13:34: "This is Sergeant Vasquez, code name Rho-7-Bravo, reporting an audio log. My current position is approximately a kilometer north of Serra De Saudade, currently heading north. I've lost radio contact with my team and with Command… Uh, it's been three hours since I got separated from the rest of the team. There had been a storm moving up behind us, guess it finally hit. Rain was coming down heavy, we didn't realize the ground was becoming less and less solid. We were descending a hill, the whole fuckin thing come down as a mudslide. I got knocked off. I can't remember past that."
"When I woke up, the storm was gone. I think the rest of the team thought I died. I don't blame them, I was covered in blood, leg's still hurting like a bitch. I don't really know how I lived either. My walkie-talkie antenna is shattered, but this recorder is still working. The epicenter of the growth is south of ou- my position, I think I'm just gonna continue. If I go back, the plant growth will keep outpacing me. Only way to go is to the center, see if I can stop this. Forest is insanely thick, even for the tropics. Can barely move through the trees. Means there's a lot of cover though, so that's good. Leg's slowing me down, but not a ton. I patched it up with some bandages. I should still be able to make it fine. I've got enough rations to last me four or five days, I'm gonna be fine. Just fine."
18:23: "I think there's someone here. There've been noises behind me for the past couple of hours. Sticks breaking, grass padding, stuff like that. Have my gun out, safety off. Some motherfucker tries to get the drop on me, it's getting a nasty surprise. I'm about a quarter of the way to the epicenter, if my pedometer is right. I need to hurry, I'm already behind the rest of the squad. The animals have sort of… stopped. I don't hear any birds or shit. It's weird. It feels weird. I think I might've heard the rest of the squad a while ago. But it was pretty vague, just voices. Fuck, maybe I'm going crazy already. Wouldn't that be some shit? Rest of Rho team comes back, find me going fucking Castaway on my gun. I don't like this place at all. Gives me the creeps. Too dark and quiet. Like a fucking morgue."
19:24: "It's started raining. The cloud cover is moving into the area, and some of th- the fuck?"
<Sudden movement, rustling.>
<Silence - 43 seconds.>
<Distant footsteps.>
<Rustling leaves.>
<Two gunshots.>
<Running feet.>
"Nothing. I fucking heard it though. That was the weirdest shit. I felt like something was nearby, I dove into the bushes, and waited. Bush rustled, I popped two shots in it, and it stops. Nothing there. I'm becoming less and less tolerant of this place. It's… unnerving. I'm going to keep moving, stopping now feels risky. Dangerous, almost."
20:56: "Weather is slowing me down. Another bout of rain. Clothes kept me warm and dry, but the woods are dark enough without rain. Had to sit under a tree until it passed. I think I'm just going to hunker down here for the night. I found something under the tree. It was a branch, big one. It'd fallen down from the tree during the storm. But, it was wrong. Looking at that branch, I figured it out what was missing from this place. It's like the feeling you get when you sit outside and look at nature. That feeling isn't here, in the heart of the jungle."
"It's like everything was created by someone who was told the barest details of any of the stuff. On the surface, it's okay, if a little fucked up, but beneath? It's wrong in ways you just, you just can't describe. This place isn't alive, not in the same way I am, and it sure as hell ain't natural. The growth, it's not like a person growing, it's like a rot. A rot, eating away at everything that used to be here, the real nature. It's not right."
20:57: "I feel cold."
04:14: (whispering) "There's someone here. She's just sitting in the path. Looks like a little girl. I'm approaching the entity."
<Walking noises - click of a gun safety.>
04:15: Bravo: Get on the ground! Get on the ground!
04:15: Unknown: He needs you to wake him up.
04:15: Bravo: What the fuck are you talki-
<Exclamation of pain as Bravo is thrown backward.
04:16: Bravo: "… she's gone."
04:20T: "There was someon- something following me. But, is it following if she was ahead of me the whole time? She looks like one of them wood carvings. A facsimile of a person, good enough to make you recognize it as a person, but not good enough to fool you on a closer glance."
"She was just sitting there, in the middle of the path, waiting. For me, I guess. I go up to her, pistol drawn, tell her to get on the ground. She doesn't move, just looks up at me. Couldn't be more than a little kid, maybe 9 or 10. All she says is 'He needs you to wake him up.' and bounds off. Just, fades into the woods, gone in the blink of an eye. Don't know who she was talking about. But she was heading toward the epicenter. I'm going there, don't know what's waiting for me."
07:41: "Made good time past few hours. I think. I haven't been able to really latch onto time anymore. These fucking trees, blotting out the sun. But, they're different. They're not like the trees I saw before. Those were just… wrong. These, these are incomprehensible. Some can't be wider than a pencil, but they blot out swathes of sunlight. It sounds impossible, and by all rights, it is. But it's there, clear as day."
"They're all fucked, in different ways. Some don't have bases, the leaves just held in place by the wind. I hit one of those earlier. The leaves just fell off, like I slapped a floating pile of freshly-raked leaves. They just glided to the ground. Others have nothing but the insides of the tree. I can see the water go up through the roots, through the innards of the tree, moving up to the leaves."
"Ain't just the trees, the ground feels… less solid? It's not any muddier than usual, but it feels like if I fell, I might just fall straight through. If the plants before were made by someone who didn't recognize nature, this, this was made by someone who barely understood the concept of life. These things shouldn't be functioning, according to any laws of physics. (Bravo sighs.) I don't know anymore. But I'm getting close to the center."
08:49: "I saw a deer. In the fucking Brazilian tropics. Made of wood, just like the girl, but still. A deer, in this ungodly place. It was gigantic. Not the deer itself, deer was pretty normal, but its presence. It dominated the landscape. Like a deer-shaped absence, filled with something that wasn't a deer. Filled with something… better? No, not better. More powerful. For better or for worse."
"We stared at each other for a moment, before I noticed the tree-girl standing next to it. She looked at me, all eyes. 'He's waiting for you to end it.' She wasn't talking about the deer, deer was a female. Don't know who she was talking about. (Bravo sighs.) I'm having trouble understanding the land anymore. Either this place breaks me, or I end it. I end him. Whoever the fuck he is."
9:54: "The pond is serene. It's nice. Water is bubbling down the rocks, trees forming a little barrier. The girl is here. So is the deer. They're sipping water from the pond. It doesn't look like they want to. But they have to. You need to go back to your roots."
9:55: "The sun is high. It cuts through the water, illuminates the body lying in the pool. It's a guy, middle-aged. The corpse is pretty well preserved. Pool is about two or three meters deep. This is the epicenter, and this is whoever she's talking about. She's looking at me while I record this, waiting for me to make my decision. I think I'll fish out the body. Don't know what'll happen from there. Don't really care."
9:56: <Shuffling for 2 minutes.>
9:58: <Grunting from Bravo.>
9:59: <Splashing.>
10:01: <Coughing noises.>
10:01: Unknown: I- I won't let you take this from me.
10:02: <Gunshot, cry of pain from Bravo.>
<Recorder continues recording for over two hours before it runs out of battery.>
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