Writing Prompt

Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree.

Alone.

Afraid.

I’m not sure why, but, it is terrifying. It shouldn’t be, I know. It’s not like I’m dying or surrounded by dead bodies. But the eeriness of it. The vulnerability of myself.

I don’t know who does it. There’s no trace of anything in my house that would lead me to suspect anyone.

At first I thought I started to sleepwalk.

My doctor told me otherwise.

One night I had tried to stay up to see what would happen. I almost succeeded, but one moment I felt sleepy and drowsy.

Then I was under the tree again.

Does the person doing this find this fun?

To torment me like this?

Or am I finally just going insane?

Am I going crazy, tell me!

What kind of person drags someone out of their home every night, just to put them under a tree.

Is this a sign? Does someone from my childhood want revenge? Are their higher beings in play?

I just don’t understand, I want to act calm about the whole situation, but I can’t. It’s already hard enough to sort through my thoughts.

I can’t call the police—there’s no evidence whatsoever. And I don’t want to tell my friends. I don’t want them in this mess, so I guess I just have to figure out what the hell is going on.

I don’t want this to happen forever; if it does, I fear I’ll kill myself.

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__ (Wow. I have no drive to write. Probably because of all the informational essays and project stuff I gotta do. My procrastination is waning, and my brain is doing flip flops __ __ __ Alrighty, thanks for reading this jumble of mess and have a wonderful day.)

Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree; cottonmouth. My eyes burn and droop down my face like they’ve been open forever. I can hear it whispering to me, the tree.

“speak the truth.” It’s words are carved in bark, sap bleeding out. But I don’t know. I don’t know the truth, and every morning is the same.

I walk home, my feet dragging along the asphalt, the sun burning through my skin. I wonder what I look like inside. Am I still this hopeless?

Every night I end up walking back to that same crooked tree almost subconsciously. On my knees, I beg in front of it, my hands stained red. It always speaks to me, but it never says anything I want to hear.

“I have come here to save you.”

“Then save me,” my voice is gravelly, each word having to scrape it’s way out. “please?” I grip the dirt, tears of agony sliding down my face.

I’m afraid of silence. I’ve never been one to sit there and enjoy it. Small weeps, like the ones of a child, echo through the air. “No more, please.” I beg.

“One more—“

“Please…”

Every night I bury another person under the same crooked tree in order to die in peace. I’d like to die with a conscience clear but… it’s just never enough. I’m saving them so that I can be saved, but I can’t help and feel I’ll never be.

I ran into the woods, towards the camp I knew my father had planned to ambush that day along with the other men of the village. It had been to long for them to not have returned. A sick feeling had buried itself in my gut and the shadows that were once my friends seemed ominous. When I reached the campsite… all I saw was blood. I hid among the leaves and branches and the scene I looked down on… was not human. These bandits were soaked in blood, both their own and their victims and though it was dark I could hear the sounds of flesh being torn from bone… I can still hear those sounds…

The only light cast into the clearing was that of the moon and I was thankful that it was hidden behind clouds because it was then that I felt fear, paralyzing, skull splitting fear. It was not the work of bandits, it was the work of demons. I could hear them all around me, whispering, laughing. That dark and powerful evil that lived in the woods was real and it was at work. It had poisoned the minds of those bandits and stolen their souls. When the clouds moved from in front of the moon, I saw the horror that had occurred and saw the shadows surrounding me.

Those spirits were everywhere and my only option was down from my hiding place, into the clearing filled with cannibals. When I landed, it just so happened I fell in front of my father. The only thing left was an arm, but I recognized the bracelet I had given him many years before for his birthday. It was then that I felt that great and powerful evil that threatened me inside myself. I looked up past the crooked tree at the moon and I screamed.

Heat seemed to boil up inside of me and pure darkness surrounded me. This time it’s purpose was to to hurt me though… this time it served me. Eventually the power was too great and I lost consciousness… but every night I wake up under that same crooked tree.

There were no survivors. We buried what we could find of the attack party that had left the town. Bilros taught me of the great magics that were given to each nation long ago in the times of the first kings. Our kingdom was entrusted with dark magic. We were intended to guard it, keep it safe from misuse. Of course though, like the greedy creatures that humans are, we took the power for ourselves. This lead to my country becoming the cesspool it is now. Dark magic corrupts the body, soul and mind.

