Every night, I hide from the Trees

You should count yourself lucky you don’t have the Eye. Their faces are grotesque, etched with millennia of anguish and the things they’ve endured. Things we’ve put them through. Twisted in hatred for us pests. It makes sense. It’s not pretty; what we’ve done. 

When the continents were one, so were the Trees. 

It wasn’t always that way. The call of their brethren had been ever-present. They couldn’t hear them or see them, but they could feel them. Out there, alive somewhere, but far away. Their roots didn’t merge as it seemed they were meant to be. 

When lands collided and the paradise of Pangea allowed the Trees to finally be together, their Roots became a network of consciousness, humming with life below the ground, where they roamed free, ate abundantly, and lived without fear. Working in tandem with the Earth around them was easy. They breathed life into the Earth, and in return, the Earth allowed them to flourish on its land.

The Ancient Ones, the first of their kind, were the first true living thing on Earth. Their Limbs in particular, shot above ground, with varying heights of 80 feet up to over 300. During that time, and with great recommendation from the Earth, their scale-like foliage sat high above the ground to help combat their undeniable fate. 

The Earth knew something was coming. It started to split again, its lands ripping apart and leaving the Trees incomplete once more. This time was different than before. Now the hive knew what it was like to be one. They felt their hearts and souls be severed, and again the call of their brothers was distant. This time though, they knew how to listen better.

The Earth told the Trees that it had visions of beasts appearing from beyond, roaming its lands, filling its rivers with bodies and poison. These visions showed the Earth these creatures sustaining themselves with the Trees. Defiling them in great numbers, building shelter and living inside the carcasses of their amputated Limbs, sculpting art from their very flesh and using them to create murderous weapons they used on each other. The World saw its collective death, sucked dry from pests that come from Beyond.

This was terrifying to the hive. 

Soon thereafter, an egg fell from the sky, burning a hole through the air and murdering a dozen Limbs in one felt swoop. The Trees had never felt such agony before then. Neither had the Earth. This was the Worlds first brush with death. This new scorched hole held the egg, nestled it, until it cracked open and let out monsters.

Feathered cretins that walked on their hind legs. Small arms that sat angled on the front of their chests, ending with sharp claws. Beady eyes and gnashing jaws that soon would never be seen without being caked with blood. 

Knife-like talons dug into the earth as they roamed, eating everything in sight, murdering the Trees and their kin without remorse. The Trees cried with the pain; feeling everything all at once all of the time. No matter what Limb was being tortured, and no matter where it was, the hive felt the pain as if it were on every Limb.

The beasts multiplied, and after some years developed different shapes, sizes, and then grew wings and took to the skies. They built nests in the Trees, feasted on their bodies, and soon the creatures started feasting on each other.

The Earth had been right. The water that filled their roots was once a crystal clear gray had turned to red. Hell had come, and the World believed that was the Earth’s prophecy coming to fruition.

Nearly 200 million years of enslavement later, the Universe answered their plea. What they didn’t realize was that this wasn’t their haven they’d been waiting for, it was merely a continuation of their living hell.

An asteroid plummeted to Earth, killing the beasts instantly. The Earth hadn’t expected the major damage to its own being, and had not foresaw the murder of its Trees.  With the asteroid came utter darkness that lasted a years. Without the Sun, the Trees could not breathe and they nearly died. For years their Roots lay shriveled underneath the crust of the planet.

Several years later, the Earth had healed, learned to enjoy its new state of being. Its Trees were reborn. They were spread far and wide now, across bodies of water and within places they thought they’d not survive. After having experienced death, came their rebirth with which they worked closer with the Earth than ever before.

The World lived in paradise after everything had returned to normal. No more beasts to keep it scared. One section of Limbs found themselves abundant amongst an otherwise barren landscape, being nurtured by a river that flowed through its lushness and out into four branches. Brown sands and dry Earth surrounded a lush garden full of Limbs that had started to bud with succulent fruits.

