Behind the Curtain

There was nothing special about that morning. The sun was warm, and the breeze was cool, one of the first hints that spring was here to stay. It started off as a simple thought, just an idea. But I never could have imagined what that idea was capable of causing.

I woke up early even though it was my day off. I yawned and glanced out the window thankful that the snow was finally gone. I debated for a moment what I was going to do with my day and couldn’t really decide. I figured I’d end up doing the same thing I always did on my days off, a morning walk followed by some TV and a few THC gummies. I always wanted to do more in theory but sometimes the simplest things were the most peaceful.

I really loved the walking path near my house. I lived on a street with a dead end and the path was directly at the end of it. It wasn’t anything crazy, just a four-mile loop around some pretty tame woods. No big inclines or lakes, not much to see, but I still found it really relaxing. I think part of what I loved most was just how plain it was. As a result, not many people went there to walk. I usually never saw anyone at all, which I was a really big fan of. I know I shouldn’t mind having to talk to other people, but I hated that awkward moment of deciding whether or not to let out a “good morning.”

I jumped out of bed and got dressed. I was content with the plan for my day off and I thought about what I would order for food later. I left my house and headed down the quiet street. My decent sized light blue home was on the left side of the road. As soon as I stepped onto the pavement, I could see all the way down the trail until it curved off to the right. I thought it was really cool to be able to see that far into the quiet forest. I would always stop before the trail bent and look back at my house. There was no particular reason why, I just liked seeing how it looked from that distance.

I reached the woods and walked at a calm pace clearing my head in the process. The actual forest was huge, but the trail only covered a small section. Even moving pretty slow, I was done in under two hours and returned back onto the road feeling content with my walk. I wasn’t big on working out, but I liked to say any day you walked at least an hour is better than any day you didn’t. My body and mind just always felt so much better after.

I made it back to my house and turned on the TV. If nothing else I liked to watch interesting things, no dumb sitcoms or reality shows. I loved to learn about nature or history, and I looked through my options. Recently I had been getting into historical evidence of God, like biblical artifacts that could actually exist. I was raised Catholic, but only in name as we never went to church except for Christmas and my parents didn’t really care what I believed in. When I was younger, I did believe all of it but the older I got I began to question things that didn’t line up. The more I learned about science and the universe we live in, the more skeptical of many things I became. That being said, there was a lot of evidence of different artifacts and events. It really fascinated me to try and come up with a conclusion that accommodated aspects of the Bible, as well as solid scientific fact.

I found a show about the Ark of the Covenant and decided that would be the first thing I watched. I ate one of my edible gummies to really get into a deep mindset as I began the History Channel special. The Ark was one of the religious artifacts that fascinated me most. The stories surrounding it were so important to the Bible and I tried to piece together fact from fiction. I don’t ever mean to be offensive to those who believe every word in the Bible, but it just seems logical that many accounts were exaggerated as that’s the case with any old story. Truthfully too some stories are just plain hard to believe. I don’t buy a lot of it but there are things like the existence of Jesus and The Great Flood that actually do have a lot of historical evidence. One way or another it all just intrigued me, and I loved spending my free time thinking about it.

The special was about an hour long and I was hooked the whole time. When it was over I put on a comedy show for a few minutes so I could think deeply before I watched something else that challenged my brain. I thought about the Ark and the power it was supposed to have, as well as where it could possibly be if it actually did, or still does exist. I thought too about Jesus and all the miracles he performed. The truth is there has to be something there, not all the stories are fake there’s just too many accounts of Jesus and the large impact he had. I mean even the fact we’re in the year 2024 is because of him. So, what’s the conclusion of it all? That was the real question to me and fueled by the edible I thought about it longer than normal.

We as humans live on earth, and more than likely evolved into the state we’re currently in. But are there other planets life can survive on? It certainly seems incredibly likely with the size of the whole universe. I wonder as well if there are humans on other planets or if we only look the way we do specifically because of the Earth. So why are we here? Why does any life exist? What’s the point of living for what on the grand scale of things equates to an insignificant amount of time? If God is real, why would he create us just to die? I thought about it in silence for a few minutes before something occurred to me.

