You know it’s completely futile, but you keep on crying for help.
“Help!!! For the love of god, somebody, please, help me! Please…! I’m about to-…!” But then your mouth is mercilessly shut by a fifth vine that wraps around your mouth, effectively gagging you. You hear a deep sigh of relief coming from behind you, as if the forest itself was thankful for that fifth vine’s good work on stopping your annoying cries. The vines that kept each of your limbs in place carried on dragging you along the dense forest. Your spread eagle position made you feel completely vulnerable to whatever these vines had in store for you.
“Guys! Guys! I think I’ve got one!...” Said a young tree speaking through the hollow spot on its bark. On one of his branches an owl was perched, who spoke with a mature-sounding voice. “Oh, really? Are you sure it’s not another boulder?”
“No, no, no! This time it’s alive! It has four limbs, and it won’t stop moving and squirming! My vines are dragging it here right now.”
“I won’t believe it until I see it.” Said the owl.
“I dunno. It would be really awesome to have another human join us, man!” said a small mockingbird. “A new face hasn’t shown up in here since like, two springs ago!”
“Surely you jest, there’s been a new incautious human traversing this forest every four moons.”
“I mean someone who doesn’t go nuts and forgets everything about their past human lives or isn’t squashed like the bug they become in less than a day. It wouldn’t be bad to have some more people to chat to apart from you old man and that dumb tree without a brain.”
“Hey! I may not have a brain, but I’m not dumb! Owww-OUCH!!!”
“What’s the matter?” Asked the owl.
“That damn runt...It bit one of my vines!”
You have no idea why, but when you bit the fifth vine that gagged your mouth, all the other vines let go of your extremities and recoiled in pain, like all the vines were connected somehow. You think that’s kind of odd, but whatever, the main priority is escaping this weird forest, so you took off running. After five minutes, you realized that you didn’t know the way home, in fact, you seemed to have gone even deeper into the forest. The forest was so dense in this area that when you looked up, you just saw leaves and branches and not a single hint of the sky. It could already be night-time for all you know, thank god for all the little sparkling lights that were surrounding you.
Uh?
Those weren’t lights, they were fireflies! And why were they following every single one of your steps? You felt uneasy, like you were being observed. In fact, ever since you came to this forest, you’ve always felt like you weren’t alone, as if the entire forest could observe every insignificant move you made. And there was this overabundance of...oxygen?. It was nothing at all like living in the big city and your body was yearning for some of those nocive gases it was accustomed to. All this made you feel kind of dizzy and you let yourself drop to the ground to take a breather in the bark of a big tree which slowly embraced you with its big branches and you felt yourself losing consciousness…
“Wake up, human.”
You kept on snoring, but then a big, muscular branch slapped your face with brute force.
“Ow!”
It was dark, and you couldn’t tell where you were at first. It seemed to be a dimly lit circular room
at first, but then you noticed there were no walls, you were just surrounded by trees, and the dim lightning was produced thanks to the fireflies, which acted as a “ceiling”.
“Let us introduce ourselves…” said one of the trees.
“ARRRGH! A talking tree! This is completely nuts!” The same branch as before slapped you again.
The tree continued. “We are the Brotherhood of Trees. Our mission is to protect this sacred forest from fiends like you…”
“You’re...going to kill me?”
“Of course not, we are a kind race. We’ll let you go…”
“Great!”
“...after you pass through the Pit of Wisdom, of course.”
You suspected you weren’t going to like this “Pit”.
“What if I refuse…?” The talking tree stood silent. You noticed that a big, muscular tree was holding you in the air, your arms in its grasp. You were powerless, and when you looked down, you noticed your clothes had been removed. “On second thought, I don’t think I have any other alternative, don’t I?” You said as you unsuccessfully tried to cover your private body parts with your dangling legs.
The muscular tree turned you over, and the “Pit” was now right in front of you.
“Behold! The Pit of Wisdom! A magic fountain created by the gods of nature to aid us in our mission to return the light to this miserable world! We the trees, the most intelligent creatures on Earth, founded the Brotherhood of Trees to make sure we purify every single puny human of their blasphemous humanity…”
The talking tree kept on rambling about how the gods made this “Pit” to “purify humanity”, but what you saw didn’t look sacred or holy at all. It was just a small, regular lake. But looking closer, you saw some empty containers nearby with the words “Biohazard - Bright Forest Nuclear Research Lab” printed on them on them. “Bright Forest”? You remember that name. It was a small town whose most of its inhabitants were killed after an incident at a laboratory which was supposed to to make big discovery on the development of a new kind of nuclear energy which was supposed to be environmentally-friendly. Wait, what if the townspeople weren’t killed? What if they all transmuted into…
While you were having that realization, a few woodland creatures were spectating your demise.
“Do you think I’ll be able to join the Brotherhood of Trees someday?” Said the tree who was still recovering from the shock of having his vine bitten.
“Nah, you surely aren’t part of the “most intelligent creatures of Earth”. They don’t accept anyone who hasn’t forgotten about their past human lives, anyway.” Said the mockingbird. “Anyway, what do you think the human will become? I vote for a female mockingbird!”
“He’s clearly a male, look at his bits.” Replied the tree.
“No, the mockingbird isn’t mistaken. There have been cases of the human changing genders in the past.”
“But knowing my luck, he’ll turn into a bug which won’t last more than a day…” The mockingbird wasn’t actually expecting much.
The trees carried you towards the radioactive lake. The water looked regular blue, but there was a strange bright hue in it...
The ritual of the Pit of Wisdom resembled a baptism. They were about to splash you with the “holy water”. However, in an actual baptism there isn’t a giant muscled tree man making sure you don’t escape.
“May the gods have mercy on this sacrilegious creature’s soul, and liberate it from its sinful form!” The talking tree kept on saying nonsense like this as you were busy being terrified at the thought of losing your humanity and becoming part of the forest. What if you turned into a bug? Or a plant? Or a defenseless creature like a frog? Or a fish that won’t even be able to escape from this lake? Or even stinking fungus?
“Hehehe! I can’t miss this!” said a small mockingbird.
“What the hell?! Even the birds can talk?!”
“Oh, most of the forest is able to talk. But most of them go nuts after a week or so or just try to pretend they weren’t ever human. Hehe, I used to be a quite handsome young man called Mike. Nice to meet’cha.”
“Err...Yeah, nice to meet you too. But you see, I’m in kind of a pickle right now. Can’t you help me stop this nonsense?”
“I’m a motherfucking mockingbird! How the hell am I going to fight against a giant living tree?...Besides, I think it’s fun seeing new people joining us. If you want my advice, don’t believe everything the Brotherhood of Trees says. Come join me and my mates if you ever want to have a chat. If you don’t go nuts or die seconds after being transformed, of course! I hope you become a bird. Having no penis is a bit a weird at first but you get used to it, not that you have too much to lose, anyway...”
“Hey! What was that last part supposed to mean?!” You wanted to keep arguing with that quite insolent bird, but the talking tree had finished its speech and the muscled tree submerged you into the water before you had time to react. You struggled at first, but right when the first drop of intoxicated water hit your body, you began to feel different...Your body began reshaping itself, about to become one with the forest...