“Hello,” A voice said whispering across the wind.

She’s back?

“Hello!? Can you hear me?” I say, shouting out into the forest, the wind blowing calmly in the midday sun.

I look around, waiting for a response before calling out again.

“Hello. If you can hear me, answer me,” Only the silence of the woods answering my calls.

I turn back to my work at a nearby tree, placing my syringe into the base of the tree in front of me. “That’s the third time today, yet I still keep getting no response. Argh, you’re driving me crazy, where or what the hell are you? I would appreciate a response,” I sigh before continuing to talk to myself.

Minutes later, hearing the snapping of sticks and rustling of leaves, footsteps coming closer.

“Really man, is it necessary to yell like that all the time. I get that there’s no other people out here, but the joke’s not funny anymore. It’s starting to creep me out,” Ray, my coworker says, walking over to me from the forest trail.

Ray is an average sized guy, a bit shorter than myself. His greasy black hair hidden underneath a hat. His long bushy eyebrows taking over his forehead. His grin that never went away, a sign that he was in a good mood.

“So…get an answer from your mystery lover yet?” Ray says squatting next to me, awkwardly putting his arm on my shoulder, checking my work in the process.

“How do you think I feel, I’m the one hearing it. And it’s not my lover!” I say, frustration in my voice. “Besides, you shouldn’t disturb someone while they are tending to the trees.” I reply, shaking Ray’s arm off my shoulder.

Ray, standing back up, takes a step back then moves over to a nearby log to sit down. “Are you sure you’re not just going crazy? I mean, I’ve been out here for years and I’ve never heard this voice,” Ray sneers, likely trying to help calm me down.

“And I’m not the only one either. Some people like Doug have been here for over twenty years man. Yet you’ve been here for like five months, and suddenly start hearing things?” Ray says worriedly.

“Who knows, maybe I am going crazy,” I say apathetically.

Recently, this has become a common conversation we share whenever I hear the voice in the woods. Currently I work as a forest ranger in my state’s National Forest.

My duties mainly consist of gathering samples from trees that look infected with some kind of disease, and bringing said samples back for our lab to examine. After determining whether a tree is infected or not, and what kind of infection it has, we are given a treatment that we must give to the infected tree. If the tree is past the point of recovery, we schedule a time to remove the tree to prevent the infection from spreading to surrounding plant life as well.

I have been working here for almost six months now, and at first it seemed like a simple enough job. Look through the forest, find trees that are possibly infected, and gather samples. For a while, that is how it was. One day, I was assigned to go out to a new area to be inspected. That day was the first time I heard the voice in the woods.

The first time I heard the voice, I thought someone was simply lost nearby. I looked around trying to find them, but no one was there. This continued repeatedly, with me searching each time. Eventually, I thought maybe I was just hearing the wind, but as the frequency increased, I continued to call out in return.

This has been going on for around five months. The voice sounds like a woman’s, wispy and frail, almost like she can barely speak. Yet, every time I call out to her, I never hear a response. Since I started hearing it, I have only heard the voice say three different words: hello, please, here.

There were times when I head out to the locations that I had heard the voice, to attempt to talk with it. Whenever I do this, I am only greeted with more of the same, silence. I found out that regardless of where I am within the forest, the voice can talk to me. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one hearing the voice in the woods.

I would at times talk aloud to myself, or more specifically, to the voice in the woods. I had hoped that it might be some kind of forest spirit, and that it might help in the recovery of the plant life here, even though such was unlikely.

After some time, though it never responded to me, the voice grew on me. I would talk with it almost as if it was a friend coming over to visit. Most of my time would be spent alone, so having something to talk to felt relieving to some degree, yet when I had to interact with my co-workers, they would look at me like I was crazy.

My co-workers started calling me the forest whisperer, making it an ongoing joke since I keep hearing this voice in the woods. But, like Ray, some have started to become skeptical, thinking it to be something scary. Some people have even started distancing themselves from me, likely thinking me to be weird or possibly crazy.

Today, just like any other day, at least for me, I have been attending to the trees, working on my assigned duties for the day. With Ray being my supervisor, making sure I perform my work accurately.

“Well, it looks like you’ve got everything taken care of here on your end,” Ray sighs, surveying the nearby trees that I had already inspected.

“I’m going to be heading back, we're already supposed to be off the clock. Try not to stay out here too long, you know how Doug gets if we are out too late,” Ray says standing up.

“I’ll head over to your place tonight to pick you up. I already got approval for us and some of the others to head down to town for the weekend, we're celebrating the start of a new year tonight. Try not to act weird around everyone, use this chance to fix the way people see you. Or would you rather stay with your mystery lover?” Ray says, laughing aloud before running away. “I’ll see you later!” he shouts back at me.

