The Trees

The scream was loud and piercing; almost inhuman. Just a moment before, the three of us had been sitting on this old abandoned school rooftop. We’d been drinking beer, telling jokes, and just having a good time. It was a regular spot of ours. We didn’t look around the rest of the school much, but this building was tall with a big flat roof we could all sit on. Nobody would bother us up here. My friend, Jack, had climbed down the building to go pee in a bush somewhere. Me and my other friend, Jared, were just sitting up there waiting for him. But that was before the scream.

I rushed to the edge of the building and looked over the edge. Jack was nowhere to be seen.

“Jack? Jack! This isn’t funny, get back here,” I called into the darkness.

“He’s probably just pulling some dumb prank,” Jared said before sitting back down.

“I don’t know. Someone could have heard and called the cops, and Jack’s usually pretty careful not to go back to jail.”

“That sounds like his problem to me. We’re up here so they won’t notice us.”

“Dude, that’s our friend. Let’s go find him and leave.” I grabbed Jared’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Then we started climbing down the side of the building.

“Let’s split up and try to find him,” I said.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Jared was always careless. Half the time I wasn’t even sure I could consider him a friend. If things got bad, he would save himself and leave the rest of us to rot. Hopefully we could find Jack fast and get out of there before the police showed up.

“Jack! Jack, this isn’t funny. Let’s just go,” I shouted. I tried searching everywhere on my half of the school to find Jack, but he was nowhere to be seen. I started running in circles, ending up in the same places I had been in before. Still no Jack.

Just as I was starting to lose hope of finding him, I turned the corner onto another hallway and I heard another scream. It came from the direction Jared had headed. I sprinted full speed towards the sound. The twisting corridors and unfamiliar buildings almost had me lost. I worried that I would never find the origin of the scream. I almost ran right into a pole but barely dodged it in my hurry. Suddenly I slowed down as I noticed a faint blue glow coming from around the corner. As I moved closer it got brighter and I noticed that it was pulsing.

I peeked around the edge of the building, praying it wasn’t the cops. What I saw was much worse. At first glance it looked like my friends were just standing there, leaning against trees. I started to get angry at the pranks they were pulling. I opened my mouth to yell at them for having me worried and the dangers of being so loud. I moved a step closer and I saw the truth.

The trees were glowing a bright blue light that almost hurt to look at. Once my eyes adjusted I saw that my friends had become the trees. It was like the trees had grown around them, leaving only their faces poking out from the trunk. Their eyes were closed and they were completely still. I moved closer to see if there was any way to help them. The pulsing light quickened as I moved closer. Suddenly their eyes opened and turned to look at me. Then their branches moved to grab me.