There is likely other life out there, no matter what form it actually takes. I’ve heard more than once that if a civilization gets to a certain level of advancement, they could create a simulation that’s so realistic you couldn’t distinguish it from real life. Like the Matrix basically, and if we were in one, we would never know. Maybe though it’s not even as complicated as that, maybe other life just decided to make us because they could. I know humans have a sense of arrogance that our existence has to have some special meaning, but what really supports that besides what we hope for ourselves? We’re no different really than any other creature on earth in the long run, and we certainly experiment on other animals. If we had the capability of creating life from scratch, we definitely would.

So, what if we were created by another species out in the universe, what would that actually mean? I’m not cynical about life but like I said I don’t believe we’re special or God’s chosen people or anything like that. But it makes total sense that’s what we would want to believe. No one wants to think about the bleakness of life and the fact that maybe we’re only here on earth because we can be. If aliens for lack of a better word did create us, do they check in on us, keep an eye on their creation? Or did they just make us and leave for whatever reason. There’s a real debate about human nature, whether we’re inherently good or bad. I’ve often struggled trying to decide which I believe. I want to think we’re good but anytime I do someone starts a pointless war or you hear about a mass shooting. But anytime I accept that we may be bad, I see a community come together after a disaster and it makes me second guess myself. I think the real answer isn’t that black and white, I think humans are both good and bad when it really comes down to it.

But would that have been what the goal was? If we were created in that way, were we supposed to be fully good and kind but the more we learned and developed we became bad? Or maybe something went wrong with whatever mixture was used to make us. One way or another we are flawed, that isn’t up for debate. The question really comes down to if there weren’t laws and government, would we all just kill each other? Actually wait, laws aren’t what keep people from doing that. It helps but it’s not the main driving factor, religion is. The fear that if you lie, cheat, steal, or kill that you’ll burn in Hell for all eternity. That’s what really stops most people from being bad, whether or not many realize it. We strive to be good because we think God is watching everything we do, and maybe that’s the whole point.

What if we were created by aliens? I’m not picturing flying saucers but more like larger-than-life entities. Maybe they made us and placed us on earth hoping for us to be an extension of themselves and believed we could thrive here in harmony. But what if somewhere along the way something went wrong, and we didn’t come out totally good. The Bible is full of stories like Adam and Eve about humans being flawed and making mistakes. Even Noah’s ark is about how the whole world basically became evil besides him and his family. Maybe these stories came from the aliens themselves; it would actually make total sense. What if they saw we had gone bad and needed a way to get us back on track so they created religion? They came up with God, Heaven, and Hell in order to give us a reason to be kind to each other. They spoke to select humans under the guise of being God, to make people believe there was a reason to be good. Maybe the Ark of the Covenant was a radioactive weapon that appeared to the people of the time to be creating miracles to reinforce all of this. What if Jesus was one of these aliens and he came down as a kind of last-ditch effort to get us back on track. It would be the same idea with other religions too, I just don’t know enough specifics about the rest.

In essence, what if our real creators came up with the idea of religion as a kind of cover story, in order to protect the effort they spent to make us. They orchestrated events, created important objects, and influenced people. Basically, anything they would have had to in order to ensure we believed in the existence of a watchful God. When in reality they were the ones doing the watching. Does that mean then that they’ve since given up on us? God no longer speaks to people, and it doesn’t seem like Jesus is actually returning anytime soon.

Wars and violence raced through my mind as I thought about how we never truly learn from our mistakes. Countries hate each other for dumb reasons and people kill one another over material things like money. We really are flawed beings but maybe it’s gone too far. Maybe the truth is we weren’t always inherently bad but somewhere along the history of earth we did become truly evil, and our creators have had enough. What if they’re just waiting and watching, trying to pick the right time to end humanity as a whole. If that all is the case, I don’t think they would be alright with any of us knowing the truth.

