Short Story Halloween style By yours truly LAV

Halloween debate.... movies or real life?

Halloween Early on Wednesday Style

Yosemite Valley, with its towering granite cliffs and mist-veiled waterfalls, is more than a natural wonder—it carries whispers of a curse. The Ahwahneechee people, who once called the valley home, believed the land was guarded by spirits who punished intruders. One such spirit, Pohono, the “evil wind” of Bridalveil Fall, is said to lure wanderers into the mist to their deaths, while other restless presences haunt the cliffs and forests where blood was spilled during violent clashes with settlers.

The curse’s reputation only grew with time. Yosemite has been the scene of countless accidents—visitors swept from waterfalls, climbers plunging from Half Dome, and hikers who vanish without a trace. But beyond accidents, true crime has stained the park’s history: in 1999, serial killer Cary Stayner, the so-called Yosemite Killer, brutally murdered four women connected to the park, cementing its darker reputation.

Between ancient legends, unexplained disappearances, fatal falls, and horrific crimes, Yosemite stands not just as a monument to natural beauty, but as a place where death seems to linger in the air—an eternal reminder of a land some still believe to be cursed.

Ewan Whyte’s life began in shadows he did not choose. Born and raised inside a closed-off cult, his childhood was defined not by innocence, but by control, manipulation, and abuse disguised as devotion. Behind the group’s promises of salvation lay a system built on fear—children stripped of their identities, punished for disobedience, and taught that love was conditional on obedience.

For Ewan, every day was a fight to hold on to a sense of self the cult tried to erase. He endured physical punishment meant to “purify” him, isolation from the outside world, and the constant reminder that questioning the group meant risking eternal damnation. Yet beneath the silence and scars, Ewan carried a stubborn ember of hope—an inner knowing that life beyond the cult’s walls had to be different, had to be freer.

This is the story of survival, but also of reclamation. It is not just about the trauma inflicted by a system of control, but about one man’s courage to speak out, to break the cycle, and to transform pain into purpose. By sharing the truth about what he endured, Ewan Whyte gives voice to the countless children who have suffered in similar systems of abuse, and he shows that even the deepest wounds can give rise to resilience.

This episode explores “Missing White Woman Syndrome”—the media phenomenon where missing white women receive disproportionate coverage while cases involving women of color are too often ignored or underreported. We shine a light on how this bias has left countless families without the support, visibility, and justice they deserve. This is the first installment in our series "No MORE Stolen Sisters,” where we tell the overlooked stories of missing and murdered women of color. If you want to hear the rest of this important series, subscribe to our Patreon, where the remaining episodes will be exclusively released.

In July 2020, 21-year-old Army Pvt. Richard Halliday vanished from Fort Bliss—and the Army said nothing for more than a month. When his family pressed for answers, they uncovered conflicting reports, missing details, and a silence that felt deliberate. Some say he walked away on his own. Others whisper he knew something he wasn’t supposed to. What we do know is this: a soldier disappeared from one of the largest military installations in the country, and the truth about what happened to him has never been made clear. The Richard Halliday case isn’t just a missing person story—it’s a haunting question of who to trust when the institution itself becomes part of the mystery.

In 1974, in the quiet English town of Manchester, the case of Michael Taylor became one of the most unsettling chapters in the history of exorcisms. Taylor, a seemingly ordinary man, descended into violent madness, claiming possession by dark, malevolent forces that no one could fully understand or control. The priests who attempted to cast out the demons found themselves overwhelmed by a force that defied faith and reason. The exorcism ended in chaos, with Taylor brutally attacking his wife in a horrifying frenzy before fleeing naked into the night. The failure of the ritual left a shadow over the community, a chilling reminder that some evils are not so easily banished that the darkness lurking within the human soul can sometimes be far more terrifying than any external demon.

Exorcism is a ritual practiced in various religious traditions aimed at expelling supposed evil spirits or demons believed to possess a person. These rites often involve prayers, commands to the spirit, physical gestures, and sometimes intense emotional or physical experiences.

Mental Health, on the other hand, concerns psychological well-being, including disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis, and dissociative identity disorder—conditions that can sometimes manifest symptoms similar to those attributed to possession, such as hallucinations, delusions, or altered behavior.