I had never seen anything like it in my entire life. It had just come from out of nowhere. One second I was stumbling through the same forest I had spent my entire life growing up in, the next moment this tree was right here in front of me, looking as if it had never belonged anywhere else at all. It was the most magnificent tree that I had ever seen.

It had the most vibrant red, yellow, and green leaves. It was as if the frost had come to take it from our world, but simply was unable to finish the job. The bark that covered it was a soft white, that was pleasant to look at. It made me feel as if it was pure in some way. Every aspect of it was astonishing, but the size of it was the most wonderful part.

It stood taller, much taller actually, than any of the other trees around. I do not know how I had never seen it before. It should have been a landmark considering its sheer magnificence. An attraction even, people would have come from thousands of miles away to simply be in the presence of such a wonder.

Wait?

No… This didn’t make sense. None of this did. I knew these woods like the back of my hand. I knew all these trees and exactly where they stood. This one was not supposed to be here. Or maybe it was supposed to be here, but it definitely was not here three days ago. This was…. New?

I moved closer to it, as I did I could feel a soft energy emanating from it. As if something was reaching out to me, calling me. I could hear it then, just barely in the back of my mind. It was a faint sound that was drawing me in with its suspiciously serene symphony. I wanted it to be closer in that moment. I wanted to hear its message. I wanted to know exactly what it was trying to say to me.

I reached out with my hand and touched the base of the tree. A chill ran up the back of my spine as soon as I made contact. But that wasn’t my concern. What concerned me was that as soon as I laid my fingers on the tree, the voice moved further away from me.

I thought that touching it would make the sound clearer, not make it retreat. I needed to know what it was saying, I had to know. I could only think of one way to get closer to it. Everything was clear and I for once, had a purpose.

I grabbed the limb closest to the ground and hoisted myself up onto the first branch. My boots planted firmly against the beginning limb as I stared upwards at what seemed like an endless journey. My balance was good and I felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I leaned into the trunk.

I had a goal now. I had true purpose for the first time in a very long time. Hell, maybe ever. I needed to hear whatever it was that this entity, or being, or whatever it is, was trying to tell me.

I carefully reached up and grabbed the next limb, another thick branch. I hoisted myself up and again planted my feet firmly, before looking down below. I was making progress now, I must have been fifteen feet off the ground at this point. But still nothing from the voice. If anything, it sounded further away.

I was beginning to get frustrated, why was it moving away from me? It was in my head. It had chosen me. It had picked me. It spoke to ME. So why was it now refusing to let me listen?

I breathed in and then out slowly. Getting angry wouldn’t help. I knew that I simply needed to continue to scale. I had already been chosen, I just needed to be patient.

I reached up and grabbed the next branch and pulled myself up. I was making a good pace. Hand over hand and foot over foot, I slowly made my way up the tree.

I was chasing an ethereal melody that had burrowed its sound into my mind and left a message there. A message I was desperate to hear fully, to understand in its entirety.

My hands were cold now, but I continued to climb. The temperature up here seemed to be dropping steadly, it was an incredible feeling. It chilled me to the bone yet I found it exhilarating. Everything about this journey was magnificent. My favorite part was the leaves though.

They dropped past me and onto the forest floor below. They started green at the top and I noticed that I would see them shifting colors all around me as they dropped past me. From yellow to red and then back to green and then starting all over. There were so many more of the leaves falling than there seemed to be from the bottom of the tree.

They seemed to be flying past me yet somehow falling in slow motion. They looked beautiful against the obsidian sky as they whipped down past me-

Wait.

When did the sun go down? It was early morning when I found the tree. Now it was somehow night?

Honestly it did not matter, but I was so transfixed with my ascent and the view of the world both above and below, that I had forgotten about the sound.

But I heard it now.

It was no longer a faint sound, but a close and more absolute pitch. It had shifted with the absence of the sun and become something so much more beautiful.

The moonlight shone a bright white against the pale bark of the tree, the melody played hauntingly against the tree’s grand silhouette. I could hear the sound. I could see the sound. It was inside of my very being.

My fingers were cold by now. Frigid. Yet I continued to climb. I couldn’t see the ground when I looked down anymore. My calves were on fire, my arms were sore. Blood came from underneath my fingernails and my raw palms. The blood stained the pale tree and I left my mark against it with every grasp of each new branch.

