the timber

Thomas McAllister had been cutting trees in the dense forest for over thirty years. The wilderness was his second home, a place where he found solace and purpose. But that day, the forest felt...different. A thick, unnatural fog rolled through the canopy, and soon he realized he had ventured too far from camp. Alone and disoriented, he swung his axe over his shoulder and tried to retrace his steps—but the forest wasn’t having it.

The trees seemed to move when he wasn't looking. Branches twisted, reaching down like bony fingers. He recognized no landmarks. Every path he followed circled back to where he started, as though the woods themselves were playing a cruel joke.

Night fell quickly, plunging him into a suffocating darkness. The cold gnawed at his bones, but it was the silence that frightened him the most. Not even the nocturnal animals stirred—no owls, no insects, just an oppressive, unnatural quiet. It was as if the forest held its breath, waiting for something to happen.

Hours stretched into an eternity until he heard the first sound: a distant, rhythmic knocking. It echoed through the woods, slow and deliberate, like an axe chopping into wood. Hope surged in Thomas’s chest—another lumberjack! He followed the sound, his heart pounding with each step.

But the deeper he ventured, the more the sound changed. The rhythm grew slower, heavier...and closer. Soon, it was no longer the steady knock of an axe—it sounded like something enormous dragging itself through the underbrush. A wet, slithering noise followed the knock, accompanied by the faintest whiff of rot and decay.

Thomas’s breath hitched as the sound stopped, suddenly and completely. Then, from behind him, a voice whispered through the trees:

"You've taken too much. Now it's time to give it back."

His axe felt useless in his trembling hands. He turned slowly and saw it—something ancient, something born from the very heart of the forest. It towered over him, a writhing mass of bark and roots, its eyes glowing with malice. Branches jutted from its form like twisted antlers, and its mouth stretched into a grin filled with thorns.

Thomas ran. He ran until his lungs burned, but the forest closed in around him, branches snatching at his clothes, roots rising to trip his feet. He screamed for help, but the woods swallowed his cries.

The next morning, searchers found his camp abandoned. His axe was embedded deep into a tree, and carved into the bark were three words: "I am home."

No one ever found Thomas McAllister. But some say, if you venture deep enough into those woods, you can still hear the slow, rhythmic knock of an axe—and feel the forest watching, waiting for its next visitor to take more than it should.