Sam’s POV

The tree was located at the end of a playground, about two hundred meters away from the houses. I approached the tree and stood a few meters away from the nearest branch and frowned, even though it was not my first time walking on the street near the playground, I never noticed that tree before, I could vaguely remember a big tree was there, but I was pretty sure that, it wasn’t that big and green, otherwise I would have definitely noticed it.

The tree was about fifteen meters tall with strong branches spread all around it for about five meters, it had big dark green leaves, with each leaf about forty centimeters long. The strangest thing was that the tree had fruits, and I never saw fruits like that before.

The fruits were bright yellow and every twenty or so were gathered together in a cluster similar to grapes, but the fruit itself looked like a strawberry with the size of a small apple. I wondered if it was just me thinking too much or that kind of fruit didn’t exist beforehand, to solve the issue, I sent a wind blade toward a branch holding a cluster and cut it.

The cluster fell to the ground, and to my surprise, it stayed whole and the fruits were hard enough to withstand the fall. Before I could approach the cluster and examine it, Mark ran directly under the tree; grabbed the cluster and hugged it between his arms, then started to jump and laugh before teasing me by saying “I caught it first, it should be mine.”

I smiled at his childish behavior and looked behind me searching for Jack, who turned out to have been stuck talking to a former soldier right outside the playground, which explained why Mark left him and focused his attention on teasing me.

I turned my head again toward Mark while thinking if I should play along with his teasing or not, but all my thoughts vanished when I glimpsed a brown thing moving behind his legs, however, before I could alert him or even move, what looked like a fist-thick root suddenly grabbed him from his legs, which made him fall onto the ground on his front, then the thing started to pull him into a small hole about a meter away from his position.

The whole situation took me by surprise, in the original timeline, there were no moving roots or anything similar to the thing I just saw, which made confused and my reaction speed was slower than usual.

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By the time I reached Mark, his legs were already buried in the ground, while he was trying his best to keep himself from getting buried, by shoving his fingers desperately in the ground, nevertheless, all his attempts were useless as his body was still moving fast toward the hole.

I tried to locate whatever was dragging him, but I couldn’t see it anymore, therefore, all I could do was to grab Mark’s hands and try to pull him out of the hole. I yanked him and managed to stop him from being dragged anymore, but the force which was pulling him was immense and made him scream in pain as his body was ripping apart from the two opposite forces, so I had no choice but to stop pulling him.

I kept my grasp firmly on his hands and focused my attention at the small hole, it was hardly the size of Mark’s body, or more likely, his dragged body was shaping the hole to fit him. I looked at Mark who half of his body was already under the ground and contemplated on what to do, if only he wasn’t Jack’s friend, I would have left him to die.

I released his hands and used my earth ability at level one to widen the hole in the hope of seeing the thing that was dragging him, but at the low level of one, my attempt was futile as the soil kept falling from the side to cover the hole again, which made me little angry, but nevertheless, I couldn’t use my full ability it was going to draw unwanted attention to me.

I cursed as I tried again and increased my ability a little bit, just enough to overcome the falling soil, and walked toward the hole. I could feel the ground under my feet were soft and unsteady with noticeable movements, and I knew that I needed to act fast.

I focused on widening the hole with one hand until I saw the thing, which after a closer look, turned out to be root, I crouched down and tried to reach the root, but I couldn’t and it was dangerous to shoot a wind blade at it; because it was circling around Mark’s legs, with no other option, I widened the hole more and jumped inside it.

Mark’s body started to move faster from the moment I removed the soil, hence I had less time to think and had to act, even though I knew that what I was doing was stupid. I grabbed Mark’s thigh and pushed him up with the hand that was holding the hole open, and used my wind ability with my other hand to create a fast-rotating plate from the wind and used it to cut the root.

The soil was falling fast and Jack was running toward us with the soldier in tow. When the root was almost cut and its grasp on Mark’s legs became loose, I yanked him up and threw him two meters away from the quickly closing hole which was at that moment almost as deep as my height.

I spit out some dust and was preparing myself to jump out of the hole; when another root pierced through my stomach and circled itself around me and started to drag me down and under the ground. Even though I didn’t feel pain, I was shocked that something fragile like wood managed to pierce through my body.

When the hole was fully closed, Mark was coughing and panting trying to catch his breath while Jack was screaming my name and was about to reach Mark’s position.