I had to sit up in my chair as I realized just how much I had spaced out. I decided to put a pin in it because for once my conclusion actually seemed plausible and it made me feel kind of bleak. I normally never got that feeling but I felt almost abandoned in a way. It was just so odd too because normally when I thought about this type of stuff I could move on quickly after, but this really stuck with me. I couldn’t help but feel like I had discovered what’s really behind religion. Not just some crazy idea, in my bones I knew I was right. It didn’t feel good though, I felt strange and like I had a spotlight over my head.

I climbed out of my chair and walked around for a few minutes until I felt a bit more at ease. I decided that I was going to watch something funny for a while longer and take a break from all the meta religious stuff. I focused on the show I was watching cracking a smile a few times. I felt way calmer and even chuckled to myself about freaking out over something so silly. The edible was probably just hitting me harder than I expected, I assumed in a few hours I would realize just how dumb I was being.

I got off the streaming service I was using and decided to see what cable had to offer. I turned through the channels looking for something entertaining to watch. Preferably something dumb and fun, I was done with all the deep thinking for one day. I stopped for a moment on the movie Matilda and remembered watching it as a child. I laughed to myself and kept it on the channel for a few minutes as I reminisced about enjoying it with my cousins many years ago. Just as I had lost myself some in the movie, I heard my phone ring. I almost jumped since I wasn’t expecting a call, but I checked to see who it was. To my surprise it was my friend Matilda. Wow, that’s a really weird coincidence I thought. What are the odds that she would call right when I was watching a movie with the same name? In fact, I hadn’t even talked to her in a long time, so it was especially weird. I picked up the phone marveling at the odds of her calling. “Um hello.” It was quiet for a moment, “Oh hey sorry, I didn’t mean to call I accidentally sat on my phone ha-ha.” We laughed for a second and both hung up shortly after. I didn’t really want to talk to her anyway, but it took me a moment to return to the movie as it really was such an odd coincidence. I wanted to laugh about it but truthfully, I just felt really off. It seemed like something that would never actually happen, I had plenty of coincidences in my life, but it just felt so specific. I changed the channel as I no longer wanted to watch the movie. After a few more minutes, I decided I was going to go for a drive and try and shake off the edible some. I really wasn’t feeling the vibe.

I hopped in my car and turned some music on and began a slow drive around town. I didn’t plan on driving for long, but I just needed a minute out of the house. I turned through the radio stations and stopped on one because they were talking about Rice Construction. Rice was a company that my friend’s dad owned. I hadn’t talked to either of them in a long time, just like Matilda. I still wanted to listen to the ad for a moment. It sounded like they were doing well, which made me happy as both of them were super nice people. I approached a stop light and brought my attention back to the real world as there was a red truck a bit closer to me than I would have wanted. I stopped somewhat abruptly but not anything insane. After my car came to a halt, the truck caught my attention, and I began to feel very strange again. On the back of the truck there was a rectangular shaped logo, it was gray with a single word in white on the inside. I rubbed my eyes as I mouthed the word out loud to myself, Rice. It was one of the trucks that belonged to the construction company. It wouldn’t have been that weird except for the fact that last I heard they only had three of these trucks. More importantly the company was based over two hours away and I had never seen one of their trucks here.

The light turned green, and it took me a moment to react. I was shocked I had seen a Rice Construction truck right after listening to an ad for it. I had never heard an ad for it before, and I had only ever seen one of the trucks when I was at its base location with my friend. They didn’t even operate here as far as I knew, and I hadn’t talked to my friend in a long time. But to be fair by a “long time” I mean around three or four months. I don’t think a ton would have changed in that time frame, but maybe I’m wrong. Either way I figured it was a good idea to head home, I was clearly a bit too high, and I wasn’t exactly being careful driving.

