Drama Fantasy Fiction

There are certain kinds of people that take specific things or events in their lives and “make their entire personality” out of it.

Some high school white girls make Starbucks their personality. Some elementary school boys make Fortnite their personality.

The small village of Amber Pond made their rich, thick forest their entire collective personality.

The small village of just 972 people was founded far back into the 1800s on southern American soil.

Their current mayor- Lucille Von Der Pawll- earned the election win by making her whole campaign all about conserving the forest around them.

Miles of thick wooded land surrounds them, with roads and paths leading into various nearby towns and cities. There is one industrial-grade highway meant for heavier vehicles for deliveries and mail. Other spinoff roads are meant for people that just want to drive somewhere else, and the paths are for hikers and bikers alike to explore.

The area which Amber Pond lays is completely open, no tall forest trees are permitted to live within the city boundaries- by law. The only shrubbery you can have are small trees that don’t grow beyond a measly twenty-five feet tall.

Not even city-owned property has anything taller than that, except for a couple of buildings like the courthouse, firestation, and the police headquarters. Even the consolidated school is only one story.

The Precious Grove Forest was a huge part of this small village, rich within its history, past and present. It houses wildlife and shelter. It serves a purpose for making certain recipes, for hosting certain events.

The Precious Grove Forest is what makes Amber Pond Amber Pond.

Until the day the forest disappeared.

The whole village operates from seven am to nine pm. If anyone works outside of town, they may leave or come home at different times. But any business or building run within the bounds of the people operates somewhere strictly between those times.

That’s why no one noticed when the forest disappeared- at least, not at first.

When, in the middle of the night, Bronwyn and her husband Duwim were coming home from an emergency trip into the city to visit family, they had a hard time figuring out where to go.

You see, the border of the trees begins a couple miles downhill from the nearest towns; this was a state standard to conserve the forest when the area started to populate more.

The highway Bronwyn and Duwim were supposed to take was leading them through miles of plains.

Despite driving this route so often, it confused the couple.

They even consulted their GPS that claimed they were going in the right direction.

And sure enough, they arrived at their home, but their home- their village- was missing the most crucial part of its history: The Precious Grove Forest was gone, not an animal nor a plant left behind. It was all just dirt.

As they got closer to the village, Bronwyn took pictures of videos of their surroundings, trying to convince herself she was just tired, and that everything would be normal in the morning.

She was unnerved because Duwim was seeing the exact same things as she was. So she wasn’t crazy. Unless they were both just tired…

When day broke at six am, Bronwyn startled awake to commotion outside.

The early birds were awake and mortified that their trees and history were gone.

Bronwyn and Duwim wished their experience just hours ago was merely a dream, or a hallucination. But as they joined their neighbors outside, they realized what they had seen was real.

Within fifteen minutes, the whole village was surrounding the center plaza, waiting with bated breath for the mayor and the council to come together and make a statement.

They requested emergency responses from the state government and were waiting to hear back.

The school was to remain closed for the day academically, but if families needed a safe place for their children to go for the time being, they were more than welcome to drop them off.

The police asked for no one to leave town until they figured out what was going on- upon hearing this, Bronwyn pulled an officer aside and told him that her and Duwim came home in the middle of the night, and the forest was gone. Bronwyn had to show the pictures and videos she took and had to explain to the mayor and the council and the police force that she simply thought she was tired. That Duwim thought he was just tired.

It was terrifying to admit their whereabouts, out of fear they would be blamed to some degree. But they weren’t, at least not after Bronwyn surrendered her phone for the investigation as evidence.

By eleven am, the whole state knew about the situation. The mayor and the governor had both made statements, talking about how the mystery was being investigated, and told everyone to please not waste time panicking, that everything would be resolved soon.

They evacuated the whole village by three o’clock that day, no regular citizen was allowed back in.

Businesses remained closed, parents had to pick their children up from the school, families had to leave non-essential belongings behind. It was horrible, it was terrifying.

Bronwyn and Duwim didn’t have much they had to take, lucky for them, but they still had to sit through the mountain of evacuation traffic with everyone else- also dealing with the fact that everyone was trying to figure out where the hell to go.

Every road except for the industrial highway was packed with cars of fleeing folk.

At some point, the state sent investigators in, and people on nearby roads could see and hear the emergency personnel flying down the road to get to the bottom of things.

As the day dragged on, theories popped up online- aliens? Magic? Is this the end of the world? Are evil spirits angry? Did the government do this?

Back in Amber Pond, samples were taken from soil, film was stripped from cameras, grounds were swept for clues.

Nothing was ever found.

Not many households had cameras, but none, the officials found, had any pointing towards the forest. No one had any reason to have to survey the forest. It was always there, safe and untouched.

This was the day the forest disappeared.

After a few days, the people of the village demanded answers.

Since they found no evidence of foul play or any other kind of explanation, the government had no choice but to let the people go back home- they had lives and education and businesses at stake, there was no point in denying them, it wasn’t good for the local economy, or anything else, really.

As the town slowly returned home, the government swooped in to plant new shrubbery, not having any other ideas on what to do.

Weeks went by, weather came and went, people went on with their lives. The plants started to grow, slowly but surely, and things were looking up.

The forest disappeared, and it may not have come back, but the people of Amber Pond adapted and created new history for themselves- some of which believe that was the point all along.

Posted Sep 17, 2025
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