Why the Woods Whisper Only My Name...

A Haunting Tale of Memory, Guilt, and the Forest That Knows Too Much...

The woods begin whispering again at dusk.  

That’s the hour when the wind slants through the trees like something deliberate, when even the crickets seem to pause long enough to listen. It’s also the hour I dread most—because that’s when the woods start saying my name. Not just once, not a guess carried in the breeze, but over and over, insistently, like breath against the back of my neck.  

“Anna…”  

It’s been three years since the accident, but sometimes I think the woods never forgot.  

When I moved back to my family’s cabin this spring, I told myself it was for peace, quiet, and cheap rent. In truth, I needed to confront what happened—to look the forest in the eye and tell it I wasn’t afraid. Yet every night since I arrived, I’ve felt the same pull, the same unease, as if the trees have been waiting for me to come home.  

The locals don’t help. When I went into town for supplies last week, the store clerk stared at me too long after hearing my last name. “You shouldn’t go walking out there at night,” she said. “The woods don’t forget.”  

I laughed it off. I still do, most days. But tonight—when the shadows deepen and the twilight turns metallic blue—I keep hearing it again. That voice. That low, rustling whisper:  

“Anna… still here?”  

I tell myself it’s just the wind catching in the birches. But deep down, I know the difference between an echo and something calling you directly.  

The first time I heard the whisper, I was seventeen. Back then, the woods weren’t something to fear—they were a secret world full of daring dares and broken curfews. My best friend Matthew and I used to explore them in the summer, carving our names into tree trunks, inventing stories about the spirits said to live there.  

It was a joke—until it wasn’t.  

On the last night we went out, the woods felt anxious. A storm was rolling in, the sky bruised purple, lightning twitching behind clouds. Matthew wanted to see the old hollow tree, the one rumored to sing before someone died. We thought it was ridiculous. And yet, standing before that hollow, the air around us thick with ozone and silence, even laughter seemed unnatural.  

I remember him stepping forward, touching the bark, daring it to whisper his name.  

It didn’t.  

But when it did finally speak, it said mine.  

Only mine.  

“Anna…”  

The next flash of lightning blinded me. The next sound was Matthew’s scream.  

When the storm cleared, I found him lying by the hollow tree, his eyes open, his lips blue. No blood, no sign of struggle—just the wind rattling through the leaves like a sigh.  

The police said it was lightning. An accident. But the woods felt guilty, and so did I.  

Now, standing on the cabin porch, I watch the pines sway in unison, whispering. The sound comes from deep within, like a memory through fog. I can almost hear words buried beneath the murmur.  

“Come back…”  

I retreat inside and bolt the door. But sleep doesn’t come easy when you’re afraid the dark outside knows your name. I wake several times through the night, sure I hear footsteps crunching in the leaves. Once, just before dawn, I see a figure near the tree line—thin, pale, unmoving.  

When I finally dare to step outside, nothing’s there but footprints that vanish halfway across the clearing.  

**Day Three.**  

The whispers grow louder when I ignore them.  

The power flickers.  

The air smells of lightning again.  

By evening, I’ve packed a bag, ready to leave. But before I do, I hear it again—clear this time, cold enough to stall my breath:  

“Please… help me.”  

It isn’t a whisper anymore. It’s a voice I know too well.  

Matthew.  

I should leave. I know I should. But the guilt tugs harder than fear. The forest line moves like a beckoning hand, and against all reason, I step toward it.  

The path to the hollow tree feels longer than it ever did before. The silence presses like a weight against my ears. Each step crunches louder than it should. And then, in the clearing, surrounded by roots like frozen veins, I see the tree again—massive, ancient, the bark split where lightning once struck.  

“Anna…”  

The voice comes from within the hollow. Not around me—inside it.  

I kneel beside it despite the way the air chills every nerve in my skin. Inside the hollow, something glows faintly. It isn’t firelight. It’s something like memory, tugging at me.  

“Anna… you left me.”  

I want to say it wasn’t my fault. I want to scream that I called for help, that I ran for hours through rain until my voice broke. But when I open my mouth, the woods answer for me—thousands of whispers weaving together until the sound rises like wind through a thousand mouths.  

“You left him. You left us.”  

And somewhere deep in the hollow, I glimpse a hand—pale, still damp with rain that never came.  

When the sun rises, the forest is quiet again.  

I wake by the hollow tree, my clothes damp with dew, my mind foggy with half-broken dreams. The air smells clean. The guilt feels gone—lifted, somehow.  

As I stand, something glints in the grass near my foot: a small wooden carving. My name is etched into it, neat and deliberate. Beneath that—nothing. Just an empty space, as though waiting for another name.  

When I return to the cabin, the wind picks up again. It passes through the trees gently, almost a lullaby. And though I tell myself it’s only the breeze, I can still hear something deeper, something that sounds an awful lot like my own voice, whispering back from the woods.  

“Matthew…”