The phone was half-buried beneath a soft carpet of needles, green and brown, lying just off the beaten path in the woods. I had come out for a simple walk to clear my mind, to shrug off the weight of my week the emails, the missed calls, the feeling of being small in a big city. I had no plan of finding something mysterious. Yet there it was: the phone.
At first I thought it belonged to someone hiking too far off trail. The screen was cracked, the back scratched, and when I picked it up my fingers felt a slight tremble. The air around me carried that damp, pine-scented chill you feel just after rain. A few drops had fallen earlier, and the trees glowed with a quiet sheen of moisture.
I turned the phone over in my hand. No recognizable case, no name. I felt the click as I tried the power button. The screen sprang to life the lock screen showed a single image: a silhouette standing on a cliff at sunset, arms raised as if embracing something vast. The date on the screen was two days ago. My pulse quickened.
“Why would someone lose this here?” I whispered to myself. And then, almost automatically, I tapped the “Emergency Call” option. The phone responded sluggishly, as if fighting to wake up. But nothing happened beyond that. The regular unlock option was disabled. Whoever this phone belonged to had locked it.
Despite that, the “Recents” list showed one incoming call from an unknown number received exactly at 11:03 PM. My gaze flicked to the forest around me. The trees seemed stiller. The path I had taken looked narrower, overgrown. The woods no longer felt like a casual stroll. Something about the phone pulled me deeper.
I tucked it into my jacket pocket, telling myself I would hand it over to the nearest ranger station. But then a thought: what if the phone held more than just “lost phone”? What if it contained something that needed to be seen, or shared? A knot of adrenaline formed in my chest. I checked my watch: 4:47 PM. I still had daylight, but not much.
I walked on, the phone heavy in my pocket, each step crunching fallen leaves. I passed a fallen log, moss-covered, and children’s voices echoed from a distant clearing. I paused. The day was ordinary in one sense: smiling families, dogs chasing sticks, sunlight filtering through branches. Yet the phone in my pocket felt like a secret.
As I emerged into the clearing, I saw the trail marker and a sign: “Lakeview Trail 1.8 km to parking lot.” I took a deep breath, letting relief wash over me. I would hand over the phone. But then: a soft buzz the phone vibrated in my pocket. I jolted.
I pulled it out. A notification flashed: “New Video: 00:03 seconds.” I stared at the screen. How was it connected? I had not unlocked the phone. The video icon glowed. I tapped it. The screen wobbled, then the video played:
A dark room. The only light a trembling flashlight beam scanning the floor. The beam landed on a pair of shoes muddy, worn. The camera jerked. Whispered words: “I found it. I found the phone.” Then the beam swung to a corner. A door, slightly ajar. The whisper, again: “It’s behind you.”
My heart skipped. My mind raced: Who was filming this? Where was this? And why had the video reached me?
I watched as the door creaked open slow, deliberate. And just as the beam swung, something moved behind the door. A shadow. A figure ducking out of sight. Then the video cut off abruptly.
I breathed hard. For a moment I was frozen. The last light of day drifted away, the forest shadows deepened. I slipped the phone into my pocket and, without fully understanding why, I decided to go further into the woods.
Every sensible instinct said: give the phone to someone else and walk away. But the phone felt like it needed me. The trail curved uphill, marked by pale rocks. I followed it, the woods hush-ing around me. I whispered the name I had forgotten to call all week. “Oliver,” I said. And then: “Let’s see this through.”
Up ahead the trees thinned. I reached a ridgeline with a sweeping view of the lake below. The surface mirrored the sky: gentle blues fading into orange. The day’s last light clipped the treetops. I rested on a boulder, pulled the phone back out. Another notification: “Video: 01:12.”
This time I hesitated. But curiosity, stronger than caution, won. I tapped it.
The beginning was static then the flashlight beam again, shining over old wallpaper peeling off a wall. The voice: “Why didn’t I leave when I should have?” The camera panned upward. Wallpaper. A window. Rain dripping outside. Then the beam caught a handprint on the wall red-brown, smeared. A gasp.
The camera spun. The door slammed. The video ended.
I sat there, chest heaving, watching the take-in of the lake and sky. The woods were silent. I thought about all the stories I’d told myself: of being safe, of being home. And something inside me changed. Because now I held not just a phone, but a story that was alive, that had a beginning somewhere I didn’t know. And I felt part of it.
I descended the trail, the phone’s weight like a promise in my pocket. Night would come soon. I had to decide: step away, or push ahead. The forest air cooled, insects stirred, unseen voices of night rising. I chose to push ahead.