But I was getting close. I could hear the music, and I had climbed so far. When I looked down I no longer saw the ground below me. There was nothing but me and this beautiful moonlit tree, as well as the music that played its symphony inside my mind.

Beckoning me.

Calling me.

So I listened.

I continued to climb. The blood on my hands seeping against the tree. My body and muscles aching and screaming for relief, begging for me to rest, but I could not.

What if the voice left? What if it decided I was unworthy. What if by simply stopping, and trying to fight the exhaustion, I showed the voice that I was incapable of reaching it. I would be useless to it then.

Tears flowed down my cheeks as I even imagined the thought of being found worthless by whatever otherworldly creature provided this sound.

I didn’t want to be worthless. I wanted whatever made the voice to be mine. To show it I could do what no one else could, to reach it. To stand in front of it at the top-

“But why?”

A much different voice rang out against the still autumn night.

I stopped in shock. It was as if coming out of a daze. The voice had been clear and I couldn’t hear the melody anymore. As if I had been brought back to a world that was not the same as that voice.

“Why try and reach something that is out of your grasp?” said the voice.

This time I could tell it was coming from over to my left. I looked in that direction and my eyes did their best to acclimate with the moonlight.

I couldn’t see anything. Simply the white of the tree against the dark black of the endless sky. I realized for the first time that there was no stars in this new world above, only the moon. The bright white of a moon that was illuminating my way.

But wait… Movement? Suddenly the tree begin to move and twist and take on a shape. No wait.. It was not the tree, but something that was perched on it. A creature of some kind?

Suddenly it sat up with its legs and shifted slightly. For the first time I got a clear glimpse and I wondered how it was that I had mistook it for anything else.

It was an owl. The largest owl I had ever seen in my life. Larger than anyone had ever seen I was sure. It wore a coat of white that was as bright and bold as first winters snow. It’s form was absolutely enthralling.

It stared at me with a curious expression before giving itself a gentle shake. It looked like it had been resting it since the beginning of man, and it was I who had awoken it from its endless slumber. It began to move then.

It was acclimating to this world elegantly. It stretched out its massive wings, wings of white that were impossibly beautiful against the backdrop of falling leaves and the night sky, wings that seemed to stretch endlessly. It’s wingspan was fully extended in front of me and I thought that I had never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life.

Then it opened it’s eyes.

I stared into the universe in that very moment. Every star that escaped from the sky that night was contained within its gaze. I could see the galaxy and space and the wheels of time that propelled entire worlds along their path.

Again it spoke to me, it’s mouth never moving, yet its voice echoing deep within my mind

“Why do you attempt to reach what you cannot have.”

I didn’t know how to answer the creature but I tried my best.

“Because I want it.”

I gave it my answer with the full realization of my selfishness.

“It is not yours.” it said definitively.

“Why not?”

“Because it is not of this world.”

“It is here, I hear it. It must be a part of my world.”

“What makes you think that we are in your world?”

I looked down at my hands and saw the crimson blood dripping down from them, falling into the air like a red rain along with the swirling leaves of different shades. There was so much blood.

I had no answer for the creature.

“Descend, if you do not wish to perish. “

It’s voice was somber and caring. I could feel that it had sympathy for me. Somehow deep inside, I felt that it wanted my safety.
But I heard something else.

The melody.

Again…. Stronger. No longer a tune, but a woman’s voice. It said my name then. Just once. A whisper in the wind that was carried to my ears.

It was more than enough. I was desperate. Hungry for the sound of that voice to repeat itself. To hear it say my name once more.

I needed to climb.

I jumped up and grabbed the next branch. My palms were slippery and wet, my limbs were on fire as I heaved myself from branch to branch. I made a better pace than even before. I was getting closer. The adrenaline pumping through my veins was enough to make me want to scream. Finally, I was almost there.

It was all coming to the end and it would be worth all the pain and the suffering. I would find the source of the sound, of the voice, the sublime creature that had looked down into a world of inferior beings and picked me.

I would succeed where countless others had failed. I would achieve a message greater than any other. I would be the one who finally reached out and touched the sound of God.

They say in life that when you make a mistake, or when you see something terrible coming towards you, that right then and there, you will see your whole life flash before your eyes.

