He stared into the knot hole, mystified. It was spacious, unnatural; it seemed as if someone had carved a portion of the trunk out. It wasn’t just this tree, either; there were about a dozen more nearby that had the same aberration. But why only these particular trees? And why did they seem so off? He had seen decaying trees before. None of them looked like this. Other than the holes, these trees seemed fine. Healthy leaves, upright position, no cracks, no fungi, no dryness, nothing. If anything, these trees almost seemed healthier than others.
It didn’t make any sense.
Sighing, he took some photos and recorded his findings in his logbook. He thought about speculating, but decided it was too early for theories. After stashing away his things and zipping up his pack, he continued further into the woods. If he hurried, he could wrap things up by nightfall.
He was mildly surprised at his own urgency. Usually he enjoyed these things so much that he took his time. But of all days, they had to send him when the woods were thick with fog. The trees in the distance all took on the same vague, skeletal form until they were indistinguishable. And beyond that, white.
He collapsed onto the ground, panting. He retrieved a thermos of water and a meal wrapped in foil from the pack. He ate slowly. Something was different about these woods. Maybe it had something to do with those trees, but he knew that wasn’t it. The whole forest felt...ripe. Ready. Cocoons hatching. Spores sprouting into fungi. Mosquito larvae emerging from their eggs under the murky surface of a pond.
Ripe.
He finished his meal and moved on.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen (or heard) many animals so far. He remembered being told that the forest was meant to be especially lively around this time of year. He was sure. He scribbled his thoughts into the logbook and grimaced. There was hardly any material for him to work with here. He glanced at his watch. Not a whole lot of time, but not very little, either.
He found only more of those strange trees with their large knot holes. He noticed that they seemed to be in clusters or groups spread all over the forest. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he wrote it down anyway. He also found tracks he didn’t recognize--then again, he wasn’t exactly a zoologist. They were webbed and four-fingered, sometimes five-fingered.
He thought the fog had grown thicker; it was now snow-white. Or maybe he was just getting weird. The black branches against the fog were starting to look like veins. Or gnarled, anorexic hands.
Perhaps it was almost time to go back.
The faint sound of something cracking or splitting open echoed from beyond the fog. Probably an old tree that fell over.
He was in the middle of thinking about nothing when he felt something. Some kind of heat or presence. Life. He suddenly felt very, very hot. The coolness of the fog did nothing to help allay it. He felt not as though something were watching him but as though something was about to happen.
He pressed his back (and the pack he was wearing) onto a trunk. He heard that as long as you kept your back against a wall or something, nothing could sneak up on you. His fingertips brushed against the bark and he realized that it was warm. He touched it again to make sure.
His heart froze.
It was warm. There was no denying it.
And it was beating.
The tree trunk was beating like a heart.
He stood there, dumbfounded, not quite sure how to react. It was when he heard the trunk beginning to split open that he began to run. His legs were wobbly, not used to this kind of exercise. Fallen branches snapped under his weight and he had a horrible vision of himself tripping over an exposed tree root.
He kept his eyes peeled. Countless trees emerged from the fog without warning. He slowed. Breathed in and out. Stopped. Panted. Done.
What?
Despite his exhaustion, he noticed something troublesome. The tree. The one he was leaning on. Specifically, the one from before, with the odd knot hole. The very first one he found.
It now had no knot hole.
Nonsense, he thought. This must be a different tree. But the resemblance of the area. He recognized these parts of the woods. There was the same formation of rocks and pebbles, right over there. There was the same rabbit hole, right over here. Deep in his subconscious, that primal part of him, he knew this was the same tree.
He searched his pockets and pulled out a photo. He held it out in front of him and looked back and forth. The picture, then the tree.
It was the same tree. The exact same one. But now it had no knot hole. In fact, the others around it no longer had knot holes either.
He swore he felt his mind turning into fog.
He touched it. It was cold. Without thinking, he knocked on it. Hollow. For some reason, he felt the urge to laugh. So the hole, crevice, whatever, was still there. Maybe it was always there to begin with. It just closed up, that was all. Closed up all on its own after it was done. And maybe it would be ripe and ready again some day.
He laughed. Not because it was funny, or scary, or weird, but because his body had no idea what to do. So he laughed.
How long had this forest been here? No, how long had these trees been here? Were these even trees? The trees were in clusters. Breeding grounds? What was being birthed? By what? Those roots. What did those roots connect to?
Sample. He needed a sample or anything. Anything to know the age of these things--he refused to think of them as trees. The world needed to know. No, right now, his life was more important.
Right. He needed to get a move on. And so he moved. He moved slowly, carefully, before suddenly bursting into full sprint and then slowing down, indecisive (did he want stealth or speed?) and lost, not noticing the children of the earth in the fog moving in to feed.
