You Belong to the Trees.

Un-beta'd (Looking for a beta)

I lie awake in bed after being tucked in by my mother. She has just finished telling me some fairy tales from a big book kept on my bookshelf. Fairy tales have always been my favorite bedtime stories; as far back as I can remember. She turns the light off casting the room into a comfortable darkness.

“I Love you sweetheart, sleep well,” She says before closing my door part of the way. The light from the hall cuts a narrow path of light through the darkness. I can see her peek into my sister’s room before continuing on to her room.

“Love you too mommy,” I call after her before I close my eyes and drift off into a light and restless sleep. I find myself in a dream world, in which I’m Hansel and my older sister Amanda is Gretel. We are walking through the woods just like in the story. Amanda is leaving breadcrumbs behind us as we wander deeper and deeper into the woods. The woods are full of life, little furry animals scampering about. I see a big wolf lazing on a rock. A light breeze is causing the trees to move, making them seem to be reaching out to shake our hands in a friendly gesture. We happen upon a stone house in the middle of a clearing in the forest. I turn to Amanda and say, “This isn’t right, the house is supposed to be a big gingerbread house.”

“What are you talking about? Grandma’s house has always looked like this silly,” Amanda replies and ruffles my hair with her free hand. I push Amanda’s hand off my head and give her an angry look. She just smirks at me. This type of thing is pretty normal for us, she always does stupid stuff like that because she’s older and thinks she can get away with it (which more often then not she does). She walks up to the metal door and knocks three times.

“Oh, come right in children, the door is open,” Our grandmother, says in a sweet old lady voice. As soon as Amanda opens the door the smell of cookies hits my nose, causing my mouth to water. We both walk into the house, which is sparsely furnished. The house is a tad bit warm from the oven being on but not uncomfortably so. We see Grandma leaning over the oven and watch as she pulls out a tray of cookies. “Here children I made these cookies for you, they’re chocolate chip.”

“Thanks grandma,” We both say in unison, as we walk over to her and reach for a cookie.

“Be careful deary they’re hot.” We each grab a cookie and grandma was right, they are
very hot. Amanda and I juggle the cookies between our hands until they cool down enough to hold. We both eat our cookies and walk over and give grandma a big hug. She hugs us both back with all her might, which at her age isn’t very much. For someone her age she’s surprisingly fit but still frail at the same time.

Grandma has always been my favorite relative outside of the house; she’s always been so nice. She always gets the best Christmas and birthday presents, and whenever we go to her house she always has fresh baked cookies that blow my mom’s cookies out of the water.
“Lets play a game together grandma,” Amanda suggests.

“I would love to play a game with you both children but I have some chores to do before I can do that, but let me get you a board game to play,” Grandma replies as she goes to her closet and pulls out Candyland and sets it on the table. Amanda and I walk over to the table, sit down and start to set the game up. While we start to play grandma back over to the closet and pulls out an ax and rests it on her shoulder and walks outside.

“What do you think she’s going to do with that ax?” I ask Amanda.

“She’s probably just going to chop some fire wood or something.” Grandma walks back into the house, but the ax she was carrying is nowhere to be seen. She walks over to the table and sits down.

“Grandma, what green eyes you have,” Amanda says. Which I think is really strange because grandma’s eyes are brown.

“All the better to see into your soul with my dear.”

“What a nice thing to say grandma, thank you,” Amanda replies.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable and wanting to change the subject I say, “How have you been lately grandma?”

“Well I’ve been ok, but those darn trees have been giving me all kinds of trouble.”

“How can trees give you trouble grandma?”

“They are trying to take me away, trying to make me go away,” Grandma says before reaching out and grabbing my shoulders. “They’re trying to kill me don’t you get it!” I pull away, out of grandma’s grip, and her green eyes start to glow. “They’ll come for you one day, oh yes they’ll come for you,” She says before bursting into a fit of maniacal laughter.

I shoot up out of my bed, covered in a cold sweat, screaming at the top of my lungs. A moment later my mom and dad come rushing into my room trying to see what's wrong.

“Another nightmare son?” My dad asks. I just nod my head. He walks over to my bed and sits down beside me. “You know dreams can’t hurt you right?” I nod again. My dad hugs me and my mom walks over and joins the hug. When my parents let me go I see Amanda standing in my doorway looking tired and a little upset.

“Can you try not to wake me up anymore? I have to get up early for school tomorrow,” She says before stomping back off into her room and slamming the door.

“Just ignore her son she’s just tired and she didn’t mean to sound angry with you,” My mom explains.

“I know mommy.” And she’s right Amanda is normally a really nice sister and I know she’s just upset because she hasn’t been sleeping well and my constant nightmares aren’t helping. My parents tuck me back into bed head back to their room. After a few minutes I drift off back to sleep.

Being a light sleeper I’m awakened by a soft tapping noise. I sit up in bed and look around my semi-dark room trying to find the cause of the noise. I’m old enough not to believe in silly monsters hiding under the bed or in the closet. So I’m not worried about something like that even after having such a weird dream. A year or two ago I may have thought the sound was a monster but now that I’m nine I’m too big to be afraid of stuff like that. I don’t see or hear anything so I write it off as being the wind and lie back down. Just as I’m falling back asleep I hear the tapping noise again but this time it’s much louder. Still lying down with the covers pulled up over top of me I tentatively look around my room, again I see nothing. Childhood fears start to take over and I lie back down with the covers drawn over my head. Being too afraid to sleep I just lie there waiting for whatever it is that’s making the noise to stop or preferably go away. I hear it again, only now it’s more like pounding. Angry pounding.

