All Bark and Some Bite ( 8 ) : Though still early in the season, some trees have already begun to shed their leaves. Maybe it’s climate change, maybe it’s a parasite. The bark of the trees seem oddly dark, almost black, but on their own they don’t look so unnatural. Maybe it’s just a pesticide or something? There’s no reason to be nervous around trees, anyway. By day, they seem perfectly normal. By night, they’re oddly loud and creaky, but even that’s normal too, right? And it’s just the wind that makes it seem like they’re moving behind you as you walk. It doesn’t explain the low gurling you sometimes hear from the darkness, like a monstrous, grumbling stomach, and it definitely doesn’t explain how the trees seem to lean in close to you. Or how they grab at you. When you least expect it, the trees seem like they’re trying to take a swipe at you. It’s strong enough to knock you off your feet or scratch you. If you get close enough, you’ll see that it’s not any ordinary tree hollow you’re staring into–it's a mouth. Leaking sappy drool, with a mouth full of sharp, barky teeth. The trees are smart, they never move when you’re looking at them, but as soon as your back is to them, you’re free game. The only thing you can do is try to get out of there before you become plant food.
Late nights were the norm for her now, but Micah looked more exhausted than she felt. It wasn’t a lack of sleep, really, but more lack of sleep at night that she found challenging. Difficult as it was for everyone around her to believe, but she was actually a morning person. Not cheerful, not by a longshot, but certainly more pleasant and easier to deal with overall. She knew she was hard on the people around her, harder still when she wasn’t properly rested and equipped with a good first dose of caffeine when going into a 24-hour shift.
Her 24-hour shift had turned into a 36-hour shift, though, so she was headed home significantly later than she expected. Not wanting to drive home half asleep, she decided to walk the short distance from the hospital to her apartment.
Short, at least, if she cut through the park.
It was one of her usual routes, one that she’d taken for years now, and one that she knew like the back of her hand because of that. She had her reservations about walking through it at night, but she could fend for herself if it came down to it. Hopefully not, but she wasn’t oblivious to the danger that could possibly lurk in any city, particularly at night. So she walked fast, huddling up inside her coat as she went. The weather had gotten much colder in the past week, which she loved but she hadn’t had time to properly organize her wardrobe to welcome the new season so she wasn’t as prepared as she would have liked.
“I might consider taking that time off, now that I think about it,” she murmured as she went, looking thoughtful for a second as she pulled her phone out to shoot a text to her attending. It was a quick message, just a simple, “I’ll take it. Thank you.” Two-day breaks had been few and far between for her. Outside of her allotted vacation time, Micah preferred to keep busy so she didn’t often request extended time off. When she did, it was out of absolute necessity.
Given how she was feeling now, after a few days of working basically nonstop, it felt about the right time to ask for a bit of time off.
Not that she’d actually be taking a break for real rest and relaxation. No, she would spend the time addressing errands that she’d been putting off. The chores at home had been steadily piling up, her inboxes were a mess, her refrigerator needed to be cleaned out, she had to take stock and probably go grocery shopping to restock, and on top of all that she owed her parents a call and an apology. They’d been trying to reach her recently and for days on end all she’d managed to do was text them back letting them know when she might possibly be available for a chat. And then when that time came around, she managed to find a way to keep herself busy and unavailable so had to try multiple times and still wound up nowhere..
She quickly texted them next. “Free tomorrow and the day after. Let’s do lunch?”
She slipped her phone back into her pocket. It was late so she wasn’t expecting a reply from anyone. When she looked up, though, she finally noticed the trees around her. How they felt…closer than they should have been. How they seemed darker than normal, and that it might have been the nighttime and the moonlight and shadows playing tricks on her, but she could swear they were moving somehow. How they were certainly loud, which was weird enough because without wind trees didn’t typically make any kind of noticeable sound.
And what the hell was that gurgling sound?
Micah glanced around as she walked, quickening her pace and forcing her nerves down by sheer will and a subtle attempt to swallow the lump in her throat. On high alert, the young woman quickly made her way through…but the trees were somehow closing in around her. She felt branches snag when she could swear she had stayed on the path, well away from the reach of any branch–she couldn’t even remember seeing low-hanging branches so how they were catching on her, she had no idea. She just pressed on, because she had a sinking feeling that if she stopped, she might not make it out of there alive.
Taking deep breaths as she went, she attempted to dispel the nervous energy. At least she could still see the path, but with each step the trees just pressed in that much closer…
“This is insane,” she muttered, glancing back for a second. Her eyes went wide at the sight of teeth, and she turned to look ahead again and she could see the teeth everywhere. The trees had mouths full of creepy, sharp, bark-like teeth. It looked like something out of a movie, and it didn’t take a whole lot for her to decide what she had to do next.
She ran.
As fast as she could, down the familiar path. For some reason it didn’t seem like she was getting any closer to the end, though, like she was somehow put on a hidden treadmill and she was putting energy running, on the fast track to nowhere. She stumbled a few times as she tried to push past the tricks her mind was clearly playing on her. Anxiety did that, she knew that, but knowing did absolutely nothing to get rid of it. In fact, she could swear it was slowly growing into full blown panic, and if she succumbed to that…
On the very edge of her subconscious she could feel a curious warmth there, a quiet sense of security and safety. A small but solid confidence in knowing that she would make it home just fine. She chose to focus on that as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her, feeling the branches swiping at her, catching on and sometimes tearing through her clothes and what parts of her skin were exposed. All she could hear was her own breathing and the sound of her heartbeat thundering in her ears, all she could see was the path ahead of her.
And the cane that was leaning against one of the trees ahead.
Without hesitating, without even really thinking, she reached for it. As soon as she took hold of it she felt a surge of energy suddenly flow through her.
She felt…stronger. Lighter. Faster, like her feet were carrying her at an impossible speed.
She also felt colder, but from what she could process in the length of time it took to sprint forward two steps she knew she didn’t have the luxury to complain about the cold. Not there, not yet. So she ran, and eventually the trees thinned, and then were behind her. The creaking and gurgling sounds, the teeth, the weird movement in the shadows…they faded into the background and made way to a small clearing on the other end of the park. Her apartment wasn’t too far off from here…
The Page came to a stop when it finally felt safe to, crumpling to the ground as she fought hard to catch her breath while trying to process what exactly was going on. Why was she suddenly wearing these clothes? What was with this cane? What the hell even just happened with those trees?
She found that she suddenly knew, though. Or at least, a name came to her, in the very back of her mind. It was where that warmth had settled, and when she closed her eyes and tried to reach for it, trying to identify it, she was somehow blinded by the light of it. It seemed to engulf her very being, washing over her with that same quiet, solid confidence from earlier.
Waipoua tightened her grip around the cane, as though confirming it was actually there before ultimately dismissing it.
And suddenly she felt clammy inside her coat, having broken out in a good sweat from the impromptu sprint. When Micah opened her eyes the night sky was spread out high above her, the stars barely visible given the bright lights of the city all around her. She was looking but not really seeing, though. A million and one questions were racing through her mind, each going a mile a minute as she slowly went over what she just experienced.
From the moment she was herself again, Micah did her best to sort through her thoughts. It was tempting to dismiss it all as nothing but a hallucination, but whenever she got close to doing so she would blink and suddenly she could see that blinding light in her mind’s eye, feel the warmth radiating from it…and she was back to square one. By the time her head hit the pillow, she had even more questions and still absolutely no answers.
It was real, though.
It happened, and now she had two days to try and figure out exactly what it even was.
1520 (gdocs)
