CHAPTER 2 — THE CURSE BURIED FOR TWO CENTURIES
The old ranger refused to step closer.
His hands shook uncontrollably.
"I haven't seen that symbol since I was a boy."
Jack frowned.
"What symbol?"
The ranger pointed toward the roots.
Carved deep into the wood was a strange spiral surrounding an eye.
Almost invisible beneath two hundred years of bark.
"My grandfather warned everyone never to enter this part of the forest after sunset."
The officers exchanged skeptical glances.
The ranger continued.
"In 1827..."
"A young surveyor disappeared here."
"They searched for months."
"No body."
"No blood."
"No footprints."
Only his horse returned.
Completely terrified.
The old stories claimed the forest had taken him.
Everyone laughed at the legend.
Until today.
Police ordered the trunk split open completely.
Chainsaws roared once more.
As the wood separated, dozens of strange objects began falling onto the ground.
Old coins.
Rusted buttons.
Broken watches.
Children's toys.
Silver rings.
Everything looked centuries old.
Then...
A leather journal slid from inside the trunk.
Perfectly preserved.
Despite spending nearly two hundred years inside solid wood.
Nobody could explain it.
The first page contained only one sentence.
"If you are reading this..."
"...the tree has finally let me go."
Every officer froze.
The handwriting continued across hundreds of pages.
The surveyor described becoming lost after following mysterious voices.
He wrote about a tree that seemed to move whenever he looked away.
Roots that wrapped around his legs.
Branches that bent toward him.
At first, he believed he was hallucinating.
Then he realized...
The tree wasn't growing.
It was hunting.
The final entry stopped everyone cold.
"I can still breathe."
"I can't move."
"The wood is inside my chest now."
"I hear another traveler coming."
"It needs someone else..."
"...before it finishes with me."
Nobody spoke.
The forest became eerily silent.
Even insects had disappeared.
Suddenly...
A loud cracking sound echoed behind them.
Everyone spun around.
The stump of the fallen tree...
Was moving.
Tiny green shoots burst from the center.
Growing before their eyes.
Not over days.
Not over hours.
Within seconds.
Then every radio on site erupted with deafening static.
One officer looked toward the darkness between the trees.
"There..."
He whispered.
"I swear..."
"I just saw someone standing there."
May you like
The figure smiled.
Then disappeared.
