Aaron shifted his coat in an attempt to stay warm. The temperatures weren't so bad during the summer but with Christmas coming up the mountain is freezing over, metaphorically. There is almost no snow for as far as the eye can see, the distant mangrove forest has some flecks, but any snow melts on the salted ground. Aaron is here today on an excursion with his students. A rare Bald Cypress. about 80 feet tall, has been spotted in the distance and his class was given the opportunity to see it up close.

He looked around at his students, their eyes downcast and hardened. It shouldn't be this way. Alex and Hannah were keeping close, for warmth and support. They've been closer ever since Lucas lost Nina. It would be that way he supposed, Lucas had a hard time looking at his old best friend and his girlfriend ever since he lost his own during the excursion where Nina cloned a tree.

Nina was good. Fastest girl on the track team, it's a shame how she went. Every woodland excursion since has brought memories back to the forefront, but Bald Cypresses are important and everyone here knows it, not your common mangrove. Normally it was class B's turn to go on one of these, but the cold hit them hard and most of them have a fever- or covid, funny how that was everyone's concern a few years ago.

In the distance, Aaron spots the Bald Cypress, and he readjusts the grip on his axe. He motions for the students to lay low and fan out, they know what's at stake. They'll be quiet.

Aaron silently prayed while he waited for teams B and C to arrive at position, you never wanted to surround a tree, their roots make dealing with groups all too easy. A greater one like a Bald Cypress? He could only hope the salt would have slowed its growth.

Just then- there was movement. Bark split open in hundreds of locations over the Bald Cypress, Rounded Amber sap revealing itself with a black core resembling numerous eyes, it saw them. Immediately the ground a hundred yards around it began to split and crack as it uprooted itself. The massive tree; resembling a many dozen-legged spider; started moving with a speed belying its size, humanity long learned they could never outrun the trees. The moment the trees learned fighter jets could move faster every airbase was hunted down its last.

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The only way to kill a tree was by cutting its heartwood, the problem was getting close. The Cypress quickly closed the distance and began whipping its roots toward the class. Aaron and his students swung their axes by rote memory, severing the larger roots. One of his students didn't swing fast enough and was punctured through his torso. His cut was clean though, saving him from desiccation. When tree roots puncture, they suck up all the blood they can.

Aaron said a mental prayer, thankful that the Bald Cypress wasn't a cloner. Desiccation was a preferable end to cloning a tree. He saw in the distance Hannah in team C being knocked over, she's a goner.

The next half hour was spent with Aaron's class attempting to close in on the tree in order to hack its heartwood, only made possible by the tree's rapidly depleting stamina.

It was time for a headcount.

The gym class lost Evan and Trevor, Kaeden who got skewered early on was being patched up. Aaron's eyes settled on Lucas, Alex and Hannah were kneeling around him, tears in their eyes. Lucas' eyes were unfocused, he was still breathing, but it wouldn't be long.

"I didn't want you to suffer the same fate, Alex... I'm sorry, that I haven't been a good friend lately." Lucas spoke softly.

----Flashback----

Lucas and his girlfriend Nina were guarding the ocean irrigation, a project undertaken to salt the ground to make a safe space from the ents, they've been here for a few weeks without a single tree sighting. A simple job away from the forest's demarcation. The air was getting colder, the theory was that the trees were sucking up the carbon, freezing the earth over. Reverse global warming as it were.

They weren't focused and were joking around when it happened, a Dogwood sapling snuck up on them. It was quick, and they did as they were trained and hacked at the roots. It was just a sapling, easily enough they split it in half. But all was not well, Lucas turned around to look at Nina, she was rapidly paling and there was squirming under her skin. By the time he realized, it was too late. The Dogwood was a cloner. Her root-filled corpse dropped the axe and began flailing at him, a green twig growing around the corner of her eye blossomed into a pink flower.

At first, Lucas ran, he made some distance while the tree was still growing in her but cloners grow quick. Soon a root grows from her hip like a facsimile tail and she begins running on all fours, back arced in an impossible shape. This one will use all four limbs to grow roots when it sets.

Cloner or not, it was just a Dogwood. Forced beyond his means, Lucas cut it down- and cried.

~end