The Heart of the Forest

Prologue

Ever since the beginning of our universe, there have always been beings that had a closer connection to nature than others. Whether this connection was built slowly, by interacting with the flora and fauna of their worlds, or they were born with this connection, one thing remained the same among them all. Each one of them had unnatural abilities to do with the nature of their connection. Those who had a stronger connection to the fauna of their land had the ability to speak with the many different animals, to understand them, create connections with each one, and to have their help if the need ever arose. They had deep understandings of physical wounds, being able to treat such injuries as flesh wounds, sprained muscles, and broken bones. These people were known as "Beast Masters." Those with a stronger connection to the flora of their land had the ability to manipulate plant growth, causing the plants around them to reverse their growth and return them to a mere seedling, or causing the plants to grow to extreme sizes, bigger than what would normally be possible. They had a deep understanding of different types of sickness, and with their vast knowledge of plant life, they could treat ailments such as fevers, colds, and oral infections. They also had the strange ability to travel within a realm unseen by others, hidden inside of every tree. These people were known as "Arboricrafters." However, in very rare cases, someone emerges with their connections to flora and fauna in a perfect balance with each other, neither connection stronger than the other. These people inherited the abilities of both the Beast Masters and the Arboricrafters. They were forced to wear eye coverings when in the sunlight, as the strength of their abilities grew as more sunlight entered their eyes. People called them "Nature Demons." These Nature Demons could not die from old age. The only thing that could kill them was immense physical trauma. Due to the nature of their abilities and their rarity, they were often abused as children and kicked out of their homes when they became teenagers. One such of these Nature Demons was named Seán. He was born in the second century in a country called Windfall. Throughout his childhood, his mother and father kept him in a dark underground room, chained to a wall. On the few occasions either of the two visited him, it was to give him scraps from the final meal of the night or to beat him. The only light that ever entered the room was from the candles the Seán's parents used to be able to see in the room. There was never any light otherwise. The constant darkness slowly caused Seán to go blind, but he never knew. For years, he endured the abuse, knowing that one day, it would stop. Seán's thirteenth birthday started like any other day; at least, Seán thought it would. He awoke, not to the feeling of the cold floor and cold shackles, but to the feeling of rope around his wrists and ankles and a sack over his head. When he felt his bindings removed, he pulled the sack off his head, and he was met with an extreme brightness that caused an extreme burning sensation in the back of his eyes. He quickly squeezed his eyes shut and slowly stood up, feeling grass against the bare bottoms of his feet. He began walking forward, careful with each step he took, unsure if it would be his last. He walked forward for what felt like hours. The soles of his feet were aching, and his legs movements were becoming sluggish. Suddenly, he felt a different texture against his feet. It was familiar yet somehow different. He continued moving forward, noticing several textures against his feet. Some rough, some course, some smooth, some jagged, some wet. He continued moving forward, slowly identifying each texture. The rough texture of tree bark, smooth stones, jagged rocks, course patches of sediment, the wet dirt. He had found a forest. He slowly opened his eyes, noticing that everything seemed dark and blurry, all of it meshing together into one big, colorful blob. He began to panic, hyperventilating, unable to make anything out for what it was, and stumbled in random directions until he stumbled into a clearing. He stumbled out into the center of the clearing, falling to his hands and knees. He tried to get his breathing under control, with little success. The grass around him began to slowly wither and die until there was nothing but dirt. But he felt something under the palm of his right hand as the grass began to disappear. It felt like a seed of some sort, and so Seán dug a small whole in the ground in front of him and dropped it in. He covered the seed and gently pressed the soil down with both hands. His palms began glowing with a soft green color, while his eyes glowed with a gentle purple color. Slowly, the seed spouted into a seedling, then a sapling, and within a span of minutes, the tree had grown into a rather large oak tree, larger than any oak tree should have been able to grow. Seán, exhausted and scared, felt at the root system of the oak, and felt an opening begin to form, and he slowly climbed into the opening and curled up into a ball, trying his best to fall asleep.

Almost two millennia later, one-thousand eight-hundred seventeen years to be exact, the oak tree that Seán grew still stood tall in the center of a large forest. A large city called Heywood was located near the forest, and in the city, people who traveled through the forest said that the center had a sort of supernatural feel in the air. Some have told stories that in the clearing in the center of the forest, a young boy with bright green hair and wearing hospital scrubs could be seen sitting within the root system of the oak. But those are just stories, right?