I photographed a Spanish village where the sun doesn't rise. I shouldn't have stayed for the ritual.

I wasn't going to post this but I think I need to get it out of my head.

So I'm a freelance photographer and I've always been that guy who hates tourist spots. I want the weird stuff. The villages that barely show up on maps. The raw stuff.

One night I'm scrolling and I find this little blurb about a village in northern Spain, Asturias region, called Somosierra. They call it "the village of the black sun." Already I'm hooked.

Supposedly it's tucked into these brutal mountains that block almost all the sunlight. Most of the year it's drowning in fog and clouds. In winter the sun barely comes up at all. Noon looks like midnight. For a photographer? That's like. A dream location.

So I booked a flight to Madrid with basically nothing but my camera bag.

Rented a car, drove into the Picos de Europa range (the "roof of Europe," very famous). The mountain roads were WAY worse than I expected. Signs of civilization just. Disappeared. Trees and rock and fog and nothing else. My GPS died right around the time a rotting wooden sign appeared out of the mist.

Somosierra.

The village was smaller than I thought possible. Like maybe a handful of stone houses. No people on the street. None. The air was cold and wet and the whole place was SO quiet it felt wrong. Ghost town energy but worse because there were clearly people living there.

Only one building had lights on, a tiny inn. The owner didn't speak a word of English and looked at me like I'd personally insulted his family.

Next morning I went out with my camera. And yeah. The stories were true. The sky was this heavy gray sheet, you couldn't even tell where the sun was supposed to be. At noon it felt like 7pm in November. I wanted this exact vibe but actually standing in it? Deeply unsettling. Like I'd walked into a different dimension.

The villagers were something else. The moment I raised my camera, curtains twitched. People whispered. Gave me these LOOKS. Not just "stranger in town" looks. Something else. Like I'd come to peek at something I wasn't supposed to see. Kids literally ran inside when they saw me.

I spent a few days circling the edges, not getting anything good. Then I met the old priest at the tiny church. He was the ONLY person who talked to me. His English was rough but he tried.

"You came to photograph this place? The 'black sun' is coming soon. You will see something very special then."

I asked what the black sun was. He just. Smiled.

Apparently once a year, around the winter solstice, the sun basically vanishes for several days. Total darkness. The villagers treat it as sacred. Outsiders are NEVER allowed to be there during it. He said I'd only gotten into the village at all because of pure luck. His kindness had this weird cold edge to it. Like a warning wrapped in a smile.

The day before the black sun, the innkeeper told me to leave. Now. His eyes were genuinely scary this time. But I couldn't. I was THIS close to the village's biggest secret. No way I was driving away.

That night I snuck out and climbed a hill overlooking the village. Heart going insane.

Midnight hit and I'm not exaggerating, every light in the world went out. No moon. No stars. My flashlight beam just. Got eaten by the dark. Like the darkness was absorbing it.

Then. A flicker. In the village square. Torches.

The villagers were gathering one by one, every single one of them wearing identical masks. Made of what looked like animal bone.

I held my breath. They formed a circle and started singing in a language I couldn't place. This low droning chant. It didn't sound like prayer. It sounded like a curse.

After a long time the oldest-looking one stepped into the center, raised his torch, and shouted something.

"THE SUN IS DEAD! NOW IS OUR TIME!"

Everyone threw their arms up and screamed. And then.

They started taking off their clothes.

All of them. Still wearing the bone masks but otherwise completely naked, they started. Grabbing each other. Dancing in this frenzied unhinged way. No age, no gender distinction, nothing human about it. Just something primal and wrong.

I froze. I didn't even think to lift my camera. It felt like photographing this would be some kind of violation. Like whatever I was watching had been going on in that village for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

And then.

One of them turned its head. Looked directly at the hill. At me.

The empty eye sockets of the bone mask locked onto where I was hiding.

I ran. I don't even remember deciding to run, my body just did it. Behind me I could hear shouting. Footsteps. Branches tore up my face, I tripped on rocks, I didn't stop. Just. Stay alive. Stay alive.

Somehow I found my rental car in the fog. I was basically crying when I turned the key. Tore down that dirt road like a maniac. In the rearview something was moving in the dark. Or maybe nothing was. I genuinely can't tell you which.

Only when I hit paved road did I actually breathe.

I never went back. I deleted every photo I took there. But on nights when it's really dark, I still see them. The bone masks. The dancing. And those empty eye sockets finding me across the valley.

Are they still doing it out there, in the village of the black sun?

And do they remember me?