Mystical creatures live among us

Setting the story — Creating a mood

This story is set in a faraway place.

Where life is different. Magic is in the air.

It is not a fairytale realm. People don’t live in castles or near enchanted forests. Nobody is in danger of being poisoned (besides from bad food) and wolfs won’t follow you home and try to kill, or replace, your grandma.

This world looks just like ours.

Some people have secrets. Big secrets. Not the secrets like we all have. It’s something more exciting. More magical. And so much more dangerous.

Letting you in on the secret of this land and its people

Can you imagine being alive but not being able to move? Not only that. You are alive, experience the world around you even deeper than the rest of us. You taste colors and hear all the smells of the wind. All of your senses are brought together into one. But you can’t react. You can’t do anything against that bird that sits in your branches. Nor the homeless guy who decides to take a leak against your trunk. Hours seem like days which quickly turn into years.

Day in and day out you stand there. In the same spot. Watching the same people. You know them by name, but they will never know yours. Can you imagine playing with little Ricardo, helping him chase his bullies away. Making Juliette laugh when the tears roll over her cheeks because somebody hurt her once again. Helping miss Angelica make her famous apple pie to take to class.

This is the fate of those who linger. Those of us who stay in one place for just a little too long.

Introducing Christian — the Arbrarian

If you don’t know us, hi, I’m Christian. And I am one of the few Arbrarian still alive today. My story is not a successful one. I didn’t fulfill my destiny. We Arbrarians know exactly what our life purpose is here on earth. I failed mine.

We feed on the energy of the ground. When we are feeling down we can regenerate our energies by burying our feet firmly into the ground. We have to be careful though. There are rules. We can’t bury ourselves above our ankles. We must always be able to remove ourselves from our feeting. And we must be very, very careful where we plant ourselves when it starts to rain. As soon as the rain makes the ground we are in humid we are doomed. The ground becomes too powerful and we get stuck. Do you know what happens to an Arbarian when they get stuck? After a while, they stop being able to react. Their arms transform into branches and they eventually transform into full-blown trees. This is a long, painful process that only a few can endure.

I never believed the stories. I thought they were meant to scare the kids. To make sure they wouldn’t absorb too much energy and be able to overpower their parents. I guess I was wrong.

I knew I should have been more careful.

I knew there was a risk, but tales don’t scare me…I should have listened to my parents.

The night that changed my life

That fearful spring night my energy was totally drained. My nephews came to visit and there was just too much noise in the house. I decided to go back to University and plant my feet into the ground in my favorite spot. Hidden, in the park behind the chemistry lab. Besides the usual stoner, nobody seemed to know this place. It was perfect to recharge my energies.

People don’t get it. If you sit down too long in a park with your eyes closed strangers tend to look, I can feel their stares. I think they don’t know who we are, or what we are doing. Who can blame them? Our kind has been written out of the history books. Humans prefer to believe we are myths, not more than vampires and werewolves. But we are real. We won’t harm you. We live peacefully in nature — or at least try to. Some of us get so angry at humans that they prefer to live out their lives as trees. I don’t. This was not my choice. There is a way to come back to our human form though, at least this part all the fairytales get right, a display of true love. But who can fall in love with a tree?

Back to that spring night. I arrived at the park and dug two holes, the size of my feet, in the wet, muddy ground. It seemed so perfect but so dangerous. This was the perfect ground for any tree to grow. The energies were so high. The rush I felt through my body can’t be explained. It made me feel so powerful. I wanted more of this. I needed to feel it more intensely. we all know we can’t go above the ankles. But the energy of this place, this fertile ground under my soles.

Just a little bit deeper, no one had to know.

I sat down, put my head back, and fell asleep listening to some music. This was dangerous in so many ways. I wasn’t following the rules. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t enjoy it so much. But I couldn’t help myself. I don’t know how long I lay there. Too long for sure. The blue sky had turned dark and grey. The birds weren’t singing anymore when I suddenly felt it. The first drop of my demise. I wasn’t sure at first. I reached my cheek with my hand and felt the wetness. It was starting to rain.

I was too late. My feet were stuck, being pulled down by the fertile, wet ground of the university campus.

I had heard stories but didn’t believe they were true until it happened to me that day. Stories exist for a reason. Listen to them, kids. Follow your parents' advice. Don’t break rules which consequences you aren’t able to bear. I made this mistake. You can still save yourselves.

This is not the end of my story, it is just the beginning. But I won’t be taking up more of your time. Be safe and if you are an Arbrarian like me, I know it is tempting, but don’t bury your feet too deep into the ground — unless you want to grow roots.