Investigators examined the Douglas fir closely. Nearly 130 feet tall. Its canopy too thick for aerial placement. No storm could have carried a man 30 feet up and wedged him neatly between limbs.
The body was not tangled. It was positioned.
The bluff was remote, steep, unmarked. Not a place someone would wander into by accident.
Daniel had been dead for over a year. The cold preserved him in unsettling detail. His limbs hung symmetrically. No animal scavenging. No insect damage.
His boots were found at the base of the tree, side by side, aligned precisely, facing due north.
The paracord around his wrists was loosely knotted, symbolic more than functional.
And wedged between branches above him was a sealed plastic bag containing six torn, yellowed pages in Daniel’s handwriting.
The first was dated October 15, 2022.
I heard them again last night.
Another read: The trees are watching. Not all of them. Just the tall ones. The ones that never move, even when the wind does.
There were drawings—twisted limbs, wide dark eyes, a distorted figure with arms too long and a mouth like a jagged void. Beneath it: Not human. Never was.
Another entry: It’s not a place you go to. It’s a place that finds you. I thought I came here. But I was brought.
The writing grew slanted and uneven. Ink smeared.
They don’t like light.
They wait until the mind opens.
The final page bore a single legible sentence:
If you find this, it’s already too late.
Forensics confirmed the handwriting was Daniel’s. No other fingerprints. No foreign DNA.
Emily read the pages once and refused to see them again.
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