Where the Trees Watch – Chapter 24
The Voice Waiting Above Them
The moment Walter’s voice drifted down from the tower, Ryan felt the air around the cliffside grow heavier. Fog curled through the staircase railings while the old wooden structure creaked softly above them, as though shifting beneath the weight of whoever stood inside the watch room.
But Walter wasn’t here.
Ryan knew that.
He had left the ranger station miles behind them at the forest entrance.
Yet the voice from above sounded perfect. Calm. Tired. Familiar.
Exactly like Walter.
Ryan Mercer slowly looked toward Mason, expecting immediate panic or denial, but the guide only stared upward at the tower with hollow fear spreading across his face.
Claire whispered carefully, “It followed us here.”
Another floorboard creaked overhead.
Then Walter’s copied voice returned.
“Ryan… hurry.”
The way it spoke his name unsettled him deeply. Not because it sounded threatening.
Because it sounded personal.
Like something that knew him intimately now.
Ryan glanced toward the valley below the ridge. The pale lantern lights still climbed slowly through Blackwood beneath thick fog, moving steadily closer through the forest paths beneath the cliffside.
They were running out of time.
Mason finally spoke quietly. “The tower has a radio room on the upper level.” His eyes never left the dark windows above. “If the equipment still works, that’s our only chance.”
Claire looked horrified. “You want him to go up there?”
“No,” Mason answered immediately. “But it asked for him specifically.”
The sentence settled coldly between them.
Ryan’s stomach tightened as pieces finally began connecting in his head. The photographs scratching him out. Claire struggling to remember him. The smiling copy wearing his face.
Blackwood wasn’t randomly choosing people.
It was replacing them one by one.
And whatever waited inside Tower Four had almost finished learning him completely.
Then the whistle echoed softly from above.
Not distant anymore.
Inside the tower.
Ryan slowly stepped toward the staircase before either of them could stop him.
Claire grabbed his sleeve instantly. “Don’t.”
He looked back at her.
For a second she seemed ready to say something important, but uncertainty flickered across her expression again — that same horrible hesitation like she couldn’t fully remember who he was anymore.
That hurt more than the fear.
Ryan gently pulled free from her grip.
“If the radio works, I’ll call for help and get back down.”
Mason opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but another whistle sounded from the forest below them. Much closer this time. Several lantern lights had already reached the lower ridge beneath the tower.
They had no time left.
Ryan climbed the staircase alone.
Every step groaned beneath his boots while cold wind moved through the open railings around the tower. The higher he climbed, the quieter Blackwood became below him until eventually he could no longer hear Claire or Mason at all.
Only the soft crackling sound of an old record player somewhere above.
The watch room door stood slightly open near the top platform.
Warm yellow light spilled through the gap.
Ryan reached the final step slowly, his heartbeat hammering in his chest.
Then he pushed the door open.
The inside of Tower Four looked untouched by time.
Old maps covered the walls beside dusty shelves filled with ranger logs and weather equipment. A record player spun softly near the corner beside a lantern glowing warm against the darkness outside the windows.
And sitting calmly at the center table—
was Ryan.
The copy looked up slowly from an open notebook and smiled.
Not the wide unnatural smile from the forest.
A normal smile.
Ryan’s smile.
“You took longer than I expected,” it said softly.