“It’s not my lover!” I snap back at Ray before he was gone.

“Jeez, that guy’s a pain in the ass, but it’s nice to know that the others are still including me in their social events,” I mumble to myself.

“Well, time to finish up these trees,” I say, pumping myself up to finish my work.

After about thirty minutes, I manage to finish everything.

“Man, Doug’s going to kick my ass. Ray, might have been right, maybe I should’ve asked him to help me finish up that spot?” I say, packing everything up into my backpack.

“Alright, I think I’ve got everything,” I say, looking around to make sure I did not miss anything.

Turning around to head back onto the forest trail leading back to the main office, I started walking quickly to try and make up for some lost time.

“This has to be the best time of year to see the forest,” I mutter looking around, taking in the sights along the trail.

The towering trees are a blaze of golden-yellow, red, orange, and brown. The leaves fall from the trees, blowing in the cool autumn wind, making the scenery an alluring sight to behold. The sun is still above the mountaintops, and the clear blue sky is a beautiful contrast to the colors within the forest. The ground is layered with mounds of sticks and leaves, some still wet from the rain the night before.

I started to shiver as a strong gust of wind blew through the forest. “Come,” A woman’s voice clearly says amongst the wind.

What the hell? Did she just say, come? That’s a new one.

“Where do you want me to go? Where are you?” I shout in response. Again, only silence.

Sighing aloud, “I guess she still doesn’t want to answer me?”

I continue on the forest trail for almost another twenty minutes. Arriving at my truck, I load everything into it. I then begin heading back to the main office. Another twenty minutes later, I arrive at the office.

Our office is a wide single-story building with a carport and a small parking lot that allows about a dozen vehicles to be parked out front. The paint is a faded brown with a deep green trim. The plants around the building seem in better condition than the building.

Where is everyone? I look around, not seeing any other vehicles.

I park my truck, get out, and head over to the main office door. I open it to find that the building is also empty.

The office building has a desk to the left upon entering where our main receptionist Kim  attends to visitors and takes calls. Several small booths fill the space behind Kim’s counter. Straight past the receptionist desk is a door leading into a storage room, to the right is another door to Doug’s office. In the far-left corner, another doorway that leads to the employee’s room.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” I ask aloud, curious about where everyone was. I walk through the office to the employee’s room to clock out, placing my samples and data I collected for the day onto a counter to the left side of the door leading to the employee’s room.

Silence filling the building, I begin to feel uncomfortable being there. “I’ll see everyone on Monday. Have a good weekend,” I call out, quickly clocking out, and head outside the building. I walk back over to my truck, start it up, and drive off.

My thoughts race as I begin driving back to my house, trying to figure out where everyone was.

That was weird. There’s always someone there. Maybe they already went home for the weekend? No, they would have locked up the building and turned everything off. They all just happened to be out for the moment? No, Kim’s and Doug’s trucks should have been there. They wouldn’t have just left everything like that. So, where the hell did everyone go?

The closest town to us was over an hour away, and to get there we had to travel rough mountain roads that snake through the forest. The company I work for, however, provided us with housing to offset driving risk and travel time.

Seeing the view of the forest this time of year is one of the main reasons I took the job here as a forest ranger. When I was a child, my parents took me on a trip north where I got to witness a scene similar to this. The colors in the forest were utterly breathtaking. Since then, I have been in love with this serene atmosphere.

The beauty of the forest finally calms me down after the awkwardness of being alone in the office, I begin to enjoy my drive home. Only two turns remain before I can see my house in the distance. Rounding another turn I notice, standing in the middle of the road, is a ghastly woman dressed in all white.

“Help,” I hear a voice quietly say, as the woman travels toward me.

I slam on the brake pedal of my truck. I close my eyes, hoping to not witness the disaster that was about to befall her as the truck slid to a halt…Yet, after waiting for a moment with my foot still firmly on the brake, there was no feeling of contact with her.

Did she jump out of the way?

I open my eyes and look around, seeing no signs of her anywhere around. I park my truck, getting out and looking around to make sure, but she is still nowhere to be found.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” I say calling out hoping to find the woman, trying to determine whether she was injured or not. I look around my truck again, then head off the road into the woods a bit to look for her, calling out several more times with no answer.

No one’s here. What the hell was that then...wait!? No, could that woman have been the voice I keep hearing.

“If this is your idea of a joke, it’s not funny!” I yell into the woods.