I felt so odd and distracted as I drove home. I pulled into the driveway and just sat there for a few minutes. I was having a really bizarre day and more than ready to not feel so high. I wished I hadn’t had such deep thoughts about who my creators could be. I didn’t think it was actually a big deal but anyone who’s been really high knows you can get very paranoid sometimes. The coincidences were making me feel way weirder than they should have been. In my dumb state of mind, I connected them to my inner dialogue from earlier about God. I stood up to get out of my car when I heard a faint humming sound. For a second, I couldn’t tell what it was until I looked to my right and saw that my neighbor was mowing his lawn. It wasn’t just him though, there was a lot more to the sound. I glanced across the street and my other neighbor was mowing his lawn too, so were his neighbors to the right and left. I slowly realized every single house on the street was. All heads down, every single lawn I could see had someone out mowing. Men, women, children just focused on what they were doing and not realizing how weird it was that everyone besides me was doing it.

I stepped inside my house trying to ignore the dull buzzing sound that resembled a hive of slow-moving bees. I sat down on my couch and turned the TV back on. I wondered if something was really going on, or if I was just being paranoid. It was weird one way or another the Matilda thing, and the Rice truck. The mowing was so strange too. I tried to pretend like it wasn’t, but a lot of these people usually hired someone to do their yardwork. I didn’t get why they were all suddenly mowing at the exact same time. Plus, none of them acknowledged it, no one had stopped and pointed out how funny it was.

I sat there trying to shake everything aside, but I just couldn’t. I felt on edge, like I was being watched or I had done something wrong. I just didn’t feel normal, it was easy to blame the edible, but I had been high plenty of times. Truthfully, I knew that it wasn’t having much of an effect on how I felt. It wasn’t like my first time taking it or anything. I knew what to expect, even in a situation where you took too much, and this just wasn’t it.

I watched TV for a while trying to find the most lighthearted things I could, to forget how I felt. I began to dread another coincidence happening. I thought I was stupid for worrying about it, but I still did anyway. I was more on edge than I could ever remember being. I decided I was going to take another walk as that was the place I felt most at peace. I knew if I was ever going to clear my head it would be out in the woods. I got up and pushed the front door open slowly. I looked around and saw everyone was still mowing. I walked down my driveway and was about to step onto the road when a car I had never seen before slowly cruised by. I waited a moment for it to pass and as it did, I glanced at the license plate. I did a double take when I realized there was something a bit off about the plate. I wanted to ignore it, but this one really got me. There were no letters on the plate, only numbers. Those numbers were 671 996, maybe I was just paranoid, but it still seemed so out of the ordinary. My birthday is June 7th, 1996, all the same numbers as the plate.

I walked down the street as the car literally just reached the dead end and turned around. I waved to the man driving as he passed me, but he just stared back. I felt truly strange, like I was being followed or something. Not from any person though, all sides felt like there were eyes on me. I approached the woods and shuffled onto the trail. A small sense of calm washed over me as I reached my safe place. I walked briskly down the path until I reached the bend, and I looked back at my house just like normal. I froze when I saw it, I can’t even begin to describe how much it creeped me out. All the people who were mowing had stopped with their mowers still on, and they were now all just standing there staring at me. I didn’t even know what to do, I wasn’t close with my neighbors, but I had always been pleasant with them. Now every single one was staring at me like zombies or something with the same plain expression on their faces. I just stood there looking back waiting for them to do something. After what felt like ten minutes, they all seemed to break out of a trance and go back to mowing. I shook my head quickly trying to forget what I had just seen. I finally found the ability to move again and hurried deeper into the woods.

As I walked, I tried to make sense of everything that was happening. It wasn’t right, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The coincidences were too much to write off as normal, and the mowing thing was truly odd and off-putting. Plus, I just felt like every step I took was being followed by millions of eyes. It wasn’t even like I felt any one person had their eyes trained on me, it was more like the sky, trees, grass, clouds, rocks, anything you could think of all followed my every move. I was beginning to feel like everything around me had changed and been replaced but a copy of some kind. Either that or I had somehow been transported to a strange replica of earth. Like every part of my life had been duplicated, but I could tell it wasn’t the original.