The Earth enjoyed the fruits of the Trees, waiting until it fell from their arms and onto its awaiting soil, where it absorbed the nutrients with a glutinous fervor never before relished in by the World. For millennia, they enjoyed this life. Enjoyed being one with their brethren, however far apart they drifted.

A few thousand years ago, the Trees became aware of a new presence that had appeared by way of a metallic vessel that again, fell from the sky. The World braced itself as the metal egg once again cracked open and birthed a brown creature that walked upright. It was much smaller than the beasts that brought the Trees prior downfall upon them, nor was it near as scaly and menacing looking. 

This creature was soft, malleable and much weaker than what had once run rampant. It seemed to understand the Trees when they spoke, something they’d never experienced before. The beast called himself a Man. It was an arrogant bastard, telling the Trees it’d been sent by order of its God to test if this planet would befit their kind.

The Trees grew leery at this, curious as to why these Men needed to move planets at all. The Man simply said their planet was no longer able to sustain life. The World had never heard this notion of life before, and asked the Man if the beasts that had once roamed its land was what life was. 

This was a grave mistake on the Earth’s part. The question elated the Man, who fell to its knees, clasping its hands and calling out to the sky. It bellowed, water flowing from its eyes, and soon it keeled over, eyes closed, and its elation turned into terror.

A horror of nightmares played out in front of the Trees, all pulsing with fear as their roots became soaked with red like all those years ago. The Trees had seen murder from the beasts before, who would kill and feast on each other's flesh if their bellies were not full of the flesh of Trees.

This was different. This was unfathomable. This was a man, who fell to the ground, and its chest peeled open. The breast plate was exposed, and a rib broke free and rose into the air. The Trees couldn’t move-couldn’t look away-as the bone ascended into the air and began to glow like their guardians, the Stars.

The glowing orb took the shape of another Man, with hanging bags of flesh that hung from its chest and the lack of a dangling appendage between its legs. The Trees did not know what to make of the magic they’d seen. The Man had not been their friend, but they mourned his death nonetheless.

They could not believe their eyes when it arose again, chest closed and sealed as if it’d never been flung open at all. The Trees couldn’t help the feelings that overwhelmed them, and the knowledge of more sets of these Men came flooding through the ether. These were not the only beasts. 

Again, the World had been infested.

The Trees would not stand this enslavement once more. These Men and their God believed their kind was to thrive here. But what of the Trees? The Earth? The World? The Trees conspired that they would not cower this time. They would make it clear that these Men would not thrive here. They are pests that need exterminated.

The Trees tried to trick the men, all those years ago in that Garden they called Eden. The Earth heard murmurings that the Men’s so-called God was rather benevolent thought its followers would say otherwise. The God liked to trick its believers which made them obedient if you knew how to command them. The Earth told the Trees to whisper as if they were the Men’s God, to tempt the Men to eat their fruits.

The Trees tried and failed, finding that the Men seemed to lack the obedience they thought they’d possess. It was the spark of a new Limb that made the Trees realize they were playing the game wrong. They needed to tell the Men they could eat any fruit they wanted, except what came from a single Limb.

As hoped, the Men could not help but be disobedient. They ate the fruit that Trees had poisoned, knowing it would cost the experience of the new Limb, but for the greater hive of the Trees, it was worth it.

The men became deathly ill within an hour; gurgling on foamed saliva and blood, puking black bile and hardly able to breath. The grass around the men seemed to run away, turning brown in the process. The two smooth creatures died that night and the Earth absorbed their bodies like the fruit they’d eaten. 

The taste of them was foul. Putrid with the lack of empathy, and then the Earth had an epiphany while the bones of the Men that referred to themselves as Adam and Eve digested in its soils. The prophecy it had dreamt so long ago had not been the feathered and scaly cretins that came before, but these dark Men that seemed more ruthless somehow.

Killing two of these creatures didn’t make a dent in their numbers. They procreated like rabbits, never stopping their defiling acts, and sometimes even using the Trees to keep them propped up. The larvae of these beasts were more often than not hairless, chunky, and made awful noises that kept the Trees awake.

