Suni

Hands first, I dive into the hollow of an over turned rotting tree. Rotating my body, I fold my long legs as quickly as I can in behind me, briefly catching my right ankle on a sliver of wood and tearing my pants, and then work my arms and hands in between my legs. With my knees up to my ears my breath begins to haunt me. Much too loud, much too fast. I squeeze my eyelids tight and begin to count. One, two, three, four - calm down heart - five, six, seven…. I hold my breath for 8 and try to let out the air slowly for 9. A snap of a twig tweaks all my senses and a prickle of adrenaline runs under my skin. Stop breathing. Another crunch of some leaves, louder than my breath, and a few more foot steps. I pull my knees in tight against my head, hoping to muffle the sounds of my breath. The trunk of the tree reverberates and I flinch. Tree matter crumbles in flakes onto my hair and my pants, the thick smell of decay filling my senses. My hiding spot was kicked by the Burner.

I slightly turn my head and peek out of the hollow of the tree to the ground and see black combat boots laced with neon green laces in one boot, and yellow and black corded laces in the other. Some camouflage.

“Maybe it wasn’t her,” the boots have a voice that sounds vaguely familiar.

“It was definitely her.”

I swallow the swamp that has developed in my mouth. More than one of them has followed me here. Another kick to my log rains pieces of dirt and sediment down around me. I mentally wash away all thoughts of the number of insects that are in here as my neck starts to tickle and itch with the possibility of tiny little legs nesting inside of my hair.

“How does she always disappear?!”

The familiar voice responds, “Maybe it was a mountain lion, and not her. I’ve seen a couple recently now that we’re in Tree Town.”

“That was no cat.”

With that the boots start clumsily stomping away. From my angle inside the tree I watch them as they grow from shoes, to legs in worn and ripped jeans, to jackets. I keep my head pulled back reasoning that if I can’t see their faces, they can’t see me. One of the guys kneels down to tie his shoe, the one with the yellow laces, and he glances back towards my hiding tree. I feel all the blood within my body stop traveling through my veins and I freeze, staring straight back at him. He squints his eyes, shakes his head and gets back up to follow his friend. The way his black silky hair flew out of his face and settled in the drape over his forehead places him clearly in my thoughts. It’s Koa. The hair toss with the tilt of his head, the knowing squint - how often had he looked at me like that before daring me into some juvenile challenge or another? More importantly, had he seen me? If he had, he kept it to himself as he and his friend continued to travel further into the woods. The murmurers of their casual banter hit me with a sharp pain in my chest and my mouth dries up. How long had it been since Koa and I were friends? Definitely a good year before he made the idiotic choice to become a Burner.

I wiggle my toes and clench and release the muscles in my feet in an attempt to stave off the familiar feeling of sand filling each foot. 10 more minutes inside of this tree and my legs will be asleep. I twist my head back towards the opening of the log where all the roots are stuck at odd angles from being pulled out of the soil. I grab on to two thick roots and drag my body out from the confines of the timber. I hear the birds begin to pick back up on their chatter, they must have been eavesdropping too, and I dust myself off and shake out my hair. I pull off my hair tie and rake my gloved fingers through my long curls repeatedly in an effort to search out anything that may have nested inside. Five years living among the trees has introduced me to many little critters.

I slowly back track a hundred yards before making a right turn to head home. I stop to shake my right foot a few times, as the heavy feeling of sleep has found a home in the pad. A little pain keeps popping at my ankle bone. The Sprouters are thick in this area of town. Large trees of various assortments that had found ground by breaking through the cracks of sidewalks and pushing themselves into office buildings, and crumbling churches. The sidewalk is buckled and popped in so many places that I have to keep my eyes on the ground as I pick my way through broken concrete and asphalt and over root systems. It’s a wonder the Burners don’t have this whole place on fire. Some of the trees have scorch marks, feeble attempts to alight these woods into a roaring flame. I have a feeling these trees are too big of a conquest and have laughed at the Burners’ attempts. I shudder at the thought of someone attempting to burn me.