Because whatever this phone carried, I felt its pull.
The wind shifted, bringing the deeper night into the forest. Shadows lengthened and converged, and the path ahead of me felt unfamiliar, yet I walked it with a sense of purpose I couldn’t fully explain. The phone in my hand was warm, faintly buzzing with silent notifications, like a heartbeat in my jacket pocket. I felt I had no choice but to keep going.
I climbed a little higher, following the faint trail of worn stones that led up toward what the map on my watch called “Ridge Viewpoint.” I arrived at a small overlook: the lake below I could only catch its outline in the moon-light was now a dark mirror, reflecting the sky’s faint stars. The air was cold and I wrapped my jacket tighter. I pulled the phone out, glanced at it. The last notification still pulsed: “Video: 02:05.”
I took a deep breath and tapped it. The screen flickered: the video opened.
In the frame: a narrow corridor, walls painted pale grey, water stains dripping downward. The flashlight beam swung slowly; its sound echoed faintly. The camera catch something ahead: a door with no handle, just a rough hole where someone had forced their way in. The beam ducked through. A low moan, un-human, or human but in shock. Then the beam shook as footsteps approached. The camera angle jolted, the flashlight beam pointed at the floor: footprints, shoe prints soaked in something dark. The camera trailed them; they led past the door, into deeper darkness.
My heart pounded. I shifted in the night, the wind making tree branches scrape like claws. I managed to finish watching: the camera came to a stop at the end of the corridor, revealing a small room, lit by a single bare bulb. On the floor sat a single photograph edges curled, old. The camera zoomed: the photograph showed a young woman, smiling, standing in front of this very lake. On the back of the photo, the words in what looked like handwriting: Find me. Then a sudden cut; the last frame: the woman’s eyes, wide, terrified.
I turned off the phone, my head spinning. It was midnight now or close. The forest no longer felt like a simple evening walk. I stood up and almost stumbled. My jacket pocket dropped open and the phone glowed in the dark. I closed it, leaving it inside. I looked out at the lake’s dark rim, taking in the silence. A breeze picked up, and I heard a sound: snapping of a branch behind me. I whirled around. Nothing but darkness, trees shifting slightly in the wind. My breath felt loud. There was a sense of being watched.
I forced myself to continue down the trail. No turning back. The message, Find me, echoed. Was I supposed to do something? And if so: what?
The trail led me downhill, and soon the canopy opened to reveal an old cabin almost hidden among trees, dark, the porch sagging. I had not seen it before. The sign above the door read Lakeview Cabin Private. The windows were shuttered. The door slightly ajar.
I paused. My mind argued: this is it, end of the trail, turn around and go back. But the phone’s pull felt stronger. I stepped forward. The door creaked as I nudged it. Inside: the smell of damp wood and mildew; the floor boards covered in what looked like ash and fallen leaves. Dust motes floated in the beam of my flashlight (phone’s light) as I stepped past the threshold. A table in the center was knocked over. On the wall: the same photograph I had just seen on the phone, pinned with a nail. The young woman from the video stood on the surface of the photo, smiling. Underneath: chalk letters on the wall said HELP ME.
I swallowed. My free hand touched the wall. I could feel the rough wood, cold. I looked at the pin holding the photo. I took the photo off the wall. On the back I flipped it over. The handwritten Find me again. But also something else an address. I squinted: 37 Lakewood Road.
My watch said I was still in the woods, minutes from the parking lot but the address made no sense. How could it exist nearby? I realized the forest had more secrets than I knew.
I slipped the photo into my jacket. I looked at the shadows. A door at the back of the cabin opened slightly, light spilling in. Someone had been here and perhaps was still here. I stepped toward it, reluctant. My flashlight (on the phone) swung across a narrow hallway. The air smelled of cold metal. I went in. At the end of the hallway, there was another door. It looked freshly painted, white, unlike the rest of the cabin. The handle was clean. I exhaled and touched the handle.
Just then, the phone buzzed. I recoiled. The notification: “Recording: 00:10.” I checked the screen. I hadn’t pressed record, and the camera app was open. I watched as it recorded: the door in front of me started to slowly open. I stared at the screen: the door swung inward, darkness beyond; footsteps. I heard them as well soft, deliberate. I froze.
Suddenly the door slammed shut behind me. My phone screen went black. The room turned pitch dark. I fumbled for the exit but the door in front of me wasn’t the one I expected. The air was tight. My chest rose and fell faster.
