Chapter Two: The Threat of Losing a Home

Disclaimer: Once again, I do not anything except for Kayla. If she just happens to seem to be a personification of someone or something, that is due to freakish coincidence. So leave me alone and don't accuse me of anything. Opinions are welcome though. Also, bear with me as I'm trying to deal with the problem of having things mashed together.



Eleven years later, a logging company had set its sight on a particular forest in Germany. They had just purchased a large tract of land and a permit to log on that area. The logging project was scheduled to begin tomorrow, and the workers were looking forward to completing the task. There had been a slight problem with an old man who had warned them that the forest spirit was very territorial and that they should probably log somewhere else. Laughing at the old fool's advice, the foreman ignored him and the project would begin on schedule. Spirits indeed! Well, spirit or no, the area was going to be cleared no matter what.
The next day, early in the morning, the first few trees went down before the equipment began to malfunction. The foreman was furious, and rightly so. All of the equipment had been newly purchased and it seemed that they had gotten factory rejects. No matter, they would just have to do it the old fashioned way with saws. The logging would just have to wait until tomorrow.
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Everything had been going smoothly, until a few of the workers began to complain of a sudden freezing numbness that prevented them from working for a while. This continued until a few days later. Suddenly saws would go missing and strange sounds could be heard when there was nothing around. Then a few of the workers quit and others became frightened when a strange red-eyed glowing creature was spotted in one of the trees before fading from sight. Scoffing at the dispirited workers, the foreman continued the project. More of the workers quit when they discovered that the apparition was responsible for the freezing numbness and when it began to appear among them.
The logging project was put on hold and the media had a field day with the strange goings on. Was it caused by a real ghost, or was it a prank by some tree hugger. The answer was soon found out has a cameraman caught a brief sight of the thing on tape. It became a big controversy and soon it was the biggest topic of the world. Ghosts really did exist, and proof of it was seen on live television. The loggers moved out and the area quickly became the flocking point of ghost hunters who wanted to get an experience with the Spirit of the Forest as it was now being called. Further sightings of the spirit were coming more often after the loggers had moved out. None of the ghost hunters were attacked by the apparition as long as they left the forest intact.
The sightings were now attracting tourists who wanted to see the spirit for themselves. Unfortunately, it also attracted the attention of others who figured that the 'spirit' was something else entirely.