A TREE

It turned out to be a tree.

A tree should be an ordinary thing, indeed. It doesn't move, or make any sound, or feel, or do anything to remind one that it has life even when science claims that it does, but this one was different.

The roots were pulled up from the ground, moving like small worms before her. The bark was, just like the appearance of animal zombies, peeling off, and the leaves were brown, but not dry.

What made Gloria scream was the head that stuck at the top of this tree, exactly like the head of a Venus fly trap, only that it was almost fifty times bigger, and the branch that reached to curl itself about her as the tree bent to catch her.

She rolled away from the reach of the grasping branch just in time so that it harmlessly waved over where she had been only a moment before, and made the mistake of underestimating the tree, because the branch simply extended and pinned her where she was.

The smaller branches attached to that branch made her captive with how they wra