The sound seems to be coming from my window. But that makes no sense to me as my bedroom is on the second floor and the closest thing to my window would be the neighbor’s tree, which is really far away from our house. The tree’s branches shouldn’t be long enough to reach my window. So what could be hitting against the window I wonder? My question is quickly answered as something crashes through my window sending shards of glass flying in every direction. I smell something earthy and mossy, I peek out from under the blankets and see a huge tree branch jutting from the window. I hear a voice gruff that is seemingly disembodied. It says, “You belong to the trees”, bright green eyes sparkle like uncut emeralds in from the window, eyes filled with anger and rage. The tree looks at me the way a slave owner would look at a disobedient slave before beating him. Petrified with fear I can do nothing as the large branch slowly inches closer to my bed. The branch slowly wraps itself around my right leg and tries to pull me from my bed.

“No let go!” I scream as I pull on my ensnared leg and kick the branch with my left leg. The pant leg of my pajama pants rips from the knee down, and I can feel blood start to trickle out of the fresh cut on my leg in a slow flowing crimson river. The branch eventually breaks and the tree lets out a loud indignant scream. Its eyes flash from green to red momentarily. Looking into those eyes is like looking at a massive meteorite about to crash into your yard, the eyes promise pain and destruction. I know I need to get out of there this instant.

I dart out of bed and run into the hall heading towards my parents’ room. Even before I reach Amanda’s door I hear her scream. I rush into her room and see a tree branch coming from her window wrapped around her arm. She looks at me and screams for me to help her. I react with out thinking I rush to her desk and grab her chair and charge at the tree branch. I bring the chair down with all my might on the thick wooden limb. It has little effect on the branch. The tree pulls Amanda out of her bed, and she hits the floor with a loud thud. I grab onto the rough barky surface and fight to break it. “Amanda, help me break this thing,” I cry as I continue to try and free her. She wordlessly obeys and starts to struggle. After a few seconds I hear the branch snapping and a deep angry roar echoes through the room. Amanda pulls her arm free and crawls towards the door, with me right behind her.

We rush into the hall and head for our parents room. When we get there I open their door and rush in. I am greeted with a sight that I will never forget for the rest of my life. Tree branches are coming from both my parents’ windows; two sets of blazing green eyes are looking in on me with untold fury. The branches are holding both of my parents’ now lifeless bodies by the throat suspended over their bed, like angels in flight. Their heads are twisted into an unnatural angle, and their faces have a bluish tint to them, presumably caused by lack of oxygen. There is a grimace on my mother’s face, it seems as though she died in a great deal of pain. It’s hard to tell what facial expression is on my father’s face, at one moment it looks like he is meditating and at peace with everything, the next minute he seems scared and angry. I hear the gruff, monotone voice once again, the voice seems to come from every direction, “Your fate has been decided. You belong to the trees. There is no escape.” The trees let my parents’ bodies fall to the bed unceremoniously. Their bodies’ crash softly onto the bed, they bounce back up lifelessly from the fall. They come to rest side by side, almost as if they were looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. The branches then come at me with unimaginable speed; one strikes me in the stomach knocking me into a wall. As I collide with the wall my head snaps back and hits off the wall, temporarily causing my vision to go white as snow. Dizzy and disoriented I barley feel the branches grab my legs and arms. The trees lift my now semiconscious body up and out of the window. I see the other tree has Amanda caught in its branches before I pass out.

I wake up some time later in a wooden cage and my head is killing me. At first I have no idea where I am or how I got here, but then it all comes back to me, we were attacked by trees and my parents are now dead. I want to believe that this is just some bad dream, that I'm still tucked into my bed back in my room. Deep down no matter how much I want to believe that to be true I know it’s not.


I look around and find myself surrounded by about seven other kids all of which are boys. My sister is nowhere to be seen. It’s nighttime and most of the kids are asleep, but one boy is awake and looking at me. “What's going on?” I ask him.

“They’re going to kill us.”

“Who’s going to kill us?” I ask, already expecting to know his response.

“The trees.” Even in the dark I can tell he’s crying. I want to comfort him in some way, but I myself am in need of comforting and can do nothing but let him cry. I pull my knees up against my chest and rest my chin there. I feel myself starting to breakdown; all the night’s events are catching up with me and I just start to cry. Tears roll down my cheek and land on my torn pajama pants. I want my parents next to me and I want to know if my sister is still all right. I can hear the sound of other kids crying, but I also hear the peaceful sounds of nature. Crickets chirping, and an owl hooting in the distance, a cicada calling for a mate. I quickly realize I'm in the woods, which means they are all around me, in every direction, hundreds of them. As I sit there in a tight little ball, not being able to do much more then cry out in pain and sadness.

I lie there in my little ball for what seems like hours, (which in reality was probably only a few minutes) when one of the other boys wakes up. In the dim light it’s hard to tell what he looks like at this distance but he looks over towards me and starts moving closer. He sits next to me and the boy I was talking to before, he’s a little older then I am, maybe eleven or twelve. Now that he’s closer to me I can see that he's upset.

“Are you ok?” I ask.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worth continuing? Let me know what you guys think looking for any and all comments so long as they are constructive.