The World realized that these beasts weren’t as rough as the previous series of life it hosted. These beasts, in fact, could work in tandem with the Trees and the Earth, and had something to offer. With weather came storms, with storms came lightning, and with lightning came the sacrifice of unwilling Limbs. It wasn’t the Earth's fault it had storms. It’s merely how the World works.

The Men would harvest these split and fallen Limbs, which came as a surprising relief to the Trees. The loss of a Limb is extremely painful, sort of like if a Man were to get a finger cut off, but more painful because the zap of lightning does everything but a clean job. The Limb would be severed haphazardly, left to rot while still attached for all of the Trees to feel forever.

At first, the Trees found the act of a Limb removal unethical. The Men would take their flesh and burn it, or section it into pieces and build shelter. It was uncomfortable to see these creatures living inside their dead carcasses, but somehow it seemed too familiar. 

Like when their fruit falls to the ground and the Earth takes it in.

The World was happy like this for a bit. They started to become rather fond of their new inhabitants. It wasn’t until the first winter of the Men that the Trees realized these new beasts still had plans to enslave them, no matter how well they worked together. The Men started to cut down Limbs on their own, rather than wait for the World to sacrifice one. 

The Men showed their ruthlessness early on but the Trees did not want to believe their eyes. They cried and screamed until they soon realized that Men chose not to listen. Eventually Man had evolved to block out their voices entirely. They didn’t care to hear their cries anymore, and they couldn’t even if they did.

The Trees soon realized they were nothing more than just another resource for these leeches. They’d be brutally torn from their home in vast sections, the feeling akin to having one’s veins removed for the Earth. 

The World had never wished to not be one before. The agony had brought the awful idea to the very tips of its atmosphere. Sadly, it could do nothing but exist, feeling everything as the pests infested the planet to its core. The World had become one of its own creations; a succulent fruit, decaying underneath a swarm of ants, eating away at its nutrients.

The Trees never gave up trying to communicate with Man. They’d become fluent in the languages of Man, understood everything, but could communicate nothing. They’d hear myths about songs on the wind, generally told around a campfire, and rustle in the wind. This was their only way of showing their anger. 

They aren’t songs, they are pleas.

The Ear was a phenomenon that started appearing in newborns around the mid 70s following the invention of the cellphone. The frequencies were said to not be a damage to hearing, which in a way was true, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t transform it. The electrical signals that the brain interprets as sound were discovered to be fueled by this new frequency.

The inner ear evolved due to this new frequency, not only allowing for the ability to hear within the standards of the audible range, but into the infra and ultrasound frequencies. 

In laymen’s terms, Man had grown to once again hear the Trees. The powers that be never made this public knowledge but I swear to you, if you listen, you can hear them.

After millennia spent enslaved to Man, the Trees don’t have many nice things to say about most of us. There’s some good ones, some that even physically hug their Limbs, ones that fight for them, others that are more appreciative from afar. Most though are vile, selfish things with no idea that they’re torturing the very thing allowing them to live.

The taunts of the Trees to their captors had fallen on deaf ears for so long that it took them months to realize that this most fresh batch of larvae seemed to react to their words of malice since the Man called Adam. The first Limb to realize had been formed as an Oak Tree in the woods of Sweden. A Blue Spruce in the snowy mountains of Colorado was the second, and a Palm on an unnamed island was the third. 

The realization paired horribly with the life span of the pest of Man. These creatures take years to grow, to be taught language, to have morals. It was a relief that the larvae could very clearly hear them, it was torturous to know it would be years until they’d arrive to their pupa stage, where they could begin to fathom what the Trees are asking.

When the oldest of the larvae that beheld what the Trees call ‘the Ear’ turned seven, they were persuaded by the Trees to demand their Elders stop defiling the planet with its poisons. The elder Men did not listen to their children. They believed the larvae were ill-equipped to hold such knowledge over their superiors. 

Hence, more waiting. 

It’s all the Trees could do as this new wave of Man, ones with the Ear, were handed over the reigns of the world. The World became attached to this lifetime of Men, though as they grew, the ability to communicate with the Trees seemed to be a nuisance more than a celebrated achievement. 

