The ground trembled with each lumbering step the tree-monster took. The vines on the walls were shaking from the force and Anna was oddly aware of the rustling noises they made. An all too familiar fear kept her rooted in spot, staring dumbly at the creature barreling towards her. With each step it took, its root-like feet dug into the floor of the maze, ripping up pieces of dirt as it moved. Within moments, it was upon Anna, but she still could not bring herself to move.

This is it. This is where I die. I should have listened to Nelson, she thought.

The monster roared furiously. The sound penetrated Anna’s eardrums and traveled straight into her heart. It swung its head back before snapping forwards again with a speed that Anna never would have expected it capable of. The inertia of the movement was carrying the thing’s whole body with it, bringing the entire tree crashing down towards her. Something inside Anna seemed to jump-start and she stepped backwards in a mixture of clumsiness and quickness, nearly falling over again. The monster’s head smashed into the ground where she had just stood, its crown of jagged branches embedding themselves in the dirt and the rocks.

Anna had not managed to completely escape the tangle of branches, and she could feel spots on her face burning where the sticks had cut and scratched her, now surrounding her like a cage. She considered trying to dig herself out, away from the monster, but quickly decided to go over it instead. The halls of the maze were narrow, and with any luck, the massiveness of her foe would cause it difficulty in turning around. It planted its branchy arms on the ground, seemingly to rip its head out from the earth. Thankfully, it seemed to be stuck, held in place by its own wooden hair.

Anna wasted no more time. She grabbed one of the thicker branches protruding from the monster’s head and pulled herself up onto its backside. Nearly losing her footing, she scrambled down its long trunk of a body, jumping over its roots as she reached the bottom. Her feet hit the floor and she stumbled forward, but managed to stay upright. For a brief second, she turned to look at the monster, still attempting to free itself from the ground. Something shiny and metallic caught her eye, embedded in the monster’s foot. She did not have time to inspect this peculiar object, for at that moment, the monster broke free of the earth, bits of dirt falling from its head as it rose up. Anna turned and ran.

She could hear the monster behind her, the sound of wood creaking and breaking as it moved. She looked over her shoulder, and to her horror, it had somehow managed to turn around in the narrow corridor with apparent ease. It was now running after her with a burning fury. Anna cursed under her breath. A wail rang through the corridors from behind her, and she almost thought it sounded like the thing was in pain. She was quickly approaching the hole in the wall that the monster had come crashing through moments before. Rather than run through the maze the way it was designed, she decided to take the shortcut provided by her pursuer. She bolted through the makeshift doorway, doing her best not to trip over the rubble and debris that littered the ground.

Anna immediately realized that more than one wall had been smashed through. It made sense when she considered all the noise she had heard before the monster had come crashing into her hallway. She decided to head the way the monster had come from. If nothing else, it was at least a quicker way through the maze than how she had been travelling. Her feet continued to pound against the ground as she made her way through the destruction that now littered the labyrinth. The sounds of the monster giving chase plagued her with every step she took. Anna’s fear was overcome by her curiosity, and despite herself, she turned to see how close it was. But it was nowhere to be seen.

Looking back turned out to be a disastrous mistake. She slipped on a piece of debris, sending her tumbling to the ground. Anna let out a gasp of pain as her knee cracked hard against a jagged rock. She had to force herself to choke down the tears and sobs that wanted so badly to erupt. A little ways down the corridor to her left, another wall exploded as the monster came barrelling through. It turned its ghastly, rotted face towards Anna and let out another howling roar. She felt her blood run cold with fear, followed quickly by a hot shot of adrenaline that sent her straight back to her feet. She ignored the throbbing in her knee and continued her flight.

She made it through a few more of the tree-monster sized holes before finally being met with a wall. Her lungs burned and her sides ached. She silently thanked Broderick for making her run every day. Otherwise, she would have likely collapsed from exhaustion already. She did not have long to feel grateful to her master. She knew that the monster would burst into this corridor in a matter of moments. She turned right and let her legs carry her as fast as they could. Hopefully she was running away from the monster rather than right into its craggly, branched claws. She tried in vain to summon a fireball in her hand as she ran, to even feel her magic churning inside of her, but something was still suppressing her abilities.

As Anna traversed the winding halls of the maze, she realized that her surroundings were beginning to change. The thick, green ivy that smothered the walls was becoming less of a verdant color and more of a glowing, golden hue. Where it had been covered in only leaves, these new vines were sprouting beautiful white and blue flowers from their stems. The pervasive smell of rot that had filled the maze since the monster had arrived was being replaced with a wonderfully sweet aroma. It was so pleasant that it managed to drive some of Anna’s fear away. A faint green luminescence was beginning to peek out from beneath the vines. Though Anna could not inspect closer, she had the impression that the strange carvings that littered the walls were the source of the light.

In spite of herself, Anna decided to risk another look behind her. She could still hear her persistent stalker crashing and breaking things somewhere in the maze but at the moment, he was no longer directly behind her. As her head swiveled back around, she felt her heart drop into her stomach. Her pathway was coming to a dead end. From further back, she had assumed the trail would split to the left or right like it had every other time, but this time it just ended. She could hear the crashes and bangs growing ever closer from behind her. Anna stopped just as the path ended, looking at the wall before her in despair.

