I’m twenty-four, work as a software developer in Bangalore, and I thought I knew what exhaustion felt like. You know, the usual—deadlines, traffic, the works. But nothing prepared me for what happened on the Kudremukh trail last October.
My friend Priya and I decided we needed a break. Just a weekend trip, something simple. The trail was supposed to be easy—a three-hour loop through the Western Ghats, well-marked, popular with families. We started at 9 AM on a Saturday, the sun already warm on our shoulders.
“Three hours, max,” Priya said, checking her phone. “We’ll be back by lunch.”
I should have known something was wrong within the first hour.
We passed this massive fallen tree, its roots spread out like grasping fingers. The bark was pale gray, almost white, and there was something about it that made me uncomfortable. I mean, it was just a tree, right? But I took a picture anyway. Priya laughed at me.
“It’s just a dead tree, Arjun.”
“I know, I know. It’s just… distinctive, I guess.”
The trail was beautiful—dense sal forests, the smell of wet earth, birds calling from the canopy. We walked at a steady pace, stopping occasionally to drink water or take photos. My fitness tracker showed we’d covered about five kilometers. Everything seemed normal.
Then we passed the tree again.
“Wait,” I said, stopping so suddenly that Priya bumped into me. “Isn’t that—”
“That’s the same tree.” Her voice was flat. “We saw this at the start.”
“Maybe there are two trees that look similar?”
“Arjun.” She pointed at the ground. “Those are our footprints.”
She was right. I could see the distinct tread pattern of my hiking boots, circling the base of the tree. My mouth went dry.
“We must have taken a wrong turn,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Let’s check the GPS.”
The GPS showed a blue dot—us—standing on the trail. According to the map, we’d been walking in a perfect circle, but that was impossible. The trail had been straight. We’d been following the red markers painted on the trees.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Priya muttered, zooming in and out on her phone. “We didn’t turn around. We kept going forward.”
“Okay, let’s just… let’s keep walking. We’ll find the main path.”
Looking back, I realize we should have retraced our steps right then. We should have gone back the way we came. But we didn’t.
We walked for another two hours. I kept checking my watch. 12:30 PM. 1:15 PM. 2:00 PM. But here’s the thing—the sun didn’t move. It stayed in the same position, directly overhead, casting short shadows that never lengthened.
“Priya,” I said carefully, “what time is it?”
“2:15. Why?”
“Look at the sun.”
She looked up, then back at her phone, then up again. Her face went pale.
“That’s not possible.”
We passed the tree again at 3:00 PM. And again at 4:30. Each time, there were more footprints. Our footprints. Layered on top of each other, circling the trunk in tighter and tighter spirals.
“We need to stop,” Priya said. She was crying now, quietly. “We need to just stop and think.”
I felt my heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst. My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone to call for help. No signal. Obviously. We were in the middle of a forest that apparently didn’t follow the laws of physics.
“Maybe we’re just tired,” I said, hating how my voice cracked. “Maybe we’re disoriented and—”
“The sun isn’t moving, Arjun!”
She was right. Something wasn’t right, and we both knew it. But what were we supposed to do? Sit down and wait? For what?
By the sixth hour, we were almost running. I don’t know what we thought we’d accomplish. The trail looked identical in every direction—the same trees, the same rocks, the same damn fallen tree with its pale roots reaching up like they wanted to grab us.
“I should have trusted my instincts,” I said, more to myself than to Priya. “When we first saw it, I knew something was off.”
“Stop it. Just stop.” She grabbed my arm. “Look.”
Ahead, through the trees, I could see something different. Light. Not forest light, but the bright, harsh light of open space.
We ran.
The parking lot appeared suddenly, like stepping through a curtain. One moment we were in the forest, the next we were standing next to my car, blinking in the afternoon sun. Except it wasn’t afternoon anymore. The sky was orange with sunset.
“What time is it?” Priya whispered.
I looked at my phone. 6:47 PM. Monday.
“That’s wrong,” I said. “That’s—that can’t be right.”
But it was. According to our phones, according to the parking lot attendant who stared at us like we were ghosts, according to the dozens of missed calls and frantic messages from our families—we’d been gone for three days.
Three days.
We’d walked for six hours.
The police came. They searched the forest. They found the fallen tree, of course. Everyone knows about it—it’s a landmark on the trail. But when they showed us the photos, when they walked us through what they found, my stomach dropped.
There were footprints around that tree. Hundreds of them. Layered over each other, pressed deep into the mud, spiraling around the trunk in tight circles. All from the same two pairs of boots.
The forensic team said the prints were made over several days. The deepest ones showed signs of decomposition—leaves and debris settled into them, suggesting they were at least forty-eight hours old.
To this day, I still can’t explain it. Priya moved to Mumbai. We don’t talk about it, even when we message each other. I’ve tried to research it—temporal anomalies, geographical loops, mass hysteria—but nothing fits.
I’ll never forget the feeling of passing that tree for the fifth time, seeing my own footprints like evidence of a crime I hadn’t committed yet. Sometimes I wake up at night, convinced I can smell the sal forest, feel the sun frozen overhead.
Last month, I drove past the turnoff for Kudremukh. I didn’t stop. I didn’t even slow down. Because somewhere in those hills, there’s a trail that doesn’t end, a fallen tree that collects footprints, and six hours that somehow became three days.
And I’m never going back to find out why.