Then: a whisper. “You found it,” said a voice. I made out a silhouette, crouched in the corner. I shone my light. The figure was me or someone wearing my clothes but the eyes were hollow. It didn’t speak again, just motioned. A pointed finger at the floor.
On the floor lay another photograph this time older, in sepia tone: the same woman, but younger, and standing with a man by the lake. On the back: Why did you leave? I felt tears in my eyes. The figure inching closer. I backed up. The figure vanished into the shadows.
I bolted for the hallway door, burst through. I found myself on the cabin porch again, cold air hitting my face. I stumbled down the steps, phone in hand. The path back to the parking lot felt longer, steeper. The woods rustled. I heard again the branch snap. I did not look back this time. I ran until the trail ended.
When I emerged to the parking lot, the lights were off. My car was still there. I got in, engine started. The phone, when I turned to it, had no new notifications. The videos were gone. The screen was just the lock screen again.
But inside me a change had happened.
I didn’t sleep that night. I kept looking at the address 37 Lakewood Road. I opened my laptop. I typed it in. It returned nothing in the nearby map search. The lake, the woods, all seemed real but the address? Vanished. I tried calling the unknown number on the call log. It rang, then a click nothing. I hung up.
The rest of the night, I sat staring at the phone and the photograph. I realized that I wasn’t just holding a phone I was holding a clue, a mystery. A voice, maybe trapped. A memory, maybe erased. I had stepped into a story I didn’t understand yet.
And now, as dawn approached, I resolved: I will find out what happened. Because this wasn’t just a lost phone in the woods. It was something bigger. Something that changed everything.
The morning light seeped through the curtains of my small apartment, translucent and pale. I sat at the kitchen table, the photograph in front of me on the surface like a challenge. The image of the young woman, smiling beside a lake I recognized, stared up at me. I touched it. The handwriting on the back Find me seemed almost taunting now. I felt a knot of guilt: I had found the phone, watched the videos, fled the cabin in the woods but I had not yet tried to communicate. I had not yet done the real work.
I brewed coffee, black. The bitter taste was sharp. I tried to remember everything about yesterday’s trail: the hidden cabin, the white door, the shadow-figure. My phone sat silent on the table next to me; no notifications. The unknown number remained unresponsive. I rubbed my eyes and opened my laptop. I typed the address again: 37 Lakewood Road. Still nothing relevant in maps. I expanded search: add “Lakewood Road lake” and “private cabin Lakeview trail”. Only generic results of vacation homes. None seemed to match.
And then I noticed something: I had taken a photo of the phone’s lock screen yesterday, after I escaped the woods. The image of the cliff at sunset, arms raised in silhouette. I pulled the file up. The beach beneath the arms looked familiar. The sky’s colours: dusk just at the moment the lake’s surface became mirror-still. I scrolled through old photos of the lake near the trail Lakeview, Ridge Viewpoint. There it was, nearly identical. The silhouette hadn’t been me, but the setting was real. It meant the person who owned the phone had visited the same place. How many people do that?
My mind wandered. Why was the phone lost in the woods? Why did the owner film themselves in the cabin and stairs, and why did the message Find me end up on a photograph and a pin on the wall? This wasn’t a coincidence. It was a call. And I had answered.
I stood up. I needed fresh air. I grabbed a jacket and the phone, the photograph and left my apartment. The city streets felt loud, full of faces, but I carried silence in my jacket pocket. On the train ride out of the city, I replayed the video in my mind: the footage of the corridor, the footprints in something dark, the door that opened and left whoever filmed it gasping.
When I arrived back at the parking lot near the trailhead, the air smelled different from yesterday. Cleaner. Quieter. I stepped onto the trail at midday, daylight strong. Yet the forest felt less friendly now. I passed the overlook rock, looked at the lake shimmering peacefully. My heart eased for a moment, but then I saw something new: the photograph I held the woman standing by the lake moved from being a memory to a person. I turned the photo over in my hand; the same address. I pocketed it.
Walking uphill, I thought of yesterday’s climb and the cabin hidden in tree shade. I reached the ridgeline and the lake below again. I paused. I realized I had a choice: I could abandon this, go home, pretend I had just found a random phone. Or I could plunge deeper. I chose the latter.
From the ridgeline I took a less-used spur trail that peeled away from the main path. The brush was thicker. The woods closed in. My phone buzzed. I jumped. I looked at it: no message, no alert. Just the lock screen. I shook it off and proceeded. The trail sloped downward. At the bottom I came to an old boathouse, its windows boarded, roof moss-covered. The wood looked rotten. A sign next to it read “Property of Lakewood Estates”. I checked the map on my phone Lakewood Estates appeared as a placeholder name, no contact details.