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In an act of desperation, she decided to try and climb the wall again. She wasn’t sure whether it was preferable to be smothered by vines or crushed by a walking tree, but at least the former sounded like it would be less messy. As she moved forward and grasped the vines, tears filling her eyes, she noticed something that made her blink in surprise. There was no stone wall behind the vines. Tentatively, Anna pulled the golden vines aside to peek through. Upon closer inspection, the curtain of foliage seemed to be concealing another pathway. And more importantly, it appeared to lead to…

“An exit!” Anna said triumphantly.

Without any further stalling, she pushed through the vines and raced through the hidden passageway. It wasn’t very long and Anna’s heart pounded as she grew closer to the literal light at the end of the tunnel. She burst from the maze and immediately had to squint and cover her eyes from the brightness that exploded into her vision. As her pupils adjusted to the light, she took in her new surroundings.

Anna had emerged into some kind of meadow, surrounded on all visible sides by the stone walls of the maze. The vibrant grass beneath her feet appeared to be lit by sunlight, though there was no sun shining in the pale blue sky. A warm breeze travelled across her face and she had to brush a strand of hair from her eyes. A hill rose in the middle of the meadow. At the top of it sat the strangest tree Anna had ever laid eyes on. Despite her rather urgent situation, she found herself drawn to the tree, the desire to inspect it closer filling her. She marched up the hill, her legs burning from their recent exertion.

As she reached the tree, she was able to fully take in the oddity of it. The bark that covered the trunk reminded Anna of a patchwork quilt; some of it was smooth and pale while other patches were a rough, ebony material. Many of the branches that sat atop the tree were thick and strong, while others hung down, almost sweeping the ground, like the branches of a weeping willow. The leaves that covered the branches were just as bizarre as the rest of the tree. Some of them Anna recognized, maple leaves, oak leaves, and even pine needles. But other leaves were unlike any she had ever seen before, some large and waxy and others small and filled with vibrant colors. A multicolor weave of flowers decorated the various branches of the tree as well.

The variance of the tree’s bark and foliage was unlike anything Anna had ever seen before. Sure, she had seen some unimaginable things since coming to Monsadasia, things her mind would have never thought possible, but everything about this tree seemed simultaneously magical and natural. Not the product of a spell cast from some magician’s wand. Anna had no way of knowing, but still felt it deep inside of her that this tree was, and always had been, a different kind of magic from what she knew.

Her reverie was not to last, as she could hear the rumblings and bangings that told her the monster was growing closer to interrupting this peaceful glade. Her respite would be cut short in just a few moments. Panicked, she began searching her surroundings. Other than a few crumbled statues and pedestals littering the ground, there really was nowhere for her to hide. Her eyes fell upon the tree again. The large, sweeping canopy of the tree would make for excellent cover, but Anna knew it was no use. She was not nearly tall enough to reach any of the branches that would be strong enough for her to pull her body up, and the tree was far too round for her to attempt to shimmy up the trunk. It was no use.

As if reacting to her thoughts, the bark of the tree began to wriggle and change. Big, rough knots sprouted from the side of it, making for perfect handholds. Anna did not question the strangeness of it. There was no use questioning her good fortune when time was of the essence. Instead, she grabbed a hold of one of the knots and began to pull herself up into the camouflage of the tree. Seconds after she reached a point high enough to be obscured, one of the walls around the meadow exploded, bits of rock and dust flying onto the green grass. The tree monster came stalking in, roaring its horrible scream.

Hiding from a tree in a tree, Anna thought wryly.

She watched the morbid beast stomp and charge around the area. Over and over, it did the same few things. It would lumber around for a moment, wail loudly, and then repeat the motion of jumping up and slamming its thick trunk of a body into the ground before ripping its head up from the dirt. Luckily for the monster, and less so for Anna, the ground here was apparently more soft and aerated. The monster’s crown of branches did not stick into the ground as it had in the maze, and it was able to quite easily right its body after face planting. It cried and shrieked in… Frustration? No, that wasn’t it.

It’s in pain, Anna thought again.

This time she was sure. Something was ailing the great behemoth.

“Then why don’t you help it?” A voice reverberated from somewhere very close to Anna.

She looked around, bewildered, but there was no one around her.

“Great, now I’m hearing voices. Fear has driven me mad,” Anna said quietly.

“You’re not crazy, and besides, you have more pressing issues than your sanity,” the voice spoke again.

It seemed to come from all around Anna. as if it were echoing off each and every one of the leaves surrounding her.

“I don’t know how to help it,” Anna replied in a frustrated whisper.

“Perhaps you just aren’t looking close enough.”

Anna decided to ignore the fact that she was hearing voices and instead chose to take the advice of the ethereal speaker. She watched the creature intently. It wailed, it jumped, and then it smashed into the ground. Over and over, it repeated this process. Every once in a while, when it was at just the right angle, Anna again noticed the glint of something silvery stuck in the monster’s roots. Other than that, she could not see anything else that could possibly be the cause of its pain.

“Even if that is the problem, I don’t know how to help it,” Anna said quietly.

“Well, you better figure it out quickly,” the voice told her.

Anna began to feel the wood beneath her rumble. She looked around in fear and surprise and saw the branches shaking around her. Suddenly, the entire tree bent forward in a way that should not have been possible and began shaking violently. Anna was unceremoniously thrown to the ground. She let out a gasp of pain as her rear end smacked against the earth.

“Yoohoo,” the voice rang out through the meadow.

To Anna’s utmost fear, the monster heard the call. It turned to face her with a look of murder on its bark-covered face.