It looms over me, a twisted mockery of what made me feel safe as a child. It’s warped appendages corrupting the space around me, slowly creeping through the air and forming horrible dark fingers over the crimson sky. Each eldritch branch whispers dark secrets to one another, secrets that no one could ever truly comprehend. Secrets of life and death, secrets of the void, secrets of the unbearable darkness. I stand at the foot of this wooden god and despair for I know it’s evil roots are dug too deep into the ground I thought pure. I have no control anymore, I collapse to my knees and reach out to the dry, cracked bark. I rest my hands upon its weathered husk, The sensation of touching ice and fire at the same time overwhelming me. My hands start to push into the heart of the darkness, the bark wrapping itself around me and crushing me as I sink further into nature’s manifestation of doom.

Suddenly, I awake.

Once again under the crooked tree.

Once again feeling like part of me has been lost within it. No, not lost. Taken.