The symbol was everywhere. It wasn’t a random brand. It was a marker. Alex carefully laid the items out on a cleared patch of ground. He moved methodically, almost like a ritual. Papers here. Personal items there. Metal over there. As the picture became clearer, the last of his doubts vanished.
This wasn’t a cache. It was an archive. An archive of people who were never looked for. An archive of lives erased without a record. He picked up the papers again and read more closely. The names formed chains. The dates matched the years the old-timers mentioned in whispers. Some of the last names were familiar—he’d heard them from old hunters in other counties, fragments of rumors: “went out and never came back,” “left for a job and vanished.” It all converged here.
Alex felt a cold, steady anger. Not a flash of rage, but the kind of deep-seated feeling that comes when you realize the scale of a systemic crime. This wasn’t a one-time thing, not a random act of violence. This was a practice.
He looked at the forest around him. The trees stood still, indifferent. They hadn’t hidden the crime; they had simply grown, year after year, sealing in what had been forced upon them. Alex realized that if he just closed the box and walked away, the forest would do the rest. In a few years, the roots would re-envelop the steel, the soil would settle, and the truth would be gone for good.
He picked up the numbered tag again. Now, looking closer, he saw a tiny detail—a notch that looked like a directional arrow. Next to the symbol was a tiny arrow and two digits. He checked the papers: the same marks appeared over and over. This wasn’t the end; it was a pointer.
“There’s more here,” Alex said aloud, surprised by how calm his voice sounded.
Sam Patterson, standing a few yards away, nodded slowly. He didn’t ask how Alex knew. His face looked like it had aged ten years in an hour.
“So this is just the beginning,” Sam said.
Alex carefully put the items back in the box, keeping them in the order he’d found them. He didn’t close the lid all the way, just covered it with the cloth to protect it from the damp. He knew the truth now. This wasn’t gold; it wasn’t a criminal’s stash. It was a silent testimony buried under the roots. And somewhere in these woods, there was another site. Perhaps the last one.
The pre-dawn chill hung over the ridges, and the mist clung to the ground as if it didn’t want the night to end. Alex left the camp quietly. He didn’t sneak; he just moved the way he’d been trained. No wasted noise, no fuss. The sky hadn’t brightened yet, but the air was changing, carrying the faint promise of morning.
He didn’t take anything unnecessary—just a pack, a flashlight, a knife, and his phone with the coordinates saved. This wasn’t a flight. It was a mission. The coordinates from the box didn’t lead to a road, an old logging site, or a known trail. The point lay outside the timber tract, in an area the crews never touched. Too steep, too thick, too difficult to log…
