What The World Leaves Behind

There is a place in Zaithar where the trees whisper your name.

It does not matter if you were born in the city or raised in the mountains. It does not matter if you have never stepped foot beyond the safety of the roads. The forest knows you. It has always known you.

The old ones say it is because the trees remember things. They do not have minds like ours, but they listen. They listen. They stretch their roots deep into the earth, drinking in the voices of the past, the future, the things that should not be heard.

They will whisper to you, if you let them.

This is what happened to Akira, who did not believe in old stories.

---

He was a scholar, not a mystic. He had spent years in the libraries of Qianlin, unearthing records, piecing together the histories of emperors and wars and forgotten gods. He believed in knowledge—the kind written in ink, bound in leather, stamped with seals of certainty.

Not the kind that rustled in the leaves.

So when the elders warned him not to enter Shīnmoku no Mori, he laughed.

"The only thing hiding in the woods is your own fear," he said.

And then he went inside.

The forest welcomed him as it did all travelers.

It did not snatch him up in twisted roots. It did not howl with the voices of the lost. No, that would be too easy.

Instead, it let him walk.

Deeper.

Deeper still.

At first, he heard nothing but the crunch of leaves underfoot, the distant trill of birds in the canopy. Sunlight broke through the gaps in the branches, dappling the moss-covered ground in gold. The air was rich with the scent of soil and rain.

It was beautiful.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Somewhere between one step and the next, the sounds of the world disappeared. The birdsong faded. The wind stilled. Even his own breath seemed swallowed by the silence.

And then—

"Akira."

It was not spoken.

It was breathed.

Soft, low, curling through the leaves like fingers through hair.

He turned.

No one was there.

His pulse quickened, but he shook it off. Trick of the wind. The mind filling silence with imagined noise.

He kept walking.

"Akira."

The voice came again, closer now. This time, he stopped. His eyes traced the endless trunks, the towering boughs. Shadows stretched long and thin, but there was nothing between them.

Nothing except trees.

Then the leaves began to move.

Not with the wind—there was no wind.

They trembled, shuddered, spoke.

"Do you wish to know?"

The words pressed against his ears like a lover's whisper.

"Do you wish to understand?"

His breath hitched. His hands clenched into fists.

This was ridiculous. Impossible. He was letting old stories get into his head.

But…

He had always sought knowledge, hadn't he?

He had spent his life searching for lost truths.

And now, the forest was offering them.

Slowly, he reached out.

The nearest tree was ancient, its bark knotted with age, its surface rough beneath his fingertips. The moment he touched it—

The whispers rushed in.

Not words, not voices, but memories.

His mind was not built to hold them.

He saw—

A man, trembling, falling to his knees, hands clawing at his face as the trees whispered too much, too much, too much.

A woman, weeping, carving names into the bark, her fingers bleeding, her voice lost to the wind.

A child, eyes wide and empty, standing still as roots curled around their ankles, pulling them slowly—so slowly—down into the earth.

He saw himself.

Standing in the forest.

Looking at himself.

Looking through himself.

His breath stilled in his throat.

The whispers grew louder. They slithered into his ears, curled around his ribs, filled the spaces between his thoughts.

"You wanted to know."

His heartbeat pounded against his ribs. He tried to move, to tear his hand away, but his body would not obey. The tree held him fast, its rough bark against his palm feeling almost soft now.

Warm.

Welcoming.

His lips parted. He did not know what he was about to say. A plea? A scream? A question?

It did not matter.

Because the trees answered first.

And the last sound Akira ever made—

Was silence.

---

The old ones say the forest does not take everyone.

Some return, though they are never quite the same.

They do not speak of what they heard.

They do not dream the way they used to.

But sometimes—

Just sometimes—

When they walk past the trees at night—

The leaves rustle.

The branches tremble.

And the whispers call their name.

Because the forest remembers.

It always remembers.

And so do they.