A Dark Descent

The Tree

When he came back into the cabin, the door was closed, but there were lanterns hung up on the walls to give light. They were an aqua blue and weren't nearly as bright as the orange and purple lights, but they were enough. He went into the cabin door across from the one outside.

Inside there were even less blue lights, just barely enough to make out what was ahead. In front of the entrance was a tall stairway, almost like he was in some sort of foyer. He went up the stairs and was met with two more smaller staircases that led to the same place. He went up the left one and came into a round room with ten doors inside, all of which had different numbers on them, one to ten. He went in the door with the number 9.

He returned to the foyer. Alex looked around and wondered why he was here again. He turned to close the door, and saw another tree in the center of the first room. Alex shut the door and locked, as he walked away from it he never let his eyes lose sight of the door. He went into the left side of the foyer and came into the kitchen.

He found a small piece of paper on the counter in the center of the kitchen. He picked it up and it was the number four in the center written in a very suspicious red color. There were three happy children at both the bottom and the top of the paper. Alex set the paper back on the counter and looked around, but there appeared to be nothing to see. There was nothing in the cabinets, nothing on the floor, nothing under anything.

He walked into another room from the kitchen. It was a living room. But before he could pick up the note he saw on the sofa, he heard a creak of floor boards from behind. He looked behind but there was nothing in the kitchen. He kept his eyes on that entrance as he reached to grab the paper. He got a hold of it but heard another creak from the side entrance to the room. He looked over, and there was another tree.

He heard a creak from the kitchen and there was a tree there too. With each glance to look at a tree the other moved just inches closer. Alex got into a corner where he had barely enough room to see both trees. He quickly looked at the paper and it had the number 3 with two children at the bottom. When he looked back, there was almost enough room for Alex to make it into the next room. Alex kept his eye on the tree in the kitchen for a short time and when he looked back he saw enough room to slip by to the next room.

The next room was a baby blue bedroom with a cradle in the middle. He grabbed the note inside the cradle as the two trees moved closer, and a third appeared ahead. He decided to just go for all the notes instead of looking at them and risking getting close to one of the trees again. He ran to the left and was in a room with three more paths and a note in the center.

He ran to the left room and looked back, four trees in the room he just came from. He looked around quickly and saw a note on a shelf. He took it and slipped to the next room to the left, never letting his eyes off the trees. The next room had one bed and a note on it so the trees made no progress getting to him. He moved to the last room and slipped on the note and fell with a thud.

When he looked back up he saw at least five trees, all seeming to be staring at him and they were very close. There was no room for Alex to make it out so he thought very carefully about what he wanted to do. The only thing he could think of was a horrible idea, not as bad as burning down the trees, but worse than just walking all the way around.

He was gonna run straight through the trees.

And it worked.

All the trees tried to grab him with their vines but instead grabbed each other, and when Alex made it through, the trees didn't even follow him. He ran to the next room from the baby's room and was now in a bigger room with two huge beds and two notes on them. He grabbed them and heard the trees starting to recuperate and chase Alex as he ran back to the foyer, up the stairs, and staring down as he saw no trees at the bottom of the stairs.