Ghost x Reader, but it's told through one of those really early 2010s hiking forums that hikers used to post on about trails, trail angels, best gear, good inns to stay at, towns to avoid, Q&As, advice, and meetups.
one day you start posting about being the only hiker on this lonely stretch of the AT after deciding to thruhike the trail. cell service is bad (it's the 2010s, and you're posting on a Dell laptop that's five inches thick from local coffee shops along the way) so you can only upload a few posts at a time and answer some questions. but you slowly amass a very small following. readers give you the trail name Bambi after you find two dead does outside of your tent, and it seems like a small clutch of forest critters keep following you on your hike because you can hear them wandering around your (bear proof) containers at night.
but for the most part, it's all just a normal hike (with some minor hiccups—sometimes you feel like you're being watched (but you're alone in the mountains and this is pretty common feeling whenever you hike overnight, they assure you); and strange noises keep echoing in the forest around you (it's the AT, though, so no one is really too worried). you have a pretty good rapport with the readers who click on your posts each time a new one drops so they're all pretty quick to give you (delayed) answers to your questions, and give helpful advice. you become a minor celebrity in on this lonely hiking forum, and you even meet up with a few of your fans in the towns that the AT cuts through. when you're not posting, they're still active. trading stories, theorising on where you are.
but when your next post drops (after a brief hiatus as you walk through Fontana Dam), it's obvious that something is wrong.
but as your readers scroll through gorgeous pictures attached to your post of the Smokies, the national park, endless shots of wildlife, and the deep, lush green forest with it's jagged peaks, towering cliffs, and intersecting streams, awe shifts into disbelief as a murky, dark figure emerges in the background of some of shots. looming like spectre in dark camo until someone realises that it's getting closer.
all they can do is stare in horror as your next series of photos show a big, ominous looking man in a black balaclava with a skull printed over the knitted cables closing in on you until it ends with a selfie, him behind you, reaching out.
it ends with a picture of you sitting on a bed in a dingy hotel room (that could literally be anywhere in the Appalachians considering almost all hotels and inns and motels have the exact same bed with it's brown, quilted blanket and crisp white sheets beside an end table with a bible; dark wood panelled walls, faded yellow recliner, writing desk with a lamp, and grey carpet). you're smiling tearfully at the camera. reflected in a picture on the wall, they can see a large, dark figure looming over you. the same man that snuck up on you on the trail.
at the bottom of the picture is the caption: little Bambi, home at last.
(and when they comb through your posts before your account is deleted, they soon realise a shadow was in every single picture, hidden in the foliage and the dark green of the surrounding trail.)
