Administrator Log [The First Sign]

Here's an extra worldbuilding document that was unlocked astonishingly quickly. If anyone missed it, I mentioned it in the last announcement here - I basically started a small puzzle in the Patreon ad of chapter 49. 

A summary of how the puzzle was solved can be found in the author's notes of Chapter 50 on RoyalRoad. Patreon's a good place to track all the logs though! 

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Decrypting file [The First Sign]... File decrypted.

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We had a thousand different guesses on how this could have started. What the first sign was. Whether we could have done anything more, if only we had known sooner.

Had. We don't have most of those guesses anymore. What we have left runs closer to urban legends than anything - but this particular tale always struck me as poignant.

I mean. Tale. Interview log. Whatever.

I don't know why. Maybe it's because it sounds like a life I might have lived. I just feel like I should record it, just in case, so it's not lost like everything else... but I guess this isn't safe either. Probably. We'll see if those <ERROR - DATA LOST> do anything.

I'm not the best storyteller, but here goes.

There's an urban legend of a Forbidden Forest. It's a forest that moves around from place to place, never staying still; if you ever see a forest that wasn't there before, the rules say you have to stay quiet, and walk away as quickly as you can. Don't look directly at it, but don't look away from it, either. Keep it in the corner of your eye, lest it catch up with you when you're not looking.

If you fail, it's not the end of the world. You'll find yourself in a dark, gloomy woods; the trees will be dead, and you'll hear the crunch of leaves beneath your feet, but if you look down, you'll find nothing there. If ever that sound turns into the sound of bones, close your eyes tight, and keep walking until you just hear leaves again.

God. I feel like I'm typing out one of those stupid scary stories that soldiers like to share around campfires. But look, it's important to  remember. I'm gonna skip all the rest of the rules; they don't matter anyway. I think they're there to make the story feel creepy. But there's one part... there's one part that made us think it might be a Sign, and not just another creepy story.

Because what's the point of a creepy story with an ending like this?

The thing is, the Forbidden Forest is gone. No one talks about it anymore, and when I talk to other people - other people that know the legend! - they act like I'm nuts. All the people that went missing in the Forest? We used to have a memorial for them. But the memorial is gone, too. I checked. I fucking checked. The tombstones are still there, but the stone is wiped clean.

I have... I have a doll. A doll I kept. It's from my little sister, before she left - before she vanished into that fucking forest. It's the only reason I don't think I'm insane, I guess. But I'm starting to wonder anyway.

I dunno why this story felt so poignant to me. But I felt like I should log it, so I did. They tell us to log everything these days.

Anyway. <ERROR - NAME PURGED> out.