Eli stared out from the fire tower, the wind pulling at his jacket as he looked out over the vast expanse of trees and hills. The sky was a dull gray, almost like it was holding its breath. He'd seen a lot of storms in his time up here, but this felt different. It wasn't the weather—it was the weight of the world outside. The wind wasn't carrying just the usual smells of pine and damp earth; it carried something else, something unidentifiable.
He rubbed his eyes, blinking hard as if to shake off a bad dream. Maybe it was the isolation messing with his mind. The radio hadn't broadcasted much recently—just static, more than usual. The towns below were quiet, but they should've been more than that. Eli wasn't sure how long he'd been alone here—six months? Eight? Time was a blur when you lived on your own, a hundred feet above the ground, a tower separating you from the world.
His only company was Roy, a maintenance worker who came up every few weeks to check on things. Roy always smelled like engine oil and had a certain detached attitude about him, a quiet grumpiness that suggested he didn't want to be here either. They didn't talk much, but Eli liked it that way. Roy was the kind of guy who didn't get tangled up in the finer points of conversation. He just showed up, did his work, and left.
"Roy, you hear anything on the radio today?" Eli asked, not taking his eyes off the view.
Roy didn't look up from his work, fiddling with the tools scattered across the table. "Nothing worth listening to," he muttered, his voice thick and rough like gravel. "Same old static."
Eli chewed on his lower lip. The radio was his only link to the outside world, and lately, even it had been unreliable. Static had become more frequent, and the occasional broadcast from the emergency channels sounded distorted—like the world was struggling to keep things together.
"I swear, something's going on," Eli said, glancing over at Roy. "You noticed it too, right? Smoke? In the distance?"
Roy didn't respond at first. He continued sorting through the tools as if he hadn't heard the question.
"Roy?" Eli pressed, his voice tight.
Roy finally paused and looked up. "What smoke?"
"I'm telling you," Eli said, stepping closer to the window. "I've been seeing smoke on the horizon for the past few days. It doesn't make sense. There's no fire anywhere nearby, but it's getting worse. And the sky… it's not right."
Roy gave him a long, sideways glance, a slow, deliberate motion. Then he returned to his task. "Could be from the city, kid. Lotta factories down south. Don't overthink it."
Eli frowned, pressing his hands against the cool glass. He didn't like Roy's nonchalant response. He wanted to believe it was just something minor—just a regular thing that could be explained away by smoke and wind. But his gut told him it was something else. Something much worse.
"I'm not overthinking it. You should've seen it. It's not just smoke," Eli said, his voice rising a little. "The air smells weird—kind of like metal. And the sky's… different, like a shadow hanging over everything."
Roy stood up suddenly, wiping his hands on his pants. "Kid, it's just the weather. You're out here too much, you start seeing things that aren't there. It's not healthy, all this isolation."
Eli shook his head. "You don't get it. You don't see it from up here. Things are changing. The whole world feels like it's holding its breath. And I—I don't know if it's gonna keep waiting."
Roy turned toward the door, picking up his jacket and shrugging it on. "Look, you're young. You're gonna have these moments, questioning what's going on out there. Happens to everyone who's stuck up here alone. The wind messes with you. The quiet does that to a person. But it'll pass."
"It's not the wind, Roy," Eli said, his voice low but firm. "I can feel it. Whatever's out there, it's creeping closer. The closer I look, the more I see."
Roy gave a grunt, reaching for the door. "Alright, alright. I get it. Just… be careful. You don't know what's out there anymore."
Eli bit his lip, his mind racing. He wasn't sure what Roy meant by that—was it a warning, or was Roy just tired of hearing him talk? Either way, the fire tower felt smaller with each passing day. It was becoming harder to stay in this little cage when the world outside felt like it was falling apart.
Roy paused in the doorway. "You've got a good setup up here. Don't waste it. The outside world? Ain't nothing out there but ruin."
