[ WP ] One day , everyone in a small , isolated town wakes up and finds an ax resting beside their bed with a note that reads , `` Do what you must . ''

At first, it seemed like a joke; something the local high school threw together as a `` senior prank.'' 
 
 *Small Town Struck with Chopping Fever! * 
 
 But I was there. It was no joke. It was a set up. 
 
 My town was a typical small town located out in the middle of the woods. All the locals knew each other, visitors were big news around those parts and no one ever left. We were all just surviving in our cabins, a long way away from big cities and traffic and sky risers. It was simple; it was peaceful. 
 
 Until the axes. 
 
 *Residents Calling Deforestation Efforts `` God's Will'' * 
 
 I woke up one morning like every morning: with a crick in my neck, a pop in my spine, and blurry vision. But when I reached over to put my glasses on, something caught my eye. In the middle of my bedroom floor, glistening in the light like a jewel, was a simple wooden axe, and a note beside it. The note read, `` Do what you must.'' It was signed, `` X.'' 
 
 I drove into town early that morning, intending on filing a police report. Someone had obviously broken into my house late at night and threatened me, and this would n't fly. 
 
 But when I got to the police station, I was amazed to find that the line was so long, it extended outside the building and down the sidewalk for a block. People by the dozens were holding the same wooden axe with a note that had appeared in my room. 
 
 I approached the end of the line in disbelief. `` Excuse me,'' I asked the woman standing at the end, `` is everyone here to make a police report?'' 
 
 She nodded. `` Ayep. The whole town is here. I guess you got it too, huh? The axe?'' 
 
 A shiver shot down my spine as I realized that this was n't just one psycho breaking into my home, but this was on a scale of *hundreds* of people all in one night. One person could n't have done this. And whoever did, they were organized. They knew what they were doing. 
 
 I decided to wait in line and file a report. But after a while, a man in the middle of line caught my attention. He had the axe they left him in his hand, and he had been pacing nervously since I arrived. But he must have made up his mind, because at that moment he took his axe and approached the nearest tree, hacking wildly at the trunk in an attempt to cut it down. 
 
 Several people called out to him to stop, but he eyes were crazy as he continued chopping the tree. `` Do n't you see?'' he cried out to the crowd. `` Do what you must. It was a message to us, a message from God! This is his will!'' 
 
 He chopped and chopped away, eyes going wide with pleasure at the sight of the splintering wood chips spewing away from his frenzied attacks. When someone finally stepped forth to restrain him, he gave a mighty heave, and the tree cracked. All eyes were on it as it fell harmlessly to the side, falling to the ground in defeat. 
 
 They took the crazed man away, but that tree was only the first. 
 
 *Tree Chopping Town Resident Felled from Exhaustion; Is There More to Come? `` * 
 
 In the following weeks, more and more people began chopping down trees. At first, people laughed, thinking it was a silly fad. At the grocery store, the bank, the only fast food joint in town - everyone said the same things: `` People are just bored and think they're funny,'' `` It's just teenagers trying to fit in,'' and my favorite, `` They just do n't like trees.'' 
 
 It started with the tree in front of the police station, but it spread from there. The trees in the grocery store parking lot, the trees in the schoolyard, even the trees by the road. 
 
 The police tried to stop the perpetrators, but day after day, more and more people picked up their axe and chopped down trees. 
 
 *Three Dead in Small Town Chopping Frenzy; Experts Dispatched to Location* 
 
 And then people started dying. They would spend all day chopping down trees until their hands bled and they fell out, chopping still with their last bit of strength. 
 
 On my way to work every morning, I would hear the Choppers who lined the roads chanting to themselves, `` Do what you must. Do what you must.'' 
 
 They said it was God's Will. That God, for some reason, took a disliking to the trees that surrounded us and wanted us to destroy them. He was using us to carry out His will, so we were blessed. 
 
 But I watched my town go crazy, chopping until their palms bled, then chopping more, grinding their skin down to the bone and mushing the axe handle into their tissue. I watched everyone I knew and loved die from exhaustion and dehydration, clearing trees away in unprecedented amounts. 
 
 *Small Town Tree Chopping Frenzy Just an Internet Prank! City Named Does n't Even Exist! * 
 
 I watched my city, once a hidden paradise in the middle of the woods, slowly cleared away. The land was barren for miles, save for broken, jagged stumps and dead trees downed one after another. Bodies lied beside logs, fingers and hands bloody and ragged and still loosely gripping their tools. 
 
 I watched my loved ones die. I watched my city destroyed. And I watched the world forget us, bury us as a legend and myth and walk away from our tragedy. 
 
 But all of that ceased to matter when I picked up my axe. Because the moment my hand gripped that wooden handle, I knew exactly what I had to do. 
 
 I had been chosen to carry out God's will.
