, a fate he did not find remotely appealing.
Then, as the moon reached it's apex high in the sky, with dark clouds racing across the cloudy, black night, the man began to feel lightheaded, dizzy. His confusion began to mount as his legs gave way to the mushy ground of which he had been standing on and he fell, face first into the silent depths.
With his last effort, the man managed to grab hold of an uprooted tree root that lay exposed to the cool night breeze.He lay there for hours - days - for time became meaningless to him as the swamp's unending, chilling assualts mentally and physically stripped him of all defenses.
Before finally succumbing to the swamp's evil desires, before letting himself be swallowed by the unknown murky depths, the man saw the final insight, the final terror.
He had died so long ago, and returned every night with his memory decayed, stolen from him. The land tormented him continually, and would continue to do so eternally. His body has long since decomposed under the murky waters, and he was doomed to continue the pattern each night with a full moon.
Tore-enact his death for the land's tormented pleasure.
He was a ghost. A spirit of the damned