Mount Rainier National Park was one of Washington’s most famous landmarks. Endless evergreens swallowed mountain roads whole, cell service hesitated enough to make anyone uneasy, and by sunset the only sounds left were insects, distant rivers, and the wind weaving through the trees.

As beautiful as it was, the forest carried one constant threat.

Fire.

A single spark could turn miles of timber into an inferno, threatening the towns that rested beyond the mountains.

Fresh out of training, she was assigned to Fire Tower Eleven. A lonely cabin perched one hundred and twenty feet above the forest floor with one simple responsibility: watch the trees. Every morning and every evening, weather reports were radioed back to the ranger station miles away. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it was important.

Her nearest coworker wasn’t another ranger at the station.

It was Fire Tower Ten.

Fifteen miles away.

She’d never actually seen the tower. Never seen the man stationed inside it either. All she knew was that he sounded young, maybe somewhere in his mid-twenties, and every evening, without fail, his voice arrived before hers did.

”…BZZZ… BZZZ… Tower Ten checkin’ in…”

Then came the familiar hiss of static.

His voice was low, calm, almost lazy, as if the mountains had slowed his words down over the years.

She always found herself waiting for his check-in before making her own.

The handheld radio resting beside the logbook buzzed idly throughout the day. Sometimes she wondered if her voice sounded just as broken apart through the static as his did.

”…BZZZ… BZZZ… Tower Eleven, present… BZZZ…”

That was usually where the conversation ended.

Until about a week ago.

Roughly three months into the job.