From the earliest, childhood memories, to your first kiss, and a dozen other memories that you hold dear. Some say they’ll play within your mind as you come to terms with your soon to be extinguished mortality.

I didn’t have that experience.

I reached up for what I was sure was going to be the last branch, tears pouring down my face as I smiled with the realization that I was finally about to reach what I had wanted more than anything else in the world, but as I hoisted myself onto that final branch everything went wrong.

The voice changed.

It was abrupt and it was violent. Suddenly there was no voice at all, in fact. Instead the sharp sound of a siren assaulted my mind with a shattering frequency. I didn’t have my footing yet so it shocked me. The sound pierced my ears directly. I never stood a chance.

I fell.

I didn’t see anything. There was no replaying of any memories, or anything of that nature. There was only one thing…dissapointment.

I had been so close… right there. Everything almost went completely right, everything would have been perfect. I didn’t regret anything. I would have done it again for the voice. I would have done it a thousand times.
There was never even a chance to contemplate things, even if it had crossed my mind.

It all happened too fast.

I plummeted down to the earth with a velocity that did not match up with the world I had spent my entire life living in. The speed at which my body was being pulled down to the world below was astounding. Impossibly fast. It was a rush and it was unlike anything I had ever felt. For one serene second it was perfect.

Then came the first branch.

I hit it impossibly hard and I felt my spine shatter like glass. I screamed into the void as tears filled my eyes, a pain unlike any I had ever known surged through me. I wanted it to stop. I needed it to stop. I begged for death.

Death did not come for me.

Another branch did.

My neck slammed into it and whiplashed so hard that I felt it snap in both directions and more tears filled my eyes. The pain intensified tenfold. I wanted to black out. To die. To never feel anything again if it meant escape.

Nothing mattered and I wished only for the sweet release of death.

The ground finally came and I hit it with such a force that it scorched the earth upon which I now laid. I expected it to hurt when I finally landed. But instead there was just a simple relief as my body laid there twisted and mangled.

I had climbed for days, but it felt like minutes; I had fallen for seconds and it felt like an eternity.

I stared up at the sky and into the endless black of this strange world, I saw something far above. It was pure white, perfectly contrasted against the darkness of the night.

It was him, the owl that had tried to warn me of my fate. That wished only to help me and save me from this cruel and twisted outcome.

He looked like he must have been miles away perched in the tree, but somehow, I could see his eyes. Those perfect eyes that contained the universe within them. I watched tears slide out from them and I observed their descent for what felt like ages as they fell towards the earth.

They landed on the ground close to me, and I blinked as they made contact with the soft soil next to me. It was only for a split second. When I opened my eyes the owl was gone.
He had left this world, or perhaps I had left his.

I stared up into the illuminated night sky, now filled with the countless stars that had at one time been hidden away in the eyes of that curious and spectacular creature.

There was thousands of them. Some burning brighter than others. They were a vibrant blue that almost stung my eyes. They were stretched across the sky that was now a canvas for their dazzling display of light.

They were perfect.

I felt at peace.

I closed my eyes and slipped into the release of an eternal black.

END JOURNAL

This journal ls clearly labeled on the back of the cover: It belonged to a one David Atlas.

According to some of the research I did in the library his body was found by a young boy who had been walking in the park alone one afternoon.

The boy claimed to have smelt a fire near some underbrush. He crawled through a small thicket and into a clearing, and came across the body. There was no evidence of a fire of any sort.

The coroner confirmed some of the information that is written here. He said in his report that the body was so destroyed that the bones felt almost like liquid underneath the skin. He was unable to even find one whole bone.

By all accounts with that kind of impact, He should have exploded. But that’s not the strangest part of the report.

The body was completely immaculate. No injuries. At least none that were visible, no dirt, no blood, nothing. Simply a man with liquefied bones and a shattered neck laying in a clearing. Nowhere near anything remotely high enough to cause that level of damage.

Besides the above text there is a myriad of other information here. There are countless sketches of both the animal he described, as well as the tree of incomprehensible length he supposedly scaled.

I am not sure how these sketches are possible considering that this journal supposedly documents the last moments of this man’s life.

Then who or what was making or producing these journals? Why had I been brought here?
I guess I hadn’t been brought here. It was I who took this job, no one to blame but myself.