Written in Ash by the Forgotten

The message on Mitch’s phone was only a few seconds long, sent from a number he didn’t recognize. It had become a commonplace occurrence, voicemails from young, energetic-sounding strangers promising him three easy ways to raise his credit score, lower his cholesterol, or refinance his mortgage; other times it was a serious and usually vaguely-menacing voice telling him that he owed fines or fees on a non-existent loan or line of credit he’d supposedly opened. Mitch always deleted these without listening to them, but this latest one had been translated into text by his phone and the single sentence on the screen caught his attention. “You have been formally invited to a gathering of fellow luminaries meeting in the Muirziak Forest to discuss the future.”