Heya. This happened in the summer of 1998. I was backpacking through Scandinavia, actually, my girlfriend at the time convinced me to go, she was really into Nordic culture. Anyway. We ended up in this little coastal town in Finland called Naantali. There's this tourist park there, Moomin World, based on those Finnish children's books. You know, the little hippo characters. My girlfriend loved that stuff, so we spent the day there. It was a nice park. Wooden buildings painted in bright colors, little bridges over the water, actors in costumes. Very charming, if you are into that kind of thing. We stayed until closing time, took a bunch of photos, walked around the paths. The place is built on a series of small islands connected by bridges. Here's where it gets strange. After the park closed, we were walking back toward the parking lot. It was probably around 9 PM, but in Finland in summer, it stays light forever. The main attractions were all shut down and the park was completely empty, everyone had left. No staff around, no other tourists. We were the last ones out. Just us and the sound of water lapping against the wooden posts.
We were crossing one of the bridges when my girlfriend grabbed my arm. She'd stopped walking and was just staring into the trees on the next island over. I looked where she was looking, and at first I didn't see anything. Just pine trees and those painted Moomin houses in the distance. Then I saw it move. There was something standing between two trees, maybe thirty yards away. It was tall. Taller than a person, I'd say seven or eight feet. The body was thin, impossibly thin, like branches that had been tied together. The limbs were long and jointed wrong. Too many joints in the arms. The skin was pale. Not white like a person, but pale like birch bark. Gray-white and smooth. The head was the worst part. It was narrow and elongated, and where the face should have been, there were just two dark hollows. No eyes that I could see, just deep shadows. It was watching us. I don't know how I knew that without seeing eyes, but I knew. It stood completely still, arms hanging at its sides. The illuminated Moomin House behind it cast this cheerful blue glow that made the whole scene feel wrong. theme parks at dusk have such an eerie vibe - Clara' This thing, this creature, standing there in the middle of a children's theme park. My girlfriend made this sound, this little gasp[ and the thing tilted its head. The movement was too smooth, like it was on a swivel. That's when we ran. Just turned and ran back across the bridge toward the parking lot.
We didn't stop until we reached the car. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the keys in the ignition. My girlfriend was crying, kept saying 'What was that? What was that?' over and over. I've thought about this for years. Tried to rationalize it, maybe it was a costume, maybe someone playing a prank. But the park was closed. There was nobody there. And the way it moved, the way it tilted its head to watch us run. That wasn't a person in a costume. I've done some research since then. Finnish folklore has these things called Metsänhaltija, forest spirits. I don't know if that's what we saw. I don't know what we saw. But I know we saw something that shouldn't have been there. Something that was using those cheerful little Moomin buildings as cover. My girlfriend and I broke up about six months later. We never really talked about what happened that night. I think we both wanted to forget it. But I can't. Every time I see anything about Finland or those Moomin characters, I'm back on that bridge, staring at that thing standing between the trees. Watching us with eyes we couldn't see.
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