This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Specialist-Tree-1998 on 2024-12-22 20:27:27+00:00.
Hello again, I’m Ranger Jackson and I work at Forest National Park, a Canadian National Park that no one remembers visiting with trees that get taller the further in you go. On my last post ( ), someone commented asking if I could tell the story of someone who got fired. In my decade or so working here, no one’s been fired. That’s because it’s about the worst thing that can happen to an employee since the rules of the Forest still apply to us too. Once you leave, all your memories of working here, often years and years, are gone. While no coworkers have been fired, there's only one employee who has ever disappeared. It’s a name that I’ve mentioned in previous stories, Ranger Daniels.
Ranger Daniels was the person doing tours when I got here. He looked to be in his late forties and he had been working there as long as he could remember, not that that meant anything since after that long of working here he had no memories of the outside world. Every other job position was filled, so he took me under his wing and taught me everything I needed to know about doing tours and staying alive in the Forest. Once I learned how to do tours, I would take guests down the East Stream and he would take guests down the North Stream.
He was a great guy, but he loved the Forest. He loved it so much that he would spend every moment of free time exploring it and occasionally he would disappear for days on end doing what he called “camping trips”. He invited me to join him many, many times but I have a healthy fear of the Forest, like any rational person should have, so I’d always respectfully decline. Because of how much time he’d spend down there, he was the prime source of information on anything Forest-related. Even Smith would get all of his samples and research from Daniels. Of course, whenever he found something new, he would come to me and open his “almanac” (it was a glorified diary) to show me some sketch of the most awful creature I’ve ever seen, all while beaming like a kid who just got told they can stay up late.
About 6 years back now he started getting weird. He would constantly be jittery and hyper, like he had drank an entire pot of coffee, and spent more and more time in the Forest. Whenever I would see him, he would be muttering to himself about some nonsense and writing in his “almanac”. He was distancing himself from everyone, not even guiding tours anymore. I hadn’t talked to him in months until one day on my lunch break while sitting on a bench in the visitors center he came running up to me.
“Jackson! I figured it out!”
I nearly choked on my sandwich from the shock of him talking to me out of the blue. “Daniels! Figured what out?”
“The Forest, the memory stuff, all of it. The Forest doesn’t just feed on the biomass that enters it, it’s like a… like a hunter, it uses everything, even the bones, but it goes further than the bones, it feeds on the mind.”
If I wasn’t before, now I was sure Daniels had lost it. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Have you ever noticed how, despite everyone who has disappeared over the years, people who work here never do? Why do you think that when people leave, all their memories of this place vanish? It’s using us as a… bank. It’s overwriting our memories from the outside to make way for what it wants- the emotionally charged memories caused by interacting with it. But it’s not… Come with me, I want you to see something.”
He grabbed my arm before I had gotten done eating and dragged me out into the cold winter air. We walked over to the North Stream entrance and made our way into the Forest. One interesting quirk of the Forest is that it’s a lot like a cave in the sense that it stays a constant, if humid, 60 degrees inside year-round, so even though it was well below freezing on the surface, I had to take my coat off and wrap it around my waist in short order. After a couple of hours of walking, even with my jacket off, I started sweating. Looking around, I noticed the trees were larger than I was used to. “Daniels, where are we?”
Absent-mindedly, he replied, “Broadly, Forest National Park, but I would say somewhere in the Midnight zone.”
My stomach dropped. We were deeper than I had ever gone in the Forest. I tried to stay calm, but I felt a panic rise in my chest as I thought of everything Ranger Daniels had shown me in his almanac. “Where are we going?”
“Just a little bit further.” He stopped just ahead of a large spire-shaped rock that jutted out of the streambank and turned, disappearing into the tree line. For a moment I thought of abandoning him, but I knew, despite his obvious insanity, I was far safer with him than on my own, so I followed. Eventually, he came to an abrupt stop.
“Look, there it is.”