With that, he was gone, leaving Eli alone again. The door slammed behind him, and the silence returned. The quiet wasn't comforting—it was suffocating. The wind outside howled louder now, carrying a chill that made Eli shiver. He turned back to the window and stared out at the distance. He couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that something was coming, something big.
The following morning, the sky had turned a strange shade of yellow. Not the warm kind you get at sunrise—this was sickly, like bruised parchment. Eli sat by the radio, twisting the dial slowly, trying to catch anything besides the familiar static. Every few seconds, he'd hear a flicker—half a voice, a word clipped by noise—but never enough to understand.
"…Evacuation…"
"…repeat…multiple sites…"
"…confirmed impact…"
And then back to static.
He leaned forward, pressing his ear closer. The voice was garbled, distorted like it had traveled through something broken. Each transmission sounded more desperate than the last. Then silence again.
He turned the radio off.
Eli didn't know what to make of it. That word—impact—kept echoing in his mind. He stepped outside and leaned over the railing, scanning the tree line. The air was heavy with ash today. Tiny flakes drifted down like snow. He caught one on his glove and rubbed it between his fingers. It left a smudge.
That wasn't from any forest fire.
He looked out past the hills, where the ridgelines met the sky. There—just barely visible—was that faint column of smoke again. It hadn't stopped. If anything, it had grown thicker.
There were no storms in the forecast. No lightning strikes. No reason for that kind of burn.
His stomach twisted.
He went back inside, flipping through the sparse supply logs. Nothing had been restocked in weeks. Roy usually brought up new boxes—cans, water, gear. But the last run was late, and Roy hadn't radioed since he left two days ago. Eli told himself Roy was just behind schedule.
But then, why hadn't anyone else come?
He found himself pacing the tower, glancing out the windows every few minutes like a dog waiting for its owner. Normally he liked the isolation. That was part of the deal—solitude, quiet, space to think. But now the silence felt haunted. Each gust of wind brought more ash. Each night the sky seemed a little darker.
Eli sat back at the table and unfolded the old paper map Roy had given him when he first took the job. The nearest town was almost fifty miles west, beyond the low mountain ridge. There were smaller outposts between here and there, but he hadn't heard from any of them. The phone lines had been dead for weeks.
A knock came at the door.
Eli jolted, heart hammering.
It came again—soft, deliberate.
He grabbed the flare gun off the wall and crept to the door. "Who is it?"
No answer.
He pulled the door open and squinted into the fog.
No one.
But on the landing sat a plastic box. Familiar—same kind Roy used to bring up supplies. It looked untouched, but there were no tracks leading up to the door. The ash should've shown them, even if someone had just dropped it off.
Eli stepped out and nudged the box with his boot. It rattled lightly.
He brought it inside and pried the lid open. Inside: three cans of beans, two bottles of water, a folded note. Nothing else.
He unfolded the paper. The handwriting was uneven, rushed.
"Don't go down the mountain. Not yet. They're watching the roads. I'll be back before nightfall. – R"
Eli stared at the note, unsure what to feel.
Relief? Dread?
The handwriting wasn't Roy's.
He knew that for certain.
He looked outside again, down the long metal staircase to the forest floor. No movement. Just trees and fog. The yellow-gray sky felt lower than before.
He placed the note on the table, sat down, and waited.
He sat by the window as the hours crawled by, eyes flicking between the treeline and the ash-speckled horizon. The food stayed untouched on the table. He couldn't eat. Every few minutes he'd glance at the note again—still just as short, just as wrong.
The light outside began to dim, and for a moment he thought maybe night was coming early. But the sun was still up—hidden behind the choking gray—and there, just over the distant ridge, a flicker. A flash. Barely more than a blink. Like lightning with no thunder. Then nothing.
Eli stood slowly.
It happened again. A soft pulse of light. Too low to be the sun, too far to be anything local. He pressed his face against the glass. The air looked warped, like heat was rising off the hills.
He stepped out onto the balcony, letting the cold ash settle on his shoulders. His eyes narrowed.
Another flash.
Quick, quiet, colorless.
It was so faint that if you weren't looking for it, you'd miss it.
