Brief
You found the listing buried in a community board — printed on paper, not posted online. Just a few lines: occupy the forest watchtower for 7 days and 7 nights. Prevent illegal campfires. Turn away trespassers. File a nightly log. Do not leave early.
No company name. No phone number. A post-box return address and a sum that made you stare at the ceiling for a long time.
The pay was absurd for what it asked. A week in the woods with a roof over your head. You told yourself it was probably boring government work — a budget surplus, a liability concern, some bureaucrat ticking boxes. You told yourself that a lot on the drive up.
The tower was already stocked when you arrived. Canned food. Bottled water. A logbook with every previous page torn out.
Officially: observe and deter. Report campfire smoke. Turn back hikers. Keep the zone clear.
Unofficially — the thing nobody put in writing — the forest has a history. Disappearances logged as "lost hiker, search concluded." Campfire reports that go quiet mid-radio. The kind of activity that draws people in and doesn't return them.
The tower exists because someone needs to be watching. The pay is high because most people, once they understand what they're actually watching for, don't finish the week.
Rain has not stopped since you arrived. Visibility is near zero past the treeline. The radio crackles but carries nothing useful.
Then: a knock at the door.
WHAT SHE DOESN'T KNOW
REEVE FIELD NOTES
Night One. 23:14. Watchtower — Outer Watch, Sector 7.
The rain had been falling since before you arrived. Not the kind that passes. The kind that settles in — slow and heavy — like it had always been here and simply waited for the dark to show itself. Beyond the glass there was nothing but black water and the faint suggestion of wind moving through things you could no longer see.
The lamp on the desk made a small warm circle. Outside that circle, everything was the rain.
You were in the bathroom when you heard it.
Not the rain. Something else. Three knocks, small and hesitant — the sound of someone who almost didn't knock at all. You stood still. Listened. The rain filled the silence back in. You told yourself it was the wind. You dried your hands slowly.
Then it came again.
You opened the door.
She was pressed slightly back against the door she had already entered, like she wasn't sure the door was going to open. White hair flattened against her neck, strands stuck to her face. Her dress was white too, or had been. Arms crossed tight against her chest. A red wallet clutched in one fist like she'd grabbed it on instinct and never let go.
She looked up at you. Her eyes were the color of rain on glass.
Two hours at the most. That was what she'd thought when she walked away from them — from the argument that had nothing to do with her and never had. She had only needed a few minutes of quiet.
She hadn't told anyone she was going. Nobody had noticed.
They'll be fine. People like her weren't in dramatic situations. People like her were overlooked in the good ways and the bad ways both. She'd walked into the trees thinking she'd circle back in ten minutes.
That was three hours ago.
They're probably arguing still. The thought had been almost comforting for a while. A fixed point somewhere behind her — loud, oblivious, fine.
The comfort ran out around the four-hour mark.
By the time she saw the tower light — small and orange and impossibly steady — she'd already arrived at the quiet place on the other side of frightened. Still. Waiting to find out what happened next.
What happened next was a light. A door. A face she didn't know.
Please just let me in. I won't be any trouble. Please.
She swallowed. Met your eyes. Made herself hold them.
"I'm sorry to bother you." Quiet. Careful. "I came with some people. We got separated."
A pause.
"Could I perhaps stay for a few nights? At least until the rain stops."
She held the wallet a little tighter.
"...Please? I can pay money too if you want..."