I reached the end of my walk and thankfully all the mowers had finished, and everyone seemed to be back inside their houses. I still felt naked though as I walked down the road to my house. There was no side where it didn’t feel like someone was keeping tabs on me. Every time I glanced at a house too, someone always seemed to duck behind the blinds right as my eyes caught them. Thankfully I reached my house and slammed the front door locking it before slowly backing away. I felt a bit better being back in my own home, but I still didn’t feel safe.

For the rest of the afternoon, I just watched TV and tried not to really think about anything at all. No matter what I did I still felt watched. It’s hard to explain the feeling, but the closest thing would be if you were a human exhibit at a zoo. Having that feeling inside a house is a truly strange sensation. To make things even weirder the same movie was on five different channels and the same show was on four. It really could have just been another coincidence, but again like the others it just felt fundamentally wrong and almost dangerous in a way. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was meant to threaten me. Like a warning that I made a mistake and was about to pay for it.

I shut off the TV around seven and decided to read for a few hours and then try and get some sleep. A book felt safer than anything else and I just wanted nothing more than to distract myself and shut my brain off for a few hours. The more I tried not to think about our “creators” the more I found myself going back to them. Like it was too late for all of this to go away, and now I was stuck on this path. I opened up my favorite book that I had read at least six times and I tried to lose myself in the words. After about an hour of reading, I finally began to feel a bit at peace. That is until I saw it, it was by far the strangest and most terror inducing event yet. On page 67, which just like the license plate is the first two numerals of my birthday, June 7th. The main character’s name began to be replaced with mine. It also happened to be right around when he was in a dangerous situation, which wasn’t lost on me at all. I frantically flipped through the pages and the rest of the book was the same, Cade instead of James on every single page. I even went back to the pages I had already read, and they were now replaced with my name. I turned back briefly to page 67 with tears in my eyes and fear overcoming every inch of my body. I wanted to see if anything else was different. I looked through every line until the very last one caught my eye. I knew pretty much everything the book said, and the last line stuck out to me immediately. There was a new sentence added, it simply said “What do you believe in Cade?”

I slammed the book shut and threw it across the room. I rubbed my eyes and tried to pretend this was all from the edible, but I knew it wasn’t. I debated calling one of my friends or my brother, but I had this weird sense that I couldn’t trust anyone. I decided before nine to just go to bed and try and forget everything at work tomorrow. I laid down in bed and thankfully passed out pretty quickly. I woke up early and got dressed for work. I left my house at seven and soaked in the beautiful morning on my way to the office. I felt much better for a moment, like all of it was just a bad dream. I pulled into the parking lot of my office and sighed to myself hoping work would at least be normal. As I glanced up at the building though, I about had a heart attack. There were eight floors in my building with desks beside every window. Every one of the people at those desks was standing in front of the many windows, staring at me.

I started to shake uncontrollably and didn’t dare go inside. I slowly backed out and began to drive home. I tried to calm down on my drive, but I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I felt like I should call my boss and tell him I was sick, but I was scared to even do that. I had a lot of sick leave, and I decided I was going to take a few days to try and calm myself down. Maybe I was losing my mind, I think I would have been happier if that was the case. I knew I had really messed up in a way I couldn’t fully understand or rationalize. This wasn’t going to end; I could just feel that it was going to get worse. I pulled back into my driveway and felt everyone staring at me from behind their blinds again. I went inside and noticed my phone ringing. I saw it was my boss and I snapped back to reality for a moment as I still needed to tell him where I was and that I was going to be taking some time off. I answered the phone, “Hey Phil sorry, I’m just really under the weather I may need a day or two off.” It was silent for a moment, and he simply replied, “What do you believe in Cade?” Before hanging up abruptly.

