Time is meaningless where I stay. A dead orchard with rotting branches, yet I am the one who survived.

No, not survived, thrived. I lived, I flourished.

But it gets lonely here.

Some days people pass by and pick an apple hanging off my branch. Sometimes they have wary eyes, suspicious of the shining red. Sometimes they are greedy, starving in the world outside this orchard (I don't know what it is. I have never left). They sink their teeth into the fruit and throw the core at me.

When they are done, I give them a gift.

Some people get good things. A present, an extra skill, maybe even a weapon. Some people though, get bad things. Weakness, nausea, a sense of loss and for the worst, never getting what they want. Some people get nothing. On idle days I wonder what happened to them.

Everyone who comes in, gets the option of eating the apple or not eating it.

But all of them, have chose to eat it.

Every single one.

People are entertaining. They are complex things, like a puzzle that rarely anyone appreciates. Few people can see them for their true form much less solve them.

No matter.

I, can solve them.

People come and go, but their memories live in me. Their qualities, personalities, flaws, everything is laid bare for me to see, unbeknownst to them.

I would never admit it, but I am glad of my gift.

The first time it happened, was when a small boy visited me in my growing stage. He had large green eyes, huge, filled with stars and galaxies. He was a beautiful thing, innocent and a heart that beat loudly. Alive.

One his cheeks though, were marks. Hand prints. A painful past, but he didn't stop loving.

That day I learned about love.

I didn't know I had this gift till the other trees passed stories around and I realized that I was different.

Next came a man with his lover beside him. His chest had a gaping hole. Her head a yawning blackness. But threads of gold stitched them up constantly.

That day I learned about healing.

A woman came next. A determined face, but her hands where shaking around a bow. Black tears ran down her cheeks and tendrils of black crawled near the edges.

That day I learned about loss.

A man in black came next. His eyes where focused and jaw set even as his feet were bound in chains.

That day I learned about persistence.

A boy came a while after. Blood poured from his mouth which were curled in a smirk. A white mask covered his face with two dots and a smile.

That day I learned about hiding.

People came and went. They picked the apple and ate it. They came and went. But all of them ate the fruit and gained something, or lost something. But in the end they left.

A boy came today.

Hair black and falling into his face, his face a stone, lacking emotions.

Lacking anything at all.

He barely looked human.

It threw me off.

My gift had not failed. Ever.

So why is it happening now?

But I still asked him the question. The same question that a million people answered, but all their answers were the same.

"A red juicy apple hangs from the branch. Do you want to eat it?"

The boy said yes.

He plucked it and looked at the shining red surface, void of emotions.

Just a ringing silence. As if he were...dead. (dead?)

Then suddenly, the apple changed shape, it twisted and grew, molding into a face.

The boy's face.

'My face' He whispered, voice giving nothing away.

The apple molded into the boy's head, opened it's mouth. I couldn't tear my gaze away.

'The truth. Do you remebe-'

/Crunch/.

He bit into the apple, silencing it while blood poured out. Bones crunched and brain matter leaked from his mouth. He did not care. He just ate on.

One bite. Two bites. Three. A thousand.

It didn't matter because when he was done it looked as if nothing had happened. The face looked the same from when he had come here, the same when he turned around and walked away.

But I kept staring, till he was just a dot in the distance.

That day, I learned about apathy.