Man, this voice, well, I guess it’s not a voice anymore. Ghost? Spirit maybe? Whatever she is, she just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Maybe I should take Ray up on his offer to head down to the city for the weekend. This ghost is going to drive me crazy at this rate, or at least give me a heart attack.

Walking back to my truck, I get in, drive off, and round the final turn. I finally see my house in the distance.

What the hell is this?

My house had a similar outward appearance as the main office. It was  brown in color, but faded after years of sun damage. It had deep green trim, on the windows and door frame. It had a small garden, the flowers already dying back as they were beginning to enter dormancy for the winter. A small dirt path leads from the carport to the front door. Layers of leaves and sticks littered the area surrounding the house.

That was what my house would normally look like, yet what was greeting my eyes, pulling into my carport, was anything but normal.

The faded colors on the house's paint had been completely restored. The flowers in the garden were in full bloom as if it was the middle of spring. The dirt path leading to my house had been redone, now shaped into a fancy ornate pattern. The sticks and leaves around my house were gone, and the yard now had an astonishing lawn.

My heart starts to race, the atmosphere feeling off about this place. Pulling my phone out, I start trying to get a hold of Doug, hoping to find out if they did something to the employee houses.

“Beep, beep, sorry your cal-” I stop the call.

Dammit, no service!? Now of all times. Aren’t these phones supposed to have a signal out here?

Looking back at my house, I scan it over one more time before turning off my truck and getting out. I Walk over to the door. What am I doing right now? Getting worked up about entering my own house, but why’s it look so, new! I fiddle with the lock, only to find that it was already unlocked.

Did I maybe forget to lock the door before leaving this morning? Ah, maybe whoever came by to fix my house did some work inside too?

Opening the door, I see several of the lights on within the house, and hear the sound of running water. Is someone here? I know Ray said he would be here this evening, but his truck’s not here. I take a second to look back at the carport to make sure I did not miss an obvious vehicle. Pulling my pocket knife off my belt, I step inside.

The house was relatively small, designed for a small family at best. The house consisted of 3 rooms, the main room in which you would be upon entering the house. The main room opened up to the left, having a row of cabinets to divide the room into a narrow kitchen, with the slightly larger area being the living room. On the right wall of the living room were two doors, the one closest to the front door leading to the bathroom, while the farther led to the single bedroom. The house didn’t have any extravagant furniture, not that I’m complaining since it was fully furnished.

The lights within the kitchen and the living room are all on, and running water can be heard, coming from the kitchen, and likely from the bathroom as well.

Looking down at the wood floor, I see no traces of footprints. There are no traces of dirt on the floor at all. I try to keep my house clean, but living in the forest, it feels pointless to constantly try and keep the house spotless. However, the floors were pristine, looking newly installed and had yet to be walked on.

Scanning the room to see that no one was there, I slowly begin walking inside, keeping myself on guard for anyone that might be here. I go from room to room, but do not find a soul. With my house empty, the tension begins to drain from my body. Damn, I’m exhausted, I need to go to sleep. The sound of running water continues to break the silence, while the lights are all still on.

I head to the kitchen and then the bathroom to turn off the faucets, finding that both were already closed. I look them over to make sure I was not missing something obvious again. Nothing seems wrong, but the faucets are running water continuously even though the valves are supposed to be closed.

Looks like the faucets are busted. I’ll have to let Doug know so he can get someone out here to take a look at these.

Leaving the bathroom once more, I reach for a light switch to turn the lights off. After flipping the switch, the lights remain on. I turn back to look at the lights. Are you kidding me, the switch is busted too!? Please let it just be this one. I make my way out of the bathroom to check the other light switches within my house.

They’re all broken? Sighing aloud, I lay down on my bed, placing my forearm over my face. Well, I guess I’m going to have one heck of a water and electric bill this month. I laugh  to myself, when suddenly something flickers in the corner of my vision.

There are scented candles that had been left lit, presumably by whoever was here earlier working on my house. I wonder what would have smelled so bad for them to leave scented candles here? With the room not smelling poorly, the pleasant scent of the ocean now filling it, there is no longer a reason to keep them on.

Sitting up and walking over to blow them out, I notice something, the flames flicker for a moment, changing from a yellow-orange flame to a deep blue. The flame then flares upward before changing back. Wha, what the hell? Subconsciously, I raise my arms to cover myself.

Yea, I definitely need sleep, I’m acting paranoid around candles. I guess I’ll take a nap before Ray shows up.

I lean over to blow out the candles, when the ground begins shaking violently I stand with my face above the flames, trying to maintain my balance. An earthquake?  Several seconds later, with the ground settling down, I began blowing on the candles, but the flames refuse to go out. Huh? Again, I blow on the candles, but to no avail. A cold sweat now forms across my body, as an eerie feeling now spreads throughout the room.

