This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Random_User_499 on 2024-11-26 07:23:45+00:00.
I took the job at the fire lookout station because I needed the solitude. The quiet isolation of the woods promised a reprieve from the chaos of the outside world. It was supposed to be just me and my coworker, Brad, alternating shifts while watching for signs of wildfires. The forest was a cathedral of endless green, and the station, perched atop its tower, felt like a sanctuary.
But now, as I write this, I wonder if solitude was what the woods had planned for me all along.
The first three weeks were uneventful. Brad and I barely spoke beyond exchanging pleasantries during shift changes. He was the seasoned veteran; I was the newbie. His confidence in the job bordered on arrogance, but I didn’t mind. I liked the silence.
One night, during his shift, I woke to the sound of the door slamming. When I stepped out of my bunk, Brad was already gone. His radio sat on the desk, the red light blinking softly. That wasn’t like him; protocol was to keep it on at all times. I tried calling for him, but only static replied.
The hours dragged. Morning came and went, but Brad didn’t return. By evening, I climbed down the tower to look for him, even though every instinct screamed against it.
The woods felt wrong. The birdsong was absent. The wind moved through the trees without sound, as if it didn’t dare disturb the silence. I called Brad’s name until my throat hurt. When I finally turned back toward the tower, I found myself relieved to leave the forest behind.
That night, the knocking started.
It was faint at first, a soft tap-tap-tap on the wooden door. I assumed it was a branch swaying in the wind, but when I opened the door, nothing was there. Just the forest, dark and unyielding.
The knocking came again. Louder. More insistent.
I stayed inside.
The following night, I woke to screaming. A raw, guttural wail that echoed through the forest. It was Brad’s voice. He was begging for help.
I grabbed the radio. “Brad? Where are you? Are you okay?”
Static.
Then his voice again, faint and wet, as though he was speaking through a mouthful of blood. “Help me... please...”
I froze. His voice wasn’t coming from the radio. It was outside. Just below the tower.
I looked out the window. The forest was empty, bathed in the cold silver of the moonlight. Then I saw it: shadows moving between the trees, unnaturally fast, darting from trunk to trunk.
One of them stopped at the edge of the clearing. It was tall and humanoid, but wrong. Its limbs were too long, its head cocked at an impossible angle. It seemed to watch me, its form quivering like heatwaves on a summer road.
I turned off the lights and didn’t move until dawn.
The following day, I woke to find the forest ablaze.
Flames roared through the treetops, orange and yellow, licking the sky. Smoke rose in a thick column, blotting out the sun. I reached for the radio, my hands trembling, and called for help. But as I spoke, the fire disappeared.
One moment, it was there, a hellish inferno. The next, the forest was still and dark, as if the fire had been a mirage.
Then Brad came back.
I spotted him at dusk, walking up the trail toward the tower. Relief hit me like a wave, but something about his gait was off. His steps were stiff, jerky, like a marionette on tangled strings.
“Brad?” I called out, my voice breaking.
He didn’t answer.
When he reached the base of the tower, he stopped. His head tilted up slowly, unnaturally, and for the first time, I saw his face. Or what was left of it. His skin hung in tatters, his eyes were gone, and his mouth twisted into a grin too wide for any human face.
“Come down,” he said. His voice was a mockery of Brad’s. “I need your help.”
I stayed inside.
He knocked on the tower’s door. His knuckles scraped against the wood, slow and deliberate. Then he started screaming. Begging. Crying.
I pressed my hands to my ears and prayed for morning.
The tower is no longer safe.
Whatever was outside grew bolder. Shadows darted closer, circling the base of the tower. The knocking turned into pounding. Screams filled the night, echoing from all directions. Sometimes they were Brad’s. Sometimes they were my mother’s, or my ex-girlfriend’s, or voices I didn’t recognize.
The door held. Until it didn’t.
I woke up in a hospital bed, my arms restrained. A nurse stood over me, her smile too kind, her eyes too pitying.
“You had an episode,” she said. “You’ve been here for weeks.”
“No,” I whispered. “I was in the tower. Brad—”
“There is no Brad,” she said gently. “You were working alone.”
I stared at her, my mind reeling. Was it all in my head? The shadows, the fire, the knocking?
But then I saw it. Across the room, on the window’s glass, a faint handprint. Too large to be human. Too high to have come from outside.
And behind the nurse, the shadows were moving.