Chapter 1: Read, Obey, Regret

Chapter 1: Read, Obey, Regret

The city’s noise clung to Alex Ryder like a shroud, a persistent hum in his bones that even the deep woods couldn’t entirely silence. He leaned against the rough bark of a pine, dragging a breath of cool, damp air into his lungs. This was supposed to be the cure. Whispering Pines, the sprawling forest that bordered his hometown of Havenwood, had always been his escape hatch from the crushing pressure of spreadsheets, deadlines, and the ghost of a life he was supposed to want.

His posture was a knot of tension, his shoulders tight beneath the straps of his hiking pack. At 28, his dark eyes already held the weariness of a much older man. He was a data analyst, a professional pattern-finder, yet the patterns of his own life—work, sleep, repeat—were suffocating him. Even the recent breakup with Sarah felt less like a sharp pain and more like another system failure, another data point proving his own disconnect.

He pushed off the tree, venturing deeper, away from the marked trail. He wanted silence. Real silence. The kind that was so absolute it felt like a presence. The pines grew impossibly tall here, their dense canopy swallowing the afternoon light and leaving the forest floor in a perpetual twilight. Moss hung from branches like skeletal fingers, and the air grew still, heavy. An unease pricked at him, a feeling of being watched that he dismissed as city-bred paranoia.

That’s when he saw it.

In a small, unnaturally perfect clearing, was a single flat-topped boulder. Resting upon it, as if placed for a ceremony, was a book. It was bound in dark, cracked leather, with no title or markings on the cover. It looked ancient, something that should have been under glass in a museum, not lying here in the damp wilderness.

Driven by a curiosity that momentarily overrode his unease, Alex approached. He nudged the book with a finger. It was real. He picked it up. The leather was cool and smooth beneath his fingertips, and the book itself had a surprising weight. He ran a thumb over the cover, his innate habit of checking for things—keys, wallet, phone—now focused on this strange object.

He opened it.

The pages were thick, yellowed parchment, and nearly all of them were blank. A faint, earthy scent rose from them, like old paper and dried leaves. Except for the first page. On it, written in a stark, elegant script of black ink, was a single, simple directive.

Rule #1: At 3:03 PM, call a relative you have not spoken to in over a year. Tell them only this: “They remember you.” Then hang up.

Alex blinked, reading it again. He let out a short, nervous laugh. What the hell was this? Some kind of bizarre art project? A geocaching game for occultists? It was absurd. It was stupid. It was… intriguing.

He checked his phone. 2:58 PM.

A weird, prickling sensation ran down his spine. The precision of it—the exact time—appealed to the analyst in him. It was a clear, executable command. His mind, trained to follow logical steps, felt an odd pull. Who would he even call? His mother? No, they spoke last week, their conversation strained as always since his father’s death. Most of his family was close.

Then a name surfaced from the dusty archives of his memory: his cousin, Leo. They hadn’t spoken in at least three years, not since a bitter argument at a family funeral had severed their once-close bond. Leo worked construction, lived two states away, and was as stubborn as Alex. A perfect candidate.

This is insane, he thought. But the alternative was hiking back to his car, driving back to his empty apartment, and drowning in the familiar static of his life. This, at least, was different. A harmless, creepy prank to break the monotony. A story he could tell his friend Mark later over a beer.

His phone felt heavy in his hand as the time ticked to 3:02 PM. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. The perpetual whisper of the pines had fallen silent. It was just him, the book, and a single, stupid rule.

With a shrug that was meant to feel casual but felt anything but, he found Leo’s number in his contacts. He hesitated for a moment, his thumb hovering over the call button. The fear of his father’s death, the guilt of causing pain, was a deep, unhealed wound. Was this a good idea? It was just a joke. A stupid joke.

At exactly 3:03 PM, he pressed the button.

The phone rang twice before Leo picked up. “Hello?” His voice was rough, background noise clattering like a construction site.

Alex’s heart hammered against his ribs. He opened his mouth, the words feeling foreign and ridiculous. “They remember you.”

There was a confused silence on the other end. “What? Who is this? Alex?”

Following the rule to the letter, Alex ended the call. He stared at his phone, a strange cocktail of adrenaline and foolishness coursing through him. He had actually done it. He laughed again, louder this time, the sound swallowed by the oppressive quiet of the woods. He slipped the strange book into the side pocket of his pack, the weight of it a tangible reminder of his bizarre impulse.

The hike back was different. The forest no longer felt peaceful or even just passively menacing. It felt active. Predatory. Every shadow seemed to stretch towards him, every fallen branch looked like a coiled snake at the edge of his vision. The setting sun cast long, distorted shadows that danced like grotesque figures. He felt a desperate urge to run.

He was nearly at the trailhead, the familiar sight of the parking lot visible through the trees, when his phone shattered the silence. The screen flashed with a picture of his mother. His heart seized.

He answered, his voice tight. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

He was met with a sound he hadn’t heard in years, not since the day his father died. It was the sound of his mother’s world completely and utterly breaking apart. A raw, hysterical wail that was barely human.

“Alex!” she shrieked, her words mangled by sobs. “Alex, it’s Leo! Oh God, Leo!”

A cold dread, absolute and paralyzing, washed over him. The trees around him seemed to lean in, listening.

“Mom, slow down. What happened?” he asked, his own voice a distant whisper.

“He’s dead!” she screamed. “There was an accident! At work! A crane… the cable snapped… a steel beam… it just… it fell right on him! The police said… they said it was instantaneous. Alex, it happened just a few minutes ago!”

Time stopped. Alex’s gaze dropped to the digital clock on his phone’s screen. 3:17 PM.

Just a few minutes ago.

The book in his pack suddenly felt like it was burning a hole through the fabric, a lead weight dragging him down into a nightmare. The analyst in his brain, the part that lived for patterns and cause-and-effect, made a connection so swift and so horrifying it stole the air from his lungs.

The clearing. The rule. The call.

“They remember you.”

It wasn’t a prank. It wasn’t a game. It was a command, an instruction he had followed like a fool. And his cousin had paid the price.

The forest was no longer a sanctuary. It was a witness. He looked back into the deep, dark woods, and for the first time, he understood that the oppressive feeling of being watched wasn't paranoia. It was an acknowledgement. He had read the rule. He had obeyed. And now, the true regret was just beginning. He wasn’t just a hiker who had found a book; he was its new player.