Chapter 2. Necessity [Reincarnanted as a Tree]

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Dwelling on nothing else, still the feeling of loss doubled, I could sense the approaching darkness in sunlight. The hands of abyss ready to pounce and grapple, pulling me down under the laying soil to its cold embrace of nothing.

The fight didn't part a single ounce of my crystalline core. The ranting of claw and teeth met their match on my branches and trunk, I knew each inch and scar knowing them as they had been sighted and torn. I couldn't mend them not that I tried. I knew, it was just that. Despite avoiding the strikes my core had lost more of its shine, much like that of when I awoke and fluff was gone. In every passing moment and dimmer so, what I saw and felt, the dribbling stream grew distant.

I found myself taken to the sprawled body resting beside my trunk. It called to me, as everything else turned mute. Shimmering wisps leaked from the creature, faint and.. Familiar. Longer I peered the more it pulled; bordering on desire, the floating lines of sparkling green as if inviting. I followed peeling back the creature's shell, the trailing wisps were condensed formed around its heart- Just like my own. A shard of crystal flickering green as the shimmer leaked, dwelling from inside...

It too had a core.

..

Through means it breathed, and ways similar to me- Was it like me, had it felt as I do.. Did others too, was everything made up of cores? Pain forced back reality, leaving my thoughts aside myself, my being as I know it dimmed. Loosing color just as the cracked core below, had I been damaged? My core hadn't been, there was no crack or tear just the feeling of loss. First under sunset to moonlight it grew, and intensified more in each move I made, during the confrontation and a little now it went dull. The feeling of loss, was it not kin to the creature before me? Cracked the shimmering left and it too lost luster.

In face of the latched parasite, did it also tackle the loss? Was that why it eyed my core? Out of hunger.. Exhaustion, desire or something else? Was it Necessity? I could endlessly prattle, in the end abyss would take me as I became consumed by emptiness. Or worse... Staring at the shimmer it still sucked my attention, so I let it entrance, lowered a branch to the damaged core. Amuck the twisted body, recesses of decayed vine and growths its core looked pristine.

Every fiber of me wanted it. I had to force myself not too but what else was there to do? I relented, wisps began twirling around my branch spiraling up, more I hadn't touched the core; not yet, the shimmer danced in places leaving a welcome warm. No I was wrong, not a dance. It was the opposite of pain, as I scrutinized my limbs. It was being sucked in, it touched now varying twigs and nearly to my trunk before I shifted away. That it touched felt.. Lighter, the weight of loss left..

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My drain stopped as it did. Was that truly it, the shimmer that resided inside it did it too dwell in me? Had I taken it's loss for my own... A little of me felt wrong in that notion, it had ceased or that is what I hoped in the least. If it was like me, would it perceive as I do; more importantly was it watching me absorb parts of it. Almost. Like that parasite? It had not made a movement if it even could, even.. If it was I had no means to save it I had just learned to move in this form. But if it was necessity, as I look upon it as it did me, maybe that is what it felt. I didn't wish for abyss neither did I want it on others.

Maybe in some small comfort to my self, rationing or whatever. Taking what it once was and into me, it in part wouldn't be left in darkness.

It expanded, tenfold and more nearing to being smothered. I had wrapped a branch around the core, using a bed of leaves like a cradle, lifted it and towards my trunk. The subtle warm bubbled to each crevice the shimmer touched, growing around the core as it lost color- Into me. Feeling and everything I saw came back, further than what left, my haze lifted at the overwhelming sensation.

In all it grazed the shimmer filled with the opposite of loss. It made up the foreign core, as evidently so likely mine as all I was took it in. Like webbing I felt each inner pathway, as the essence? Life, energy passed flowing toward my core.

...

By now it had gone inert. It leaked as I took, its form looking more to dull glass than something that once showed any vibrancy. The lining cracks interrupted its smooth contours, it was hollow everything that it was, or in part had been absorbed. I hadn't known the creature, truly I could hypothesize its intent on my own core and what resided in. But in the end I saw it, the last moments of relief, its struggle and pain and hunger.. Rage, prisoner by some parasite sucking it, devouring it while living, and in end too taken by me. Willing or not, its death? It wasn't right.

I was rooted in this tree, from leaf to limb it was by influence a body, an extension. The essence that flowed though my core dwelled in the other, in actions and ways I perceived it seemed each used up this valuable resource. I don't know how, or how the shimmer could influence, my consciousness nor my need to subsist on it. But it was the only common factor. I tried manipulating my sense of flow as it went, concentrating it to localize and divert, in relation its absence drove those parts hard to move. It simply gave energy, almost like blood it coursed unfiltered throughout my being and slowly back to my core.

Coupled with what I had before, the sensation of essence within me didn't dwindle fast as before. Be it my limited understanding having an impact? Needless the creatures form wasn't a stagnant tree, it had legs and teeth, it had fragments and skin in image off me. And it had a core as me, my prowess extended internal as I shaped pathways to divert essence, and outward with movements of a branch. I had planned to somehow further my reach, move from this place and explore all there was... This creature, its fate from the parasite alluded to dangers-- Which could influence that.

It took its form bipedal could I do the same?

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