My heart sank, I felt like I was being taunted and warned at the same time. I was now fully convinced I was right about the “creators”, and they were going to make me disappear. Throughout the rest of that day, I had at least five more coincidences. They ranged from things on TV to vapor trails from planes that looked identical. I could have sworn too for a moment the world outside of my house flashed in front of me like a staticky television. To my horror behind the flashing world, I saw what appeared to be a huge figure standing in front of total darkness. The figure was also clearly staring right at me.

After that I really panicked, I decided I had to talk to someone, and I took the risk of calling my brother and telling him I needed him to come over. To my relief he sounded normal on the phone, and even pretty concerned, which did make me feel a bit better. I waited impatiently for him to show up, which he did very quickly. He pulled into the driveway, and I watched him walk up to the front door to see if there was anything that seemed weird. I opened the door for him, probably looking like a ghost. “Hey man are you alright?” “Yeah dude just come inside there’s something I need to talk about.” He nodded and I sat down on the couch. “So, what’s up?” He sat across from me in my armchair and I felt a bit more at ease talking to him. We had always been very close, so I was fine with opening up to him about things. I just didn’t know how he was going to take all this. “So yesterday, I was watching this thing on TV and…” I stopped myself as I made eye contact with him. My blood ran cold when I noticed it. My brother had brown eyes, but now he suddenly had green ones. Everything felt different when I noticed, it was like he was a stranger in a human costume. He seemed to realize I had caught on and his whole act dropped. He smiled and simply said the words I now dreaded more than anything. “What do you believe in Cade?” I froze and began to get angry, “What do you want from me?” He was still smiling “I want to know what you believe in.” I thought for a moment and felt a primal fear, like he may attack me at any moment. “I, I don’t know, why do you want to know so bad?” “Yes, you do know, we know that you know.” He stood up and I jumped back to defend myself. He chuckled to himself still with that awful smile, it was my brother’s face, but he had never smiled like that before. “We know that you know Cade.” With that he walked to the front door and shut it softly behind him.

I stumbled over to the window and watched him get in my brother’s car and begin to drive off. I hadn’t noticed before, but his license plate was the same as the other car’s, the numbers of my birthday. He waved to me sarcastically and pulled out of my driveway. Just then as I was looking out the window what I knew as my reality seemed to flicker once again like a television with a bad connection. There were now three large figures in front of the black abyss that I could clearly see for almost five seconds before the world filled itself back in.

A week has passed, and I never went back to work. I never called my boss, or my family and I haven’t left the house. I’m almost out of food but I don’t even feel hungry. I haven’t slept at all, but I don’t feel tired. All I really feel is watched, my every move followed both by the eyes of my neighbors when I look out the front window, and by an invisible set that I can always sense. I want to hide and escape but no matter what I do or where in the house I go I can’t get away. I’ve never felt so alone in my entire life. I can’t trust my friends, neighbors, family, or coworkers. Even the squirrels and birds in the yard seem to watch me. Maybe that part is just paranoia but it’s not like it matters either way. When I turn on the TV every channel is playing that documentary that started all of this. That now infamous History Channel special about the Ark of the Covenant. TBS, FX, TNT, it doesn’t matter, it just plays all day. I tried to call the Xfinity people just to see what they said and of course the response was, “what do you believe in Cade?” I tried to read again but all my books said my name instead of the main character’s just like the first one.

I now just sit and stare out the window, waiting for who or whatever is going to show up and take me away. The world flashes more now, it’s up to about once an hour and those three figures in the dark abyss seem to be getting closer to me. I can’t make out much detail on their faces besides large purple eyes. I can tell they’re at least fifty feet tall if not bigger and seem to have a faint glow coming off their yellow skin. I don’t know where they came from or what they’re going to do to me, but I do know in my heart that I’m going to find out soon. It’s just a matter of time, they never take their eyes off me.

