Don’t Listen to the Trees

When Elian was 10 years old, the trees spoke to him.

As young boys do, Elian spent a lot of time in his backyard, playing with toy cars or chasing his dog around the lawn. The yard was blocked off by a tall wooden fence, and on the other side of that fence was a forest that Elian was not allow to venture into out of his parents’ fear he would become lost. So, as an obedient child, Elian had never thought twice about the forest. He stayed carefully within the confines of the fence, peacefully playing until one day, one fateful day, he ventured outside it.

Elian had been playing with a frisbee, tossing it around the yard for his dog to run after and return to him. For roughly 10 minutes they played until one turn he tossed a frisbee a little too far, and watched with indifference as it sailed over the fence.

Exiting the side gate and walking, Elian meandered a couple feet into the forest to collect his frisbee, stopping right at the tree line where the woods and the carefully manicured grass met. He stooped down to retrieve the frisbee from the muddy ground when a sudden voice startled him into straightening up, whispering softly into his mind. Come, it said. Come to us.

Elian blinked, eyes opened wide in childish wonder as he whipped his head back and forth, searching for the source of the voice. It was an entrancing sound that beckoned him forward, and it took him a long moment to realize it was coming from the forest. A cacophony of quiet whispers filled his head once again. Come. Come away.

He took a step forward and the frisbee dropped from his hands, completely forgotten in lieu of the whispering trees. Elian blinked and suddenly he could see tree sap, spreading outward sluggishly like blood on the forest floor. It pooled around his feet in great masses, dripping from the branches and flooding the area around him. Come. Come. A harsh gust of wind began to blow, shaking leaves off the tree branches and tossing them into the open air where they twirled around Elian in a tornado of green. Come to us.

Elian walked further, wading into the sap until it was up to his knees. In the back of his head he could distantly tell that something was wrong, that he should not listen to their sweet, melodic voices. But he walked further, ignoring the red flags in the back of his mind. The trees shook their branches in pleasure as he took another step, and soon he almost couldn’t see his house behind him. Just one more step and—

“Elian, dinner!”

The voice of his mother broke through Elian’s trance, and startling violently he whipped around, shouting back at his mother that he was on his way. He blinked quickly, and suddenly the tree sap and the leaves were gone. He was standing in the forest alone, the frisbee a couple yards back.

The trees hissed in displeasure, their voices growing more demanding in his head. Come to us child, come to us. Come. Come! Elian shook his head, whimpering as his temples began to pound. He clutched at his hair and crouched, shaking his head as the voices filled his head. Come! Come!

“No,” Elian began to sob, “s-stop.” The trees called louder still until he could not hear anything but the trees, not even the sound of his own breathing. His thoughts were going wild, torn between obeying the voices and listening to the instinctual warning bells going off in his head. He tried to move backward but he couldn’t, he couldn’t move he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t see help me help me help—

Elian screamed as he felt something latch onto his ankle, rough bark digging into his skin and causing him to whimper painfully. It was a tree root, digging tightly into his leg as it began to steadily drag him forward. Elian kicked at it, prying at it with his hands but only succeeding in making them bleed. He cried and panted, sobbed and struggled, and used the last of his breath to call out for his mother, but no one answered.

The tree sap was back, a sticky tide pushing towards him like lava out of a volcano. Elian’s heart was pounding in his chest, and his eyes bulged in fear. He screamed himself hoarse, futilely pulling at the tree root until another grabbed one of his arms, tugging him back into the forest at a much faster pace.

He had exhausted all of his energy at this point, and Elian could do nothing as his body was dragged over protruding roots and fallen branches into the depths of the forest. Come! The voices cheered. Come! Through half open eyelids he could see leaves filtering in and out of his vision, moving so quickly that he had to close his eyes, lest he get dizzy.

Elian felt it the moment his body hit the tree sap, skin being enveloped slowly in a sticky, cold mass that limited his movements more than the tree roots. It climbed up his leg, up his waist, crawling over his chest and pushing down so that he struggled to breathe. He moved his arms in one last fruitless effort to escape, but it was already too late. The sap had covered his head.

Elian sobbed into the viscous liquid, but he could not hear it over the clamor of the trees’ voices. They were victorious in their cheering, but Elian could no longer understand what they were saying. It was garbled to him, for now that he was taken the trees no longer needed to speak in his tongue.

Everything was muddled now, and Elian could no longer form a coherent thought. His lungs had long since stopped burning, and all his senses had been robbed from him, suspending him in a field of nothing. But Elian was not scared, for he no longer had the strength to be. He no longer had the strength to do anything.

He drifted off, welcoming the silence away from the voices of the trees.

--

A little less than a mile away, the porch door of a quaint, cozy-looking house creaked open, startling the nearby birds into flight. “Elian?” A voice rang out over the surrounding wood, sweet and feminine and motherly. “Come back inside, it’s time for dinner!”

The forest, however, remained silent.