Eli had seen lightning storms from up here before. They danced across the valleys, loud and raw, their rumbles rolling in long after the sky lit up.
But these flashes? These came with nothing.
No sound.
No clouds.
Just light—blunt and artificial, like a camera shutter going off in the dark.
He stepped back inside and scribbled the time on a page in his logbook.
17:46 – Third flash over western ridge. No thunder. Possibly man-made.
He tapped the pencil against the table, staring at the page like it might explain something. But it didn't.
He checked the radio again. Still static. Still nothing.
By sundown, the fog had thickened, swallowing the base of the tower in gray. He couldn't see more than a few dozen feet into the trees. It felt like being perched on an island above a sea of ghosts.
Another flash.
This one brighter.
Eli didn't bother logging it.
Instead, he climbed into the cot and pulled the scratchy wool blanket over himself, fully dressed. He didn't expect to sleep. He just wanted to be still.
But sometime deep into the night, a sound woke him.
Not a voice. Not the wind.
It was the metallic creak of the tower steps.
He held his breath, eyes wide open in the dark.
One step.
Then two.
Someone—or something—was climbing.
He reached for the flare gun again, hand trembling.
Then silence.
Not another footfall. Not even a breeze.
Just the thick, suffocating stillness of the fog and the ash, and the soft ringing in his ears.
Eli didn't move.
Didn't sleep.
Didn't blink.
He waited until dawn.
When the gray light of morning finally bled into the sky, Eli sat up slowly. His back ached from the way he'd curled into himself all night, but the flare gun was still in his hand. His knuckles were white around it.
He crept to the door and pressed his ear to it.
Nothing.
No wind.
No steps.
The fog had lifted slightly, revealing the metal stairs spiraling down into the trees—still dusted with ash, undisturbed.
No footprints.
He opened the door and stepped out, squinting into the morning. The world looked even more colorless than before, like it had been drained overnight. He scanned the woods below. Quiet. Empty. The kind of silence that should've felt peaceful, but didn't.
On the horizon, another flash.
This time he didn't flinch.
He just stared at it.
Measured it.
It was slow. Heavy. Like a pulse too big to belong to anything natural.
He checked the logbook again.
06:17 – Fourth flash. Still west. Same interval.
He lingered with the pencil in his hand, tapping it once against the edge of the table. Then twice.
Then stopped.
There was no pattern. No logic. But still—he felt like something was pressing down from the sky. Not metaphorically. Literally. Like the air had gotten thicker, heavier. His lungs worked harder for every breath, and the pressure behind his eyes was growing.
He didn't say anything out loud. Not even to himself. But he noticed.
He noticed everything.
By midmorning, he climbed back into the chair facing west. The binoculars had collected dust again—he wiped them clean with the edge of his shirt and raised them slowly.
The hills looked the same.
The valley was as dead as ever.
But then, something caught his eye—out in the far distance.
A shape.
Not quite moving. Not quite still.
He adjusted the lens.
It looked like a tree line had collapsed. Not just fallen, but stripped clean, like something had rolled through it. The tops were all snapped in the same direction. No fire. No smoke. Just—gone.
Flattened.
A line of destruction trailing over the ridge like a scar.
He lowered the binoculars and ran a hand over his face.
"Roy… what the hell did you walk into?" he muttered.
Later, while boiling water for another bland meal, he heard it again.
A sound.
Not wind.
Not wildlife.
Something deeper. Mechanical.
A rumble—faint, and too far to place. It came from the north this time, low and long, like the growl of some buried machine.
Eli stood at the window. Watched. Waited.
Nothing came over the ridge.
No smoke. No fire.
But the sound lingered in his head long after it faded.
He sat back down, but this time he didn't eat.
He didn't bother to mark the flash or the rumble in the logbook.
What was the point?
The book had rules. Procedures. Guidelines for reporting fires, for tracking clouds, for recording the lives of animals and trees and hikers.
But none of that mattered now.
Because the rules were for a world that still worked.
And outside this tower, even Eli could tell… the world wasn't working anymore.