Part 1: The Forgotten Broadcast
By Arogya
In this unforgettable short story thriller, a childhood memory becomes the seed of a terrifying truth. When Trees Remember is not your usual thriller; it’s a chilling short story that unravels through the hum of a forgotten news broadcast and the whisper of leaves. Follow Anaya, a digital archivist, as she descends into a haunting thriller built on erased footage, ancient rituals, and one sacred fruit. This short story plants dread in every detail, grows suspense like vines, and pulls you deep into a myth that feels all too real. If you love immersive short story thrillers, this one will root you in place.
The forgotten buzz sound begins from here.
“Some memories don’t fade because they’re precious. Others do… because they weren’t supposed to survive.”
Mumbai, 2022. A typical Sunday afternoon. Heat pressed against the windowpanes of Anaya’s small flat in Chembur, the kind that made the walls sweat and silence hum. The fan spun overhead with a dying groan, its rhythm slower than the thoughts pacing through Anaya’s head.
Her desk, cluttered with half-labeled VHS tapes, notepads, and a lukewarm cup of tea, was the sanctuary of her obsession. Anaya, a 24-year-old digital archivist, had built a reputation for salvaging media the world had forgotten, weddings lost to floods, Doordarshan programs erased by tape reuse, and sometimes, things that felt… wrong to watch.
The tape she found today was different.
It was unlabeled. No date. No markings. Except for one faint word scratched into the plastic: “LIFE.” Not written, scratched in with something sharp, as if the writer had done it in desperation, or warning.
She slid the cassette into her VCR. The machine whirred, coughed, and the screen turned to static. Then, slowly, the image emerged.
A wide-angle street view. Overcast skies. Cars abandoned in the middle of the road. The footage had that handheld shakiness that meant panic. The camera turned.
People were running. No screams, just movement, like a tide of bodies flowing away from something. And in the center of the frame: a figure.
It looked human at first. Giant, slow-moving, lumbering. But as it stepped forward, Anaya saw the truth. Its skin wasn’t flesh. It was bark. The tree’s bark.
Deep, cracked, moss-covered. Its eyes, barely visible, were hollow. Its mouth was sealed shut by overgrowth.
Branches extended from its back like twisted wings, and with each step, leaves fell like dying whispers.
She froze. Her heart slowed. Not out of fear. Out of recognition.
She had seen this before.
Anaya was seven. A Sunday afternoon like this one. Lunch was served on steel plates. Her father was home. They watched TV while eating, something her mother usually frowned upon but allowed on weekends.
The news had switched without warning.
No anchor. No music. Just raw footage. Just like this.
A robotic voice echoed: “Infection begins on contact. Symptoms include bark-like skin, chlorophyll activity, and limb rigidity. Patients lose speech within forty-eight hours. No known cure. Except, bananas.”
Anaya remembered clutching her banana at that moment, half-peeled, juice sticky on her fingers.
The camera showed a boy, no older than ten, whose arm had turned into bark. Doctors shoved mashed bananas into his mouth. His eyes were still human. Terrified.
Then the feed cut to a detergent commercial.
Anaya had turned to her parents. They kept eating.
“What was that?” she asked.
“What was what, Anu?” her mother replied.
“That green man! The news, the tree man!”
They laughed. “You were dreaming with your eyes open,” her father said.
But she hadn’t. She remembered every leaf. Every sound.
Back in her apartment, she played the tape again.
The robotic voice returned. “If you are watching this… they didn’t succeed in erasing everything. You have found the truth.”
She stared at the banana on her desk. Something about its yellow glow suddenly felt unnatural, like it had been watching her.
The screen showed the green man again, now closer. His face filled the lens. He did not blink. He did not breathe. But behind those bark-sealed lids… was awareness.
Another voice spoke, fainter.
“Bananas are the memory fruit. They carry light in their flesh. The only fruit from the first Yuga that survived every age.”
Anaya paused the tape, stepped back. Her pulse raced.
She wasn’t afraid of the figure. She was afraid of what it confirmed.
She had seen this. And now, she wasn’t the only one who knew.
That night, she dreamt of trees.
She stood barefoot in an endless forest where vines hung like curtains and the air pulsed with green. A man in saffron robes appeared beside her. His eyes glowed like amber embers.
“You saw it before your mind learned to erase the impossible. That’s why it stayed with you.” he said.
“Was it real?” she asked.
“It is not remembered, but it is real,” he replied. “They were the Arborum. Keepers of balance, corrupted by stillness. They wanted to turn man into seed.”
She stared at the ground. Roots moved beneath the soil.
“Why bananas?” she asked.
He smiled.
“Bananas never betray. They hold the sun inside. They are the last memory of when Earth was young. That is why the gods asked for them in worship. They are not offerings. They are reminders.”
He touched her forehead.
“You are the fruit that survived.”
She woke, breathless.
The next morning, she uploaded a single screenshot from the tape to a forum.
“Does anyone remember a 2000s news report about a tree infection and bananas being the cure?”
No replies for hours. Then one. Then five. Then a flood.
But they weren’t normal comments. They were encrypted. One reads in Sanskrit:
Kadali phalam satyam dharayati.
“The banana bears the truth of Earth.”
Another sent a photo: a man’s hand, veins rising into vines.
Then a file: .treekey. Unreadable.
Then her screen glitched.
A single green message appeared:
“They buried the forest in memory. But one seed always grows back.”
Her phone rang. One ring. Then silence.
A knock at her door.
She didn’t move. That banana on the table was gone.
That evening, a parcel arrived. Wrapped in dried banana leaves. No name. Inside: a brittle page, yellowed by time.
“If you remember, you are already rooted. But the tree only grows where the soil welcomes it. Do not let it bloom.”
A banana flower was pressed between the folds.
Her phone buzzed again.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: RUN.
When Trees Remember is more than a short story; it’s a psychological and mythic thriller that grips your mind like bark to skin. If Part 1 intrigued you, Part 2 will haunt you. The mystery grows deeper, the danger closer. Don’t miss the continuation of this unforgettable short story thriller.
