📚 THE MARKED — The Doctor of the Pines(Pine Barrens Edition – The Jersey Devil)

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🕯️ THE LIBRARY

The lanterns sway though there’s no breeze.  
Shelves shift. Scrolls whisper. A map of New Jersey unrolls itself, pointing—helpfully or ominously—at the sprawling green bruise known as the Pine Barrens.  

People come into the Library looking for answers.  
But tonight… the answers came looking for me.  

The whispers say a new Mark has been made.  
Scratches like hooves burned into bark.  
A survivor with a wound that shouldn’t be possible.  
And a story no doctor believes.  

I open the book.  
The page screams.  

Let’s begin.  

---

🌲 INTRO — “Academic Curiosity Can Be Fatal”

A group of ecology majors from Rowan University ventured into the Pine Barrens, chasing folklore with science.  

Bright. Enthusiastic. Passionate about conservation.  

Jess laughed, “We’ll be fine. The Devil doesn’t do peer-reviewed studies.”  

But the Barrens have secrets.  
And some secrets kill.  

---

🌘 THE STORY — The Doctor of the Pines

Aiden, Kelly, Marcus, and Jess arrived with tents, recorders, and thermal cameras.  

The Pine Barrens greeted them with silence.  

Aiden joked, “Wow, the Devil really took the night off.”  
Kelly threw a pebble at him.  
Jess logged humidity levels.  
Marcus filmed everything for his thesis.  

And underneath their chatter, the trees held their breath.  

---

⭐ Night One: Whispers in the Dark

It started small.  
A shriek in the distance.  
Another.  

Then scratching around the campsite—high up. Much too high for any animal they knew.  

Marcus whispered, “Did you hear that?”  
Aiden hissed back, “Don’t say ‘did you hear that.’ That’s how people die.”  

They slept only because exhaustion eventually wins every argument.  

---

⭐⭐ Night Two: The Attack

The second night… the Barrens woke up angry.  

Something massive crashed through the trees, snapping branches like pencils.  
A stench of sulfur, rot, and rusted blood filled the air.  

Then the screech—  
A ripping, metallic howl that reeked of iron and wet stone.  

The Jersey Devil.  

Chaos exploded.  
They ran in four different directions, flashlights slicing frantic shapes across the woods.  

Aiden didn’t get far.  

---

⭐⭐⭐ The Hunt

Aiden sprinted, lungs burning, but something slammed behind him—heavy, winged, fast.  
Claws raked the ground inches from his heels.  

He tripped on a root, fell, and landed on his shoulder with a nauseating crack.  

White-hot pain.  
His vision pulsed.  
The world doubled, then tripled.  
His ears rang with the Devil’s snarling breath just behind him.  

Then—  

A man stepped between them.  

Or at least… Aiden thinks it was a man.  
Tall, indistinct, maybe wearing white.  
Hard to tell with the concussion blooming like fireworks behind his eyes.  

“Easy,” the stranger murmured.  
Not to Aiden.  
To the Devil.  

The Devil shrieked—an angry, wounded sound—and fled into the trees.  

Hands pressed against Aiden. Warm, precise… but cold at the fingertips.  
His shoulder wrenched back into its socket.  
Bandages wrapped with skill no college kid carried.  

A voice said, “You’ll be safe. For now.”  

And then darkness swallowed him.  

---

⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Hospital

Aiden woke in Camden, surrounded by buzzing lights and antiseptic air.  

A doctor reviewed his chart.  
“You did a remarkable job on your shoulder. Clean work. Surgical, almost.”  

Aiden blinked.  
“I… didn’t do that.”  

“Your friends?” the doctor asked.  

“They weren’t there. It was a man. A doctor, I think. In the woods.”  

The doctor raised an eyebrow.  
“You took a hard blow to the head. There was no man.”  

“But my shoulder—”  

“Concussion hallucinations,” the doctor said.  
“That’s all.”  

But Aiden knew better.  
The bandages were too precise. Too old-fashioned.  
Something set his shoulder.  
Something saved him.  

And whatever it was… wasn’t human.  

---

🐐🔥 OUTRO — “The Devil Hates One Thing: Competition”

Back in the Library, pages shift like restless wings.  
The Jersey Devil file glows faintly red.  
But another folder—one I’ve never seen—slides out beside it.  

THE DOCTOR OF THE PINES  

According to Pine Barrens folklore:  

> “Where the Devil hunts, the Doctor follows.  
> He appears only to the lost, the dying, or the marked.  
> He mends what he can… and warns what he cannot.”  

Some say he’s the ghost of a colonial physician.  
Others claim he’s something older—a guardian spirit.  
A few whisper he is the Devil’s brother, cursed to undo his damage for eternity.  

But I… I think he’s something rarer.  

A force in the darkness that doesn’t ask for worship, gratitude, or belief—  
only that you survive long enough to tell the tale.  

The Devil takes.  
The Doctor restores.  
But restoration is its own kind of dominion.  

And if that’s true… then the Devil isn’t the only legend stalking the Barrens.  

There’s someone else out there.  
Someone watching.  
Someone helping.  

And between the two of them…  
I know which one I’d want finding me in the forest.  

---

🔚 CLOSING LINES

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Email. thenightlystorytellerblog@gmail.com
  

And if you dare… drop a comment with your favorite scary movie, urban legend, or horror memory.  

We’re just getting started—and things are about to get dark.  

thenightlystoryteller.blogspot.com  

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