My teacher warned me against using it and instead taught me how to control and suppress it. I learned how to control and capture those spirits in the forest but it wasn’t without cost. I often found myself exhausted to the point that I couldn’t dispel them and there were so many in number that I couldn’t hope to protect the village by myself. I knew I needed help if I wanted to avenge my father and protect my town. I needed to find the source of that evil. So I left. I traveled across an ocean. Now I find myself in another tavern, listening for anymore stories of heroes and adventurers. And now… I think I finally found one.

Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree.

A mighty oak - I swear it’s either slinging dope or out to get me.

This tree’s no joke. In blood it’s soaked. It’s bark is broke. I hear it croak,

“With me you woke.”

This green has some dirty leaves. Leaves me sorta wondering, can trees do some low-down things?

Can a tree hear me when I scream?

Do trees sleep and do they dream?

Maybe trees aren’t only what they seem.

This tree has some dirty leaves.

Dirty leaves are listening. This trees got some dirt on me. That leaves him my enemy. Dirty trees no friend to me. Tree-folk reaching out to me. Focused on the leaf, I see, the dirty leaves won’t let me sleep.

I awake from the crooked tree. Dirty leaves surrounding me. Does this mean I had a dirty dream?

(🙃)

Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree.

Then, each day following, I work as an Account Executive, which, like most jobs, is equivalent to a corporate serf.

Each day, wasting the brilliance of nature in favor of a PowerPoint presentation and an afternoon of dry meetings.

All to come to my 5 hours of freedom, where I can live a sliver of my life for myself.

Then, after a few hours of tossing and turning, I fall asleep with just a little less hope than I did before, knowing I’ll have to more or less re-live the exact same day all over.

And every night, I wake up under the same crooked tree.

The field outside my window goes on for miles, an endless wave of gold wheat that crashes against the shore of a barb-wired fence. It glows in the setting sun.

Cornflower blue sky. Sharp white clouds. Cool summer breeze. Honeyed sunset.

I count the crows gathering around my scarecrow, screaming their jagged songs into the darkening sky. There's seven... maybe nine. I've lost track.

The coarse rope knotted on my wrists tugs, shifting over tender skin as I press closer to the cool glass. My hot breath fogs it up, the whole image a blurred water color painting.

Heavy boots pound up the stairs, followed by a knock on my door - He doesn't wait for an answer, just walks in.

Austin stands into my room, hat clutched in his hands, hair matted to his skull with sweat - It's the same color as the field.

"Do you-" He stops, looks away, wringing his hat in a white-knuckled grip, "Do you really have to be tied up, Marry."

His words struggle free from his throat like they had to claw past the tightness of his jaw. My fingers itch to sooth the lines around his mouth, the stress in his eyes.

"Yes." I sound steady, sure. I'm a better lair than I thought.

The sun falls, darkness crawling into its place. The field is shifting in the growing wind, the sound like that of a rattle-snake. I hate rattle-snakes.

Austin steps into my space, his body like a furnace. I lean back against his stomach, the knobs of my spine pressing into the icy chill of his belt buckle. He runs a hand through my stringy black hair, setting his palm on my thin shoulder.

"We just won't go to sleep, Marry," His southern drawl cradles the words, my name like an old country lullaby, "we can stay up all night."

I scoff, a nasty sound dredged up from the twisting pile of black snakes in my stomach. Austin tenses, on edge. I twerk my wrist against the rope, gritting my teeth against the fresh wave of pain.

"I've tried that, and it didn't fucking work." His fingers draw away, mistaking my anger, placing the blame on himself, "Nothing fucking works."

The anger bleeds out, exhaustion flooding the emptiness in my bones. The delicate skin on my wrists gives way to the rope, a trickle of blood traveling the path of my arm.

"Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree." The wind picks up, the scarecrow tilting in the force of it, the birds taking flight, "I'm naked, and there are voices... yelling things. Terrible things."

It's fully dark out, night has fallen. My heart has crawled up up up, pounds away in my throat. The trickle of blood becomes a steady drip, a steady flow.

"And there's a hangman's noose on the tree, and-" My voice cuts off, like a scratched record, "and there's a shadow, hanging in the noose. It's a woman."

And I'm not in the attic anymore, Austin's warm body isn't pressed along my back anymore, the wind isn't trapped behind a glass anymore - I'm naked, alone, beneath the Hanging Tree.

A scream is trapped in my throat, my wrists free of the rope, bloody and mangled. No color, just black and white. Shadows circle the tree.

'Hang the witch!' 'You'll hang just like her!'

The woman, the ghost, sways in the wind. Crows circle above, seven, maybe nine. I dig my fingers into the dirt, claw at the soil to wake up. Wake up.

