Ada’s eyes roll back in her head from exhaustion leaning against the tree. The fruits once plucked start to sprout again. Her legs shake with violence. Her mouth is dryer than cotton and an invisible fist seems to pound on her skull.

She is in a grey meadow now, with the tree. It is nearly dark, only dim moonlight streams through clouds making the grass seem blue. The grass is overgrown and tipped over on itself. It is lonely here. Ada collapses to her knees and cries at the base of the tree. The aura reaches out from the trunk and caresses her hair. It soothes her. The tree wants to protect her. To keep her safe in its thick bark, to armor her from the world.

She feels it pulling at her again and pleading with her. Other women cry out to her from inside. Desperate voices. They sound so sorrowful deep inside. How many are there? “Hello,” Ada says out loud standing up and leaning toward the tree.

Their voices change to a mournful note, yet Ada can’t make out their words as each is speaking over the other. “Are you alright?” Ada quests out to the spirits inside. They are all entangled inside. They are many but they hardly have individuality. They have become one victim. Fear, anxiety, insecurity, hopelessness, and disoriented. They are lost. They don’t know where they are. Ada claws at the bark but it only makes her fingers bleed. They cry louder. They are calling her down to them.

Ada’s heart wrenches inside. She is desperate to get to them, to find them. She pours herself down into the tree. She calls out to them from inside. They are near but she still can’t find them. They brush past her but are gone before she can latch on to them. Ada becomes frantic. She pours more of herself into the tree. She closes herself off to the outside as much as she is able. She forgets about the field outside and drops down into the heart of the tree.

Come to me. Ada sends out the call, it isn’t an audible call more like an urging, a vibration. Similar to how she encourages her own plants back home. She wonders for a moment of home. How had she gotten to the field? Where was she before the field? When had she ever seen the field before?

Someone brushes past her spirit again and Ada spins around to snatch them but can no longer sense the girl. She can feel their pain when they are near, if only for a flicker. They have so much pain. She decides she will rescue the girls in this dark place. Take them far away from here. Some place where this pain can’t reach them. Some place like her farm. Her farm. When had she been there last? Months ago? Before… She can’t remember but it was bad. She knows it was bad. Maybe that is why she came to the field, to escape the bad men.

The tree’s aura turns hostile as she remembers the men in the robes. They took her. She breathes faster. She is trapped somewhere. Where? She withdraws from the tree back to the field and staggers back. How had she arrived here? Is she on the surface? She had never seen a field this large on the top deck before. There are too many houses for a field this big. Even the parks are filled with trees. What is this place?

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She looks at the lonely tree in the vast field. It is like a large black umbrella over her. Reaching for her. Calling to her, just like the girls trapped within. It has captured them. It wants to capture her too.

The tree reaches out to her. It tries to dissuade her of her distrust. It pushes feelings of protection to her. Does it want to protect her? From what? She remembers the bad men and looks around for grey hoods in the darkness. They aren’t here. She staggers back remembering. I’m not here.

She reaches out searching for herself. Where was I last? How is the tree doing this? What does it want?

Revenge.

The wave of desire from the tree punches her in the chest.

Come. Be with me. Stay with them. Protect them.

Ada hears their cries again. She steps toward the tree the sadness washing over her again. What are they hiding from? Why does the tree want, revenge?

Images flash through her skull. Blood poured out on its roots. Soaking the ground. Pools of blood. Nightmares of screaming and crying. Love lost. Ada is washed over with hopelessness. The men in robes gather around the tree and chant. They carve through the bark and cast spells into the tree. Demanding spells. The tree resists but more blood comes. More nights of spells. People hanging from its branches and skinned. Terrible screams.

A woman is dragged to the tree. A girl the tree knows. She is always so kind to the tree. They torture her there against its scarred trunk. The tree wants to crush them, to tear them apart. It tries to swat at them to smash them with its branches, but they are so impossibly fast, and it is so incredibly slow. They don’t even see it moving.

It wants to protect the woman from the torture. It wants to wrap her up in its bark and hug her close. It pulls at her. She responds and pours her soul into the tree. Anything to escape the nightmare she is living in. The tree knows as she flows into it that the bad men killed her husband. The tree grows angry but hides the woman deep inside where the bad men can’t reach her.

The woman is so powerful though. Her essence sprawls out inside the tree. It overwhelms the tree. An overflow of essence reaches up through its branches and searches for light, for hope. Fruit begins to grow and some of her essence pours down into the fruit. Her pain mingles into the fruit. Her agony. The tree looks fondly at the fruits. They are beautiful. She is so vibrant within. Eager to live still.

Ada snaps back to the field. It is like falling. She keeps getting trapped in the visions. They are so potent. She is losing herself. She has to escape. She has to remember who she is among the voices. She has to remember where she was before all of this. No, where she is right now, she is not actually in this place. She remembers, walls. She concentrates, clenching her fists and biting her lip. A door. Bodies. The women in the tree. They were in the room. Sucked dry of life.

She remembers and wakes with a gasp in the dark room. Her hands are stuck to the side of the tree and her legs hurt. They hurt so badly. She screams.