Sunday Short: Forwards
- Faiz Faisal
- Aug 2
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 14
A sequel to "Backwards"
The forest first appeared in Anan's life on a Sunday.
Neither he nor Chai thought much of it at the time.
It was just another hiking trip.
Just another escape from the heat and noise of Chiang Mai.
The two friends had spent nearly fifteen years exploring trails together. They knew every waterfall, every abandoned shrine, every hidden path tourists never found.
Or so they thought.
That morning, they discovered a trail neither of them had seen before.
It wasn't on any map.
It wasn't marked.
It simply appeared between two enormous trees.
A narrow path disappearing into dense wilderness.
"Have you seen this before?" Anan asked.
Chai shook his head.
"No."
Anan grinned.
"Then let's find out where it goes."
Those would later become the words Chai hated most.
The trail seemed normal at first.
Birdsong echoed through the trees.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves.
The air smelled of wet earth and moss.
Then the sounds stopped.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
As if someone had muted the entire forest.
No birds.
No insects.
No wind.
Nothing.
Anan stopped walking.
"You hear that?"
Chai nodded.
The silence felt wrong.
Heavy.
Like something was listening.
The path eventually led to a clearing.
At its center stood a dead tree.
Its bark was black.
Its branches twisted unnaturally toward the sky.
Surrounding the tree were dozens of small spirit houses.
Ancient.
Rotting.
Collapsed from age.
Some appeared centuries old.
Others looked almost new.
Every shrine contained the same offering.
A clock.
Hundreds of clocks.
Pocket watches.
Wall clocks.
Broken wristwatches.
Every single one frozen at a different time.
"Okay," Chai said.
"We should leave."
For once, Anan agreed.
Neither of them noticed the figure standing beneath the dead tree.
Watching.
Life continued.
At least for a while.
Three days later, Anan correctly guessed the ending of a television drama he had never seen.
A week later, he answered a question before Chai asked it.
Two weeks later, he started arriving early to meetings nobody had informed him about.
People laughed.
Called it luck.
Coincidence.
Good intuition.
Anan laughed too.
But Chai noticed something unsettling.
Anan never seemed surprised anymore.
One evening they were having dinner when Anan suddenly put down his spoon.
"You should call your mother."
Chai frowned.
"Why?"
"Because she fell down the stairs."
The color drained from Chai's face.
"That's not funny."
Anan looked confused.
"What?"
"My mother."
"What about her?"
"You said she fell down the stairs."
Anan stared blankly.
"I didn't say anything."
Half an hour later, Chai received a phone call.
His mother had fallen down the stairs.
That was when the fear began.
The months that followed were worse.
Anan started referring to future events as memories.
He spoke about conversations before they happened.
He knew lottery numbers.
Predicted traffic accidents.
Finished entire sentences before people began speaking.
Doctors blamed stress.
Neurologists blamed seizures.
Psychiatrists suggested delusions.
None of them had answers.
Then came the voicemail.
The voicemail changed everything.
At 2:17 a.m., Chai received a message from Anan.
The recording lasted seven seconds.
The problem was the timestamp.
It had been sent tomorrow.
Chai listened to it over and over.
Anan's voice sounded frightened.
Almost desperate.
"Don't let me go back to the forest."
The next day, Anan recorded the exact same message.
Chai stopped sleeping after that.
His search for answers eventually led him to an old monk living near the border.
The monk listened quietly as Chai explained everything.
When he finished, the old man looked genuinely afraid.
Not skeptical.
Not confused.
Afraid.
"The Forward Place," the monk whispered.
"You found it."
According to local stories, certain places existed outside time.
Places where reality had become damaged.
Places where past and future bled together.
People who entered often returned changed.
Most died.
The unlucky ones survived.
"What happens to them?" Chai asked.
The monk remained silent for a long time.
Then he finally answered.
"They become doors."
Chai wished he had never asked.
By the time he returned home, Anan's condition had worsened dramatically.
He no longer slept.
He barely ate.
Sometimes he stared into empty corners for hours.
Listening.
Watching.
Waiting.
One night Chai found him sitting alone in darkness.
The apartment lights were off.
The television was off.
Everything was silent.
"Anan?"
No response.
"Anan."
Slowly, his friend looked up.
His eyes seemed distant.
Lost.
"Someone's here," Anan whispered.
Chai looked around.
The apartment was empty.
"There's nobody here."
Anan smiled.
A smile Chai had never seen before.
"Not yet."
Then Anan's head tilted slightly.
As though listening to someone beside him.
And a second voice emerged from his mouth.
A voice that was not human.
Not male.
Not female.
Not anything Chai could describe.
"We're almost ready."
The lights exploded.
Every bulb shattered simultaneously.
Glass rained across the apartment.
The walls groaned.
The mirrors cracked.
And for one impossible second, Chai saw something standing behind Anan.
Something vast.
Something that stretched far beyond the room.
A shape made from overlapping moments.
Thousands of faces.
Thousands of years.
All occupying the same space.
Then it vanished.
Chai finally understood.
The thing wasn't possessing Anan.
It was arriving through him.
And once it arrived completely—
Something terrible would follow.
He spent weeks searching for another solution.
There wasn't one.
Every story ended the same way.
Every victim became a doorway.
Every doorway eventually opened.
The only way to stop it was simple.
Cruel.
Unforgivable.
The doorway had to die.
The forest greeted them with silence when Chai brought Anan back.
The same trail.
The same clearing.
The same dead tree.
The same clocks.
Anan looked exhausted.
As if part of him already knew why they were there.
"I'm sorry," Chai whispered.
For a brief moment, Anan smiled.
His real smile.
The one Chai remembered.
The one that belonged to his best friend.
"I know."
Then reality broke.
The air twisted.
The clocks surrounding the clearing began ticking backward.
Trees aged and rotted in seconds.
Dead leaves rose from the ground and returned to branches.
Voices echoed through the forest.
Fragments of conversations from different years.
Different lives.
Different futures.
And standing at the center of it all was Anan.
Or what remained of him.
Chai cried as he did it.
He cried because there was no other choice.
Because this wasn't murder.
It was mercy.
When it was over, the forest became silent once more.
Anan's body lay motionless among the fallen leaves.
The thing was gone.
The doorway was closed.
The nightmare was over.
At least Chai thought it was.
Then Anan opened his eyes.
Chai froze.
His friend slowly sat up.
Confused.
Disoriented.
Alive.
No.
Not alive.
Something worse.
Because Chai immediately recognized the look on his face.
The look of someone moving the wrong way through time.
"Chai?"
The same question.
The same confusion.
The same beginning.
And for the first time in his life—
Chai was terrified to hear his best friend speak.
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