The mob gets closer, blocking out the fields of wheat. She's not in the noose anymore, the rope twisting towards me.

'Her blood flows in those veins, Witch. You'll hang for that.'

I look to my palms, covered in dirt and blood. Blood tied to the Witch, to the dead, to the shadows. I smear the rich dirt and thick blood down my chest, breathing to the ruthless chants of the phantoms.

'Hang her... Hang her... Hang her...'

I press my hand to the tree, a bright streak of red against the black bark. They're louder, closer. I press my head to the tree, and the scream trapped in my throat breaks free - It sounds like a hundred women, the bloody gargled screams of a hundred innocent women.

The chanting stops, silence stretching out in its place.

I'm alone, on a hill, under a tree.

The sun has just begun rising...

The fields are gold again.

“Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree”.

It doesn’t matter if I take my medicine or something “else”.

I have tried restraining myself to no avail. It doesn’t matter how far away I travel or if I end my night already near the tree. I always wake up as though I have been placed next to the tree like a doll.

Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree The weight of roots They bend and crack Crushing bones in crooked me.

Be wary what you do in life The aura of your hate Will carry over to the grave Where you wake from crushing weight.

Forever waking, Forever breaking, Never resting, never free. Yes, be careful who you curse in life Or you may wake under the tree.

“Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree. Its sad aura radiates off of it. Something about it is intriguing. As if it calls out to me.”

She said gazing up at sky. “Am I cursed? Am I dreaming? Am I dead? Is this some type of crazy prank? Or maybe even a punishment?”

“Perhaps it… it has some connection with me? Or with my father? This place.. doesn’t even look like earth. Am I on a different planet? Or.. in heaven?”

She pressed her hands together. The silence was deafening. She preyed for someone, anyone. To speak to her. She was deprived of human interaction.

Constantly wondering if she would ever make her way back home. If this constant loop would ever end. Maybe she had to change something she was doing to end it? Like one of the movies.

The silence had never been more loud. Like a constant ringing in her ear. She anxiously awaited to hear someone speak to her. But seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into months, months into years.

Until one day, it was different. She could hear people talking to her from- the sky? The voices sound so familiar. But, she didn’t know them. It was on the edge of her mind. But. Not close enough to remember.

She cried out. “Help! I’m right here! Help!! Help me!” Night after night day after day. She cried out. She screamed so much she had lost her voice.

She sat and wept by the tree. Some days she would try to break it down. But Nothing worked. She was trapped.

One day it was different once again. The tree began to shrink? Smaller and smaller slowly the tree shrank. Until one day it was nothing but a sapling.

“What is happening to me? Why me?! What did I do to deserve this?!” She cried. She laid back onto the lush green grass surrounding the tree. And slowly faded into unconsciousness.

She opened her eyes, but she didn’t see the sky? Or the tree beside her. Instead she saw her father. And a white roof of a hospital room.

“Oh my gosh, doctor she’s awake! Hurry come quickly! Someone help!” Her father cried. Doctors rushed in.

“Samantha foster, can you hear me?” One of the doctors said as he shines a flashlight in my eyes. “What happened?” I questioned. “You have been in a coma for five years sam.” The doctor replied.

I looked at my father. Fear clearly clouded my gaze. My father came to me and grabbed my hand gripping it tightly. “Your okay. Now.” He said has tears filled his eyes.

Everyday my father waited for me. Waited for me to wake up. Now, I must adjust to my new life in 2027. I figured there would be flying cars by now. I guess that dream is pretty crazy.

The tree still remains in the edge of my vision. My fear remains buried in my heart. A part of my misses that little crooked tree. Though i see it every night in my dreams.

Every night I wake up under the same crooked tree Staring at the rotten body that once was me Punishment for my sins my cold heart admits For when I was alive I dared cross all my limits.

A wretch I was, my dark soul knew no kindness Many I did hurt in this ravaging blindness Thirst for blood or maybe just revenge There were many whose death I wanted to avenge

But I gave in to despair, to pain and cruelty Erroneously believed they were my truth and my honesty. Now I’m dead, visiting this tree every night Reminding me of my sorrow, my madness and my plight.

My evil mind was as crooked as this tree Ugly, hideous figure forever punishing me But I deserve, I had no right to torture and kill It looks like Fate has curbed me to its Will.

(I no longer know what I’m doing, too tired… the metrics isn’t great but it’s my best atm. Thank you for reading.)