The density in which the Sprouters grow fills the air with a freshness that is new to this city. The air is moist when, five years ago, it was dry. Five years ago my father would leave at 6:45 AM on the dot every morning to beat the morning traffic. He’d drive his car down to this part of town, park in a city garage, and work on the 16th floor of a building that looked like an ice-cream cone. His office was in the round part of the building, two floors below the rotating restaurant with windows that looked over the city park. Passing it now, the building looked as if it grew mold. Green vines crawled in and out of broken windows, while young roots cascade down the entrance stairs. Young Sprouters grew new leaves up towards the sun filtering in through the leaves of older Sprouters and the surrounding empty office buildings. Looking at the city now, you’d never know it was a home to over 2 million people 5 years ago, as all you see are trees.

Hyperdendrosis, or “tree sickness” made its way to our town in Kura county 5 years ago and gathered up the inhabitants forever transforming them. Literally. What started off as a rumor, a whisper, a game of telephone, a friend of a friend’s sister’s cousin’s crazy illness that turned them from a living human into a 50 foot tree, was not a game at all. This sickness came in quickly, “blew in with the wind” my mother had thought, and before we had a chance to try and understand it, half of our town had already sprouted. An individual would be covered in strange lumps, followed by hair loss, and then a white willowy mold would cover the person’s head in waves like a fancy coral. What came next was extremely brutal to witness. Appendages would elongate, and the head would swell and bulge. It was perhaps the pressure on the head, or maybe the weight of the head itself, that would cause the person to fall into the ground, head first, and reach their arms deep into the soil while their legs flipped up and reached for the sun. Within hours of the final stage, the evidence of all things human would disappear and a tree remained. No one could guess the type of tree until the transformation was complete, but in the first year, red sac-like fruit would hang from the tree branches - regardless of species, breed, or whatever you call it. The fruit made my stomach turn.

The sun is directly ahead of me, blinding me a bit as I trudge carefully back to the compound. It is later than I thought it was, and as usual I’ve stayed out longer than permitted. “Rules are to keep us safe.” I can hear Dyani’s voice already, firm but kind, as she has set a ground work for how the few of us can survive. 11 of us live inside an old elementary school. From the exterior it looks completely empty; broken windows, Sprouters in all of its yards, and yet inside its a fortress. The school’s library is in the center of the school, completely walled off with big double metal doors at it’s entrance, and one door that led to an old copy room, with another door that connected to the teacher’s lounge and then to the rest of the school, if we ever needed an escape. These are the rooms that we have taken over as our home. It turns out, at the end of humankind, people don’t run for the books. The library luckily has a domed glass ceiling so that we don’t live in complete darkness.

Instead of heading straight back I head to our own “Sprouter graveyard.” Two weeks ago we were 12, instead of 11. Suni got the sickness while out gathering canned food from abandoned houses and I am curious to see how she sprouted. Unfortunately we still haven’t discovered how the sickness is transferred, so it’s always a horrible affair when one of our members shows signs of infection. Some have to be dragged from our school, others, like Suni, stoically walk off and head to our designated Sprouter area. I vividly remember her face drained of color, her hand clasped at her neck holding the charm of her neckless tight within her palm. She waved at us and made a sharp 90 degree turn and headed directly for the back of the football field. We spent the next week sanitizing the school before we were allowed to venture out of it again.

The football field is past the parking lot and I head that way, keeping in the trees so no one from the school can see me and mistake me for a victim of the sickness. I enter the field at the visitor doors and see 30-some trees of various sizes and type. Suni was the life of a party, quick witted, adventurous, and preferred having a good time to worrying about anything. I glance at the trees hoping to recognize her quickly, but at first, nothing stands out. There’s a friendly palm tree on one side of the group that I check out first, but it doesn’t feel right so I continue to walk around the Sprouters, and then I see it. A thin young tree with leaves the color of fire. The leaves seem to dance and taunt me to come closer. For some reason the other trees seem still comparatively. I walk closer and a glint of metal catches my eye, pulling my gaze from the leaves to the ground. Three feet away I drop to my hands and knees and crawl towards the base of the lively young tree. I brush my hands over the grass at the base of the trunk and more of the metal appears in the form of a shiny gold chain. I reach for it and pull. Some of it is caught in the earth and I have to dig at it to pull it out. The chain is broken and when I pick it up, a charm falls down the chain and catches at the closed lock. I hold it in my hand and see that it’s a heart shaped golden locket. I flip it over and on the back is engraved 4 letters, S-U-N-I.

“Hi Suni, I found you.”