I followed his flashlight, but there was nothing there, just a small clearing between trees covered in pine needles. “What am I looking at?”
“Don’t you see Jackson? The Forest doesn’t overwrite memories, it stores them. And if it stores them, there must be a place where they are stored. If there’s a place where they are stored, then we can get them back. I don’t remember my family, if I even have a family, but I could.” He was twitching as he looked in hysteria at something I couldn’t see.
“Daniels, I don’t see anything. Are you… are you alright man?”
“Don’t you want to remember?”
“No. What’s the point of trying to bring something back that’s gone.”
Daniels grabbed me by my shoulders. For the first time, I got a clear look at his face. It was wrinkly and mottled with blue veins. “They were STOLEN from me!” He shoved me to the ground. “I thought you would understand, Jackson. Good luck getting back to the surface, I’m not coming with you.” With that, he walked into the clearing and sat down with his legs crossed, slowly swaying back and forth.
Part of me wanted to drag him out with me, but something compelled me to just leave him, so I did. I left him there, sitting in the Forest, and I never saw him again.
--
I write these posts over the span of multiple days because I don’t have time with work to spend hours and hours in the van writing. Also, I don’t want to make Julie suspicious and lose my ability to communicate with the outside world. That being said, I do not remember writing anything written above, but I think I’ve figured out why.
It all started around noon today. I hadn’t had a tour yet because of the weather and I was working on shoveling the parking lot when Julie approached me with a man I’d never seen before. He was in his early 20s and wearing a blue hoodie and jeans.
Julie gave me her classic fake smile and said, “Ranger Jackson, we have a new hire. He’s going to be doing your job and I want you to teach him the ropes today. This is Danny Woodsworth.”
I gave him a handshake and introduced myself. The rest of the day was showing him around the park. Towards the end of the day, I took him into the Forest and he was fascinated. He clearly had a passion for nature and seemed like he’d be a really good fit. After the tour, I took him to the cabin where he’d be living full-time.
When I saw it, covered in creeping vines and completely untouched for years, something nagged at the back of my mind. I ignored it and showed him inside. Besides the fact everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, it looked like someone was already living in it. The bed was unmade, clothes littered the floor, and papers covered the desk. On top of the papers was a leather-bound book, which I picked up. Just as I was about to open it, Danny interrupted. “Who lived here?”
Again, there was a nagging at the back of my mind, but nothing came of it. “I don’t know, must’ve been before my time,” I replied.
After Danny was settled, I left and headed to the van. I thought that I hadn’t written anything yet and figured that I probably should, given how long it’s been since the last post, but when I opened that computer, there was the post above, a fully written story that I have no memory of experiencing or writing with a name I have no recollection of. I went back and looked at my other posts, there was the name again, Ranger Daniels. Then, I remembered the book that I had taken from Danny’s cabin. I opened it and there on the first page was a drawing of an older-looking Danny with writing below it that read “Ranger Daniel’s almanac.”
I don’t know why I don’t have any memories of Ranger Daniels, but I think Danny is Ranger Daniels. I don’t know what to do, everything just got way, way weirder than anything I’ve experienced in this place so far. What else do I not remember?
I don’t think I have much longer posting stories. Julie went to the border of the park a couple of days ago to order necessities from the government guys and when she came back she was acting strange. Watching me a lot more and even following me around sometimes. I think they found this account and the stories I’m posting here. More than likely, this van, and any way for me to contact the outside world, will be gone by the end of the week. I don’t remember ever applying for this job and I don’t want to quit, but I don’t want to be here anymore.
I’m going to find whatever Ranger Daniels saw in the Forest. It’s probably going to get me killed, but I’d rather choose that over quitting or living with all that I’ve learned. Maybe Grace was right, maybe joining the Forest is a more gracious fate. If I don’t post again, don’t assume I’m dead, it’d be a disservice to me in the case that I do make it out of this. Until next time.