Something’s wrong, I need to get out of here. I- I need to leave. I begin making my way back to the front door. As I try to open it, a force blows the door open. A dark, night-filled sky greets me, with several streaks of lightning crossing the sky. Wind, rain, and snow are all in a raging storm that covers the sky.

Why’s it dark, where’d the sun go? I was only inside for a couple of minutes. The storm pelts me as I stand at my doorway. And where’d this storm come from, there wasn’t anything like this on the news?

I turn around, my sight instantly filling with fire. Ah! Wha- what's going on? I take a few steps outside into the fury of the storm. The interior of my house is now ablaze with yellow flames.

Running over to my carport to take shelter from the storm, getting into my truck, I begin trying to start it. “Why are you not starting now of all times!?” I exclaimed, looking back over at my house. The flames are now consuming the entirety of the building, spreading out onto the yard and toward the carport.

The wind, rain, and snow, look like they are combining with the inferno, the flames changing from yellow to various shades of blue, with the ends of the flames being orange and white in color.

The fire continues to spread out, seemingly toward me. I get out of my truck and begin running along the main road. The weather beats down on me, the ground slick from the water and ice that now covers the dirt road.

Moments later, the ground starts shaking again, more violently than before. The ground in front of me cracks until the road breaks in two, it is as if there’s now a gorge in front of me. The gap is too far to jump across, and too deep to safely jump down.

The gorge to my front, and the  continuously spreading fire to my right and back, I pause. WHAT THE FUCK!? Looking around, I instantly start running the only direction I have remaining, down the hill to my left leading into the forest.

Whilst running through the forest, the flames follow behind me. The darkness and harsh storm combine to make it extremely difficult to discern where I am going.

After working in the forest for several months, I have become accustomed to traversing certain areas within the forest. Yet, trying to navigate the forest at the moment is more challenging compared to when I had first arrived here as a forest ranger.

The ground is more arduous as the roots on the ground are getting more prevalent. The foliage on the shrubs and lower branches on the trees are more prolific, brushing, swatting, and slicing against my skin as I run through the forest.

The more I run, the worse the conditions become. The weather rages on progressively getting worse. The darkness shrouds what little vision I have remaining. The vegetation thickens, causing me to constantly trip, fall, or run into something.

I hit yet another tree, this one collapsed on its side. The trunk of the tree comes up to my shoulders, so I begin pulling myself up to climb over. Sliding my stomach across the top of the tree, I slip off and fall on my face.

I lay there for a moment, realizing something suddenly feels different. Did the rain stop? Getting up and looking around, I see that there is no more rain, or snow. In its place, a deep thick fog has appeared. Silence now surrounds me as the wind is perfectly still.

A short distance in front of me, a white light shines, hovering in the air.

“Help,” A voice says, seeming to be originating from the light.

No, no way. It was her!?

“Was this all your doing!?” I yell aloud, walking over toward the ominous light.

“Did you do all this, just to bring me out here!?” I scream, panic in my voice, as the tension in my body continues to rise.

The light, flickering for a moment, begins slowly moving toward me. Now, right in front of me, I hear a voice say as if whispering into my ear. “Sorry.”

Wait, it's sorry? Did it actually respond to me? Confused about the word that was just said, I sigh aloud, feeling my body relax a little as the tension begins to disappear.

“So, now what?” I ask the light as I continue my rant, feelings of fear and confusion starting to be replaced by anger. “You brought me all the way out here, and for what?”

I wait for a moment, then sigh again, “Back to the silent treatment huh?” I say, starting to feel depressed. Even though I am now speaking directly to the entity living within the woods, it still does not seem to want to talk.

“Sorry,” The voice whispers again.

Is it apologizing for scaring me? Maybe for not answering me? “What are you sorry for?” I ask.

The light, flickering once more, begins expanding at an incredibly fast rate. Within seconds the white light envelops me, and a warmth surrounds me. Then, as quickly as it expanded, the light and warmth vanish.

What’s happening to me? My body…I can’t move…

All of the strength leaves my limbs. I fall to my knees, then collapse onto the ground. I lay there on the forest floor, my body weak, motionless. A wave of dizziness starts to come over me. Dizziness gradually transforms to drowsiness until my eyelids become heavy.

I can’t… feel… my body… Am I…dying?

My thoughts become more clouded, the drowsiness pulling me deeper into sleep. Laying there confused, scared, and lifeless, sleep finally consumes me.