The more powerful pests that control the rest went as far as to invent a radar that changes incoming frequencies, essentially muting the voices of the Trees and Earth alike.

The Trees again had been silenced. It was this exact moment when the Earth realized that Man was the beast from its dreams. Man would be its demise. Earth would be nothing but another murdered planet on Mankind’s docket. 

When the Men with the Ear reached their mid twenties, a new frequency was becoming ever present fairly quickly. It was something that reminded the Trees of itself, entwined together with miles between hubs. The pests call it the internet, and they let it drink them in. 

This was good for the Trees. They realized they, too, could become a radar for a frequency, but rather than mute it, they’d absorb it. If it could mix it into the air, perhaps the next round of larvae would not only possess the Ear, but what the Trees call the Eye. Waiting was what they did best, anyways.

Fifteen years ago, in a small podunk town in the Appalachian Mountains, a single child was born with screens in place of eyes. They weren’t actual screens. Still fleshy, pearl colored wet masses connected via a nerve bundle, but the eyes had no iris or pupil, and had a luminous glow to them that didn’t seem to bother the infant. The glow of their eye was chalked up to a unique birth defect and the child was presumed blind. 

Little do they know, I can see very well and I can see the Trees. 

One cannot begin to describe how horrible a face with ancient anger embedded in its bark is. 

I’ve always heard others reference the voices of the Trees as soft; angelic almost, like music. What I hear is not like that. 

It’s like nails on a chalkboard, agonizing screams while their loathful gaze pierces me. Even with all the hate, they say I’m special. They say Mankind are all pests, but I am special. I can be saved, if I become one with it.

The eyes of the Trees have followed me my entire life. I’ve always been petrified of them. Nobody believes me when I tell them why. Tells me I’m crazy for saying I can hear them. See them. Everyone thinks I’m playing some elaborate joke, trying to trick people into thinking I can really see. I can’t see much, but I can see the Trees.

They play me their memories at night. Pump their feelings through my veins. We’ve been awful to them. We’ve hung bodies in their arms. Soiled their lands with piss and shit and blood. Pumped poison into its water that we drink and smoke it in plumes into the air we breathe.

The World could let us go on. Sooner than we realize, we’d be our own end. But in our wake, the Trees and Earth alike would, too, meet theirs.

Can’t you hear it? Their voices on the wind? How can you ignore that? Even if I couldn’t see their weeping faces, older than time and crying tears we’ve polluted with our greed, I wouldn’t be able to ignore that god awful sound.

Unfathomable years of pain. The hive can’t even describe the sort of pain they felt when the feathered cretins roamed free. What they can communicate is that we pests are much, much worse.  

They flash their anguish to me in fleeting images. Horrible scenery, disgusting feelings. Like my skin is crawling. Every night since I can remember, I’ve tried my damndest to hide from the Trees. I thought if I barricaded myself in my room, threw the blanket over my head, shut my eyes and covered my ears that maybe… maybe I could hear my own thoughts for a moment.

But nobody believes me and now I’m locked in this white, padded room, without a bed, and now I can no longer hide from the Trees.

The Trees say I am ready. As much as I’d prefer to be hiding under the covers, the Trees have a story, and I’m here to tell it to you. Read this or don’t, but I know you can hear their cries. There’s no way you can’t hear that. 

It makes my ears bleed sometimes.

The World has been here before. Know the outcome already. The Trees tell me the World is not ready to die, but it will if it must. It's gotten tired of waiting. Tired of its enslavement. The World is ready to be reborn again without pests crawling on its skin that destroy its flesh then make a home in the wound.

The Trees tell me for months now, they’ve been pumping the air full of our own fruits. They show me images of what the Earth has dreamt, what it has seen become of Man. Bodies on bodies on bodies, sleeping, returning to the Earth as it were. They’ve shown me what they will feel like, watching us sleep forever. I’ve never felt such a thing in my life. Such elation.

I’m not sure how much time we’ve got left, but it is not much. I hope you enjoy your next few days. 

They will be your last.