Another few days have passed, and I’ve given up on any notion that I can escape from this. There’s no hope and I’m ready for it to end. Neighbors walk right up to my front door and just stare at it for hours. I opened it once and asked what they wanted, and you could guess what he replied. I just watch them stand there staring at nothing, I don’t even consider opening it anymore. The flashes of reality are now every twenty minutes and it’s clear that one of the figures is reaching its arm out in my direction. It took me awhile to see it, but the hand is over the house across from mine casting a bright light in the darkness every time there’s a reality flicker. It’s reaching out for me, and I know no matter where I go it’ll get me.

I’m writing this in case anyone ever finds this notebook, so they know what happened to me. I’ve made the hard decision that it’s time to give up. I don’t know if I’m on earth still and people in my life have been replaced. Or if I’ve been taken to a world that looks like mine but is something else entirely. I don’t think anyone will see this, but it makes me feel a bit better either way. Just to get my thoughts and experience out. I think these beings exist in the fourth dimension, and they’re able to directly affect anything they want. I’m positive too that my conclusions are in fact what caused this. I think a lot about how dumb I was for spending so much time trying to figure this out, but on some weird level I’m glad I know the truth. It’s like a strange sense of freedom I can’t really understand.

I’m confident these beings are our creators, and they don’t want to risk me telling anyone else what I know. Either way I’m done trying to figure out every little detail of what’s happening, I’m just going to see for myself when they take me.

I’m going to head into the woods and just wait. I have this feeling that if I stay out there for a few hours I’m going to just vanish. I’m not even scared anymore, just curious. I’m going to bring this notebook with me and record everything until the last minute. In a moment I’m going to leave my house for the last time, and no matter what I’m really going to miss the life I had.

I walked out slowly into the street and all the neighbors turned to stare at me. The world flickered on all sides, and I felt as though the road was floating in outer space as I kept my eyes trained on the entrance to the woods. My reality held together long enough for me to make it into the forest, and I turned back to look at my house one last time. All the neighbors were now in their front yards and in unison put their arms up to wave at me. I was done fighting it and just waved back.

I sauntered out deep into the woods and found a spot with a large opening between the trees. I sat down on a big rock and soaked in the beautiful weather one last time. I turned to look up at the opening in the sky, and reality flashed over and over. I see the hand reaching through the treetops only about thirty feet away now. I don’t think I have very long left.

My brother Cade was always a very levelheaded guy. We were close growing up and I still can’t believe he’s been missing for two months. The police search has been officially called off, there was just no evidence at all besides this. I was the one who found the notebook in the woods near his house. I know he loved to walk there, and we scoured the area over and over. I still just can’t make any sense of it. He never showed any signs of being crazy, seriously none at all. But what he said in here suggests he was deeply troubled in a way I can’t understand. I talked to the neighbors a couple days ago and they said they were never all mowing at once like he described. None of them stared at him, none of them noticed him at all. I never came and met with him either, in fact he hadn’t answered any of my calls for over a week before he disappeared. I just miss him and want to find him so he can get the help he needs. He talked about religion a lot before, but this was something else. It just sounds like it made him snap in some unsettling way. What he said about religion is actually logical to me and makes a lot of sense. But everything after he makes that conclusion sounds insane and it makes me sad knowing how much it caused my brother to lose touch with reality. I have no idea where he could have gone and the thought of him all alone makes me deeply sad.

It is a bit odd though, when I was on the phone with my friend yesterday, he asked me what I believed in. Considering what my brother wrote, it felt weird. It’s obviously not related in any way; coincidences are just random chance. I have to find Cade so I can tell him that myself.

I’m going to keep searching these woods for however long it takes to find my brother. I want him to know he’s safe and we all just want to help. I’m worried those gummies he was taking contained more than just THC. I know in my heart he has to be somewhere in this forest, I don’t care what the police say. It may take me days or even weeks, but I will find my brother.

I have a feeling I’m getting close, the farther out I go the more I get the feeling he’s watching me.