I walked closer. The boards were nailed tight, but one board had the corner chipped away. I pried it with a rock. The board came off. Inside: darkness. The boathouse floor sagged, water pooling. An old canoe lay half-sunken. I took a photograph. Then I noticed a metal locker beside the canoe. I pried the locker door; it creaked. Inside: a single object a flash-drive taped to the shelf, label reads “Lakeview Video #3”. My breath caught. I removed it.
Phone in hand, I left the boathouse. I found a bench by the shore, sat down. I plugged the flash-drive into my laptop from my backpack. The file opened: “LV3_final.mp4”. I hesitated, then clicked play.
The video opened on the screen: the same cabin interior, the same flashlight beam, gloom and shadows. But this time, the camera panned across the lakeside from dusk the silhouetted figure on the cliff, the exact image I had seen as the lock screen. A voice enumerated: “I came for you. I left the path. I followed the water’s edge until I found Lakewood. I found the place that hides the others. The phone is the key. Use it.” The beam swung across tree roots, into the woods, and then the camera lowered as if the person filming collapsed. The screen wobbled. The voice nearly a whisper, urgent “They are watching. They always have. But now I’m done. You must finish this.” The screen cut to black. Then a photo frame: the woman, smiling, standing beside the lake — identical image to the one in my hand. Then the words: Your move.
I shut the laptop. My heart hammered. The flash-drive still lay on my lap. I looked at the lake beyond me. The sun glinted on the water, children’s laughter echoed from a distant picnic area. Life went on. But beneath it all I felt the gears grind of some mechanism I didn’t understand.
I pocketed everything and started back up the trail. The forest felt alive now: branches whispering, dew shimmering, unseen eyes behind tree trunks. I reached the cabin again, the same place as yesterday. But this time I noted more details: a broken windowpane on the porch, footprints leading away from the door into a grove of birch trees. I followed them. They were faint, perhaps two days old. I skirted the birch grove, and stumbled upon a shallow pit, earth disturbed. Inside were the remains of an old picnic table and what looked like fabric fragments: a dress. The same dress the woman in the photo wore. My stomach churned. I covered the pit with leaves. I froze.
A voice behind me: “You found it.”
I spun around. The cabin door creaked open. A figure stood in the threshold: tall, thin, wearing the same jacket I had on yesterday (or a near-match). The face was obscured by shadow. I raised the phone, light on. The figure didn’t move. The air trembled. I could feel my pulse in my ears.
“Who are you?” I asked, voice low. No answer. The figure stepped aside, gesturing into the cabin. I swallowed. The impossible choice formed in my mind: go in, or run. I chose: go in.
Inside the cabin everything looked changed: the photo on the wall pinned still, but now other pictures had been added old family portraits, scratch-marks on the wood. The atmosphere collapsed. I wandered into the back room the white-painted door from yesterday stood open wider. Inside: nothing but darkness and a metal locker. I opened the locker: no flash-drive this time, just an envelope addressed to “The Finder”. I opened it: the letter read:
You accepted the path. Now you must give the phone back. They will come for it soon.
My blood ran cold. The phone in my hand buzzed. I looked at it: New Video: 00:00. I tapped. It opened: my own reflection in the camera, trembling as I held the phone up in the dark. Then static. Then a voice I recognized mine? saying: “I found you.” The video ended.
I staggered out of the cabin, dashed down the trail. The forest seemed to close in behind me. The figure was gone. My mind raced. The address 37 Lakewood Road burned in my memory. The woman in the photo, the voice in the video, the phone lost in the woods it was all connected. And now the message was clear: I needed to return the phone. I needed to finish the chase.
I reached the parking lot, car waiting. I got in. My hands shook. I drove off and looked into the rear-view mirror. A shadow lingered at the treeline, presence distinct. It stood watching. I blinked. It vanished.
Back in the city, rain started to fall. I parked outside my apartment. I sat inside, the photograph, the letter, the flash-drive on the table. I stared at them. I realized I wasn’t just an observer anymore I was part of the story. The ordinary world I had left behind had shifted. I had accepted a call I didn’t understand. And I had a promise: the phone must be given back.
As the rain drummed on the window, I made a decision: I would go to the address. I would find it. Whether it existed or not, I would go. Because the voice in the woods, the flashing videos, the hidden clues they were all leading somewhere. And I would be ready.
To be continued… Read Now Part 2