Avery was following a familiar forest path she had walked countless times before when something unusual caught her eye. The rough bark of one of the trees seemed to form the outline of a human face. It looked so real that she slowed down and stepped closer, trying to understand whether it was just a trick of light and shadow.

She didn’t realize that the moment she stopped, someone else noticed her, too.

A sudden voice shattered the silence.

“What are you doing here?”

Avery’s heart nearly stopped. For a split second, she thought the tree itself had spoken. Then she saw them — three figures standing several meters away, wrapped in dark cloaks, their faces hidden.

One of them told her she had seen something she wasn’t supposed to see. Another suddenly yelled for someone to grab her.

Avery didn’t wait to find out what that meant.

She ran.

Branches whipped her face as she crashed through the brush, not stopping until the voices faded into the distance. Desperate to disappear, she climbed into a tall tree. That’s when she noticed it — another face carved into the trunk below her. Same style. Same empty expression.

That’s when the fear really set in.

This wasn’t one strange tree.

There were many.

From her hiding place, she watched the robed figures return and kneel at the base of the tree, murmuring words that sounded like a ritual.

Later, still shaking, Avery stumbled upon a withdrawn local man who admitted he had been quietly observing that group for months but was too afraid to get involved.

When she finally reached a signal and called the police, she expected to be dismissed. Instead, patrol cars and search teams arrived from multiple districts, moving through the forest like they already knew exactly what they were looking for.

By nightfall, several of the robed figures were in custody.

At the station, Avery watched as the holding cells filled. Detectives later explained that the carved faces were the signature of a cult leader connected to a series of unresolved cases. What she had thought was a random, terrifying encounter turned out to be a small piece of a much darker and much larger investigation.