Another Way

Interlude II: Absence

*ba-ping!*

The man let out a deep groan for the umpteenth repetition of that same, annoying sound coming from the company email inbox this morning. He gave the bottle of liquor in his hand a look one more time before opting to not put it away after all- no, it was gonna see some heavy use today, might as well keep it on hand.

The position of a public representative for a regional woodland authority was an inherently deeply boring one, basically by definition. Spend most of one's day exchanging emails and phone calls with representatives of other business entities, be they in tourism, agriculture, or forestry, and negotiate various agreements and deals with them. Rarely, cobble together a barebones press release to the public when something noteworthy enough happened in the area they were responsible for, each time incidentally. Very rarely, interface directly with the law enforcement or the families of the people who got lost in their woods and couldn't be found, either until it was too late, or in some cases never at all.

*ba-ping!*

Disappearances in the woods weren't commonplace, thank the heavens, but they were far from absolutely unheard of either. In basically all cases though, it'd be they who were clued into a tragic disappearance like that last, much to their annoyance when things like that did happen. Nothing like having a couple cruisers and a whole search and rescue team stroll out to a forest ranger's booth only for the ranger themselves to have no idea what was going on because nobody deigned to inform the bloody woodland authority. Procedural annoyances like that aside though, they were more than willing to lend any help and knowledge they could offer towards helping in figuring out where someone who'd gotten lost could've potentially ended up at. GPS is one thing, but knowing the ways in which the land subconsciously corrals all living beings down certain paths from experience was another.

Doubly so with how inherently somber all such occasions are. Most families that have had the misfortune of having to interact with him were firmly in the stages of depression or acceptance by the time the woodland authority had ever heard of any actual disappearance. In most cases all they were able to give them was a decomposing body in a black bag and, if they were lucky, some of their belongings.

*ba-ping!*

This case would've likely been just one of those like that, even despite the weirdness that saturated every single aspect of it. Someone respectful and responsible stumbles on the aftermath, calls the police, who call the family, start looking, and maybe, eventually, call the woodland authority. A proper search and rescue operation is performed and no body is found. Attempts to contact the family fail, and one day a pretend burial is held out of the country's pocket, and the poor missing person is finally written down as dead.

It could all have been so simple. So proper, so procedural. So much headache could've been saved for everyone involved- but no, of course that couldn't have happened.

Because, of course, the first person to stumble upon the aftermath just had to have been a travel vlogger. The recording of the scene and its precise location just had to have been broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people before the police could even finish writing up the basic report.

*ba-ping!*

From there, everything happened so quickly, so chaotically. Both the woodland authority and law enforcement had to downright rush into the woods to get some sort of a perimeter and an investigation set up before too many mouth breathing teens who just so happened to live nearby could descend on the scene and tamper with it enough for finding anything to go from infeasible to impossible. The limited interference that had already happened by the time anyone could properly show up was enough to cast doubt on any takeaways from the resulting investigation. At the same time though, the details of this specific case were so messy, so dumbfounding, that most of them doubted that simple civilian interference like that could've even made anything appreciably worse.

Well stocked travel backpack resting on the bench, IDs included. A pile of clothes in front of said bench, enough for a full outfit. Sneakers, socks, jogging pants, underwear, sports bra, purple t-shirt, only the latter two having any sort of damage in the form of long, thin cuts on their fronts and backs. A half eaten sandwich doing its best impression of ant bait next to the clothes pile. No signs of struggle, no blood, no conceivable motivation for the college student in question to just decide to throw everything away and run off naked into the woods.

No body to be found.

*ba-ping!*

Regardless of how incoherent the case was, how inexplicable, it did ultimately come down to him to come up with some sort of a response to all the news organizations that were badgering their company email inbox, with something, anything, even if just to stall for time.

And that much he could do. One moment to finish pouring himself a drink and down it in a couple shaky gulps later, he started copying over the template he'd written down the previous day, double checking each time to make sure he didn't accidentally copy the wrong thing-

Due to the ongoing and sensitive nature of the investigation, we are presently unable to answer any questions about the disappearance of Sue A. Mullins on the twelfth of April. We are planning to release a press statement once more verifiable details about the case come to light, and would appreciate your patience until then.

~ Galloway Woodland Authority