Her Last Words

Trees are Just Trees

Anna really hated oaks now, and yet she thought that hemlock trees were very beautiful indeed.

It was already night at the peaceful town of Layndale, Anna had enjoyed a great time exploring and shopping beside Lockie and now there she was, just looking up at the huge hemlock in her garden while the cold mountain wind howled and whispered everywhere around her...

Hemlock trees were actually in the pine family, not related at all to the poisonous shrubby plants so well known by the same name, this hemlock in particular was well over a hundred feet tall and you could see it even from a great distance in that street.

Anna really started to appreciate the elegance and cold beauty of her graceful tree, and she thought it quite curious that her garden featured a great hemlock, the very tree species that her new best friend (and new crush, actually!) had been named after.

Wait! What if Lockie had been named after the poison shrub, and not the tree?

It was now clear to Anna that both plants reflected Lockie Allyngard.

Lockie was a chemical weapons expert after all, so she honored the poison shrub, and yet she was tall, elegant and beautiful, just like a great hemlock pine tree...

Indeed, this tree was just perfect for her garden!

"After all, trees are just trees" Anna whispered, looking up at her magnificent hemlock as the great tree swayed a little in the cold wind- "I have to fight this fear off, with her beside me! I want to love the forest again..."

Anna decided that the tree was a keeper, which was great for the hemlock since she had originally wanted to have it removed, she started to shiver a little in the wind and after that Anna finally hurried to get into the house carrying her paper shopping bags with both hands.

It was so nice and warm at the vast living hall, with its fluorescent green carpets, the orange couches here and there and those elegant blue curtains. The redbrick fireplace was already burning happy and bright, and the air smelled of something sweet and great that Lockie was preparing at the kitchen.

"Hi Anna!" Lockie cried out in high spirits, apparently quite busy at the stylish kitchen of the house- "I am baking your cookies! No worries, I promise not to burn down everything, alright?"

"Thanks Lockie! I'll be upstairs, I need some rest..."

"Fine!"

Anna climbed the stairs a bit slowly since she was feeling rather weak and tired, and yet soon she discovered that her room was all clean and warm, with the fireplace alight, the curtains all closed and her violet paper wings carefully placed beside a great mirror in a corner.

The wings were a great memory for Anna, since she had enjoyed a lot of fun with Lockie that night, and then she saw that the wooden wardrobe was open...

This other memory was not exactly good for her.

That dream, the beautiful daybreak outside, how she had been trying to convince herself that nothing bad ever happened in Heaven and then, that voice...

You have nothing? No, don't tell me! Well, your father does know how to keep a damn good secret... You are... Everything... The only way that we can finally have a happier world...

Anna could now identify and catch the first warnings of an incoming flashback, and so she was fast to grab the glass vial from a pocket of her cardigan. Then she took a very good dose of the violet liquid that Lockie had provided after banning the green substance, the fruity taste was great and Avalon's voice started to fade back into nothingness in just twenty seconds or so.