Ch. 8 

It's been 2 days now. The two teams went about their missions. 

Collin along with Keyshawn and Grant went to Michael's parents house to find out what happened a year ago. They walked on the steps towards the front door, they knocked, it took a min but someone answered,  it was Michael's mother. She recognized Collin immediately, of course she would, her children practically group up with him. She asked why they were there, what they wanted. Collin didn't want to be there, he didn't want to ask but he needed to. “Could we come in? It's about Micheal.” Collin said. She reluctantly opened the door to let them in. They walked in one by one, and she told them to sit anywhere they like. “I'm going into the kitchen to prepare some snacks and tea so it'll be a min.” she said. Keyshawn asked “how are we gonna ask her about Micheal? Isn't it a touchy subject or something?”. Collin replied, “ He's what we’re gonna do. I'll distract her then one of you looks around the house. See if you can find-” Collin was cut off as Micheal’s mother walked in with a double barrel shotgun aimed at Collins head. “So do you all wanna tell me what the hell are you young men doing in my house?” she said. Collin raised his hands up immediately and tried to digress the situation. “WAIT WAIT WAIT!!! CALM DOWN WE’RE JUST HERE TO TALK ABOUT MICHAEL!!” he said. “Oh? So you're not one of those goddamn cult members?!” she said. Grant asked, “Wait, do you mean the cult of the tree?”; “yeah, those mother fuckers.” she replied. “How do you know them?” Collin asked. She put the gun down, “Why the hell do you think he cut everyone off a year ago? He left to join them..” she replied. “What happened?” Collin asked with a curious look. “See for yourself. Come with me..” they all followed her to the basement. The door opened to the basement, they slowly went down the stairs, floors creaked with every step, it was dark. 

Micheal’s mother walked forward, deeper into the basement. She turned the light on and they were all appalled by what they saw. The room was filled with spray paintings of a pine tree in white, the room destroyed with books, papers, and a couch flipped over. There was a huge crack in the ground too. There was a poem on the ground written in old blood. 

“The Tree

This is no tree, but a human, a human who knows they've seen everything and everyone vanish and grow.  even people hanging below. but this tree holds history more than you know. overgrown with knowledge overgrown in size but this tree is special because it holds a prize.” 

“Is this related to the cult?”said Keyshawn. “Yes. It definitely is.” replied Collin. Collin picked up the paper and put it in a ziploc bag, collecting it as evidence. They looked around the room in search for any other evidence or leads on the cult. Grant found a bag of seeds but it was empty he collected it regardless. Keyshawn found a metal pine tree pendant, he collected it. Collin found a diary, detailing events months prior before his disappearance, he collected it. They kept rummaging through the room, they found a trash bag filled with clothing stained with blood too much to have been his and a knife. They took pictures of everything to send to the rest of the group. They were almost done but wanted to ask Michael's mom what happened the day he left. She told them, “Everything was fine, me and his father were watching TV in the living room until we heard shouting and shi being broken in the basement. We rushed down there to check on him and the room was a mess. He was yelling… At a tree. Can you believe it, talking to a plant? We asked him what the hell happened, he ignored us, started yelling at the tree, asking why they wouldn't accept him. He stood up teary eyed and turned around and finally noticed us. He looked sick, the ground began to crack underneath him,  the lights flickered. We didn't know what was happening but we knew we needed to leave. We thought the house was coming down. We yelled at him to hurry up and leave but he stood there dazed. Then a gust of wind blew in from every crevice of this house, it surrounded him and he disappeared. We never saw him again afterwards but we kept seeing people with the same markings on the wall everywhere so we armed ourselves just in case.” 

“Thank you for telling us. I know that must have been hard.” said Collin. 

“It doesn't matter, if you find him, tell him to come home. If you don't just let us know where he is we’ll find him ourselves.” she walked back upstairs leaving them in silence.  

“I think it's time to go. We’ll call Amarion and the rest to let ‘em know what we found.” Collin said. They all left the house.  Collin sent amarion the pictures they took and let them know to be on the lookout for those signs. 

Amarion along with Kamya, Jaiden, and Will went to the forest. They were looking for a specific tree, The biggest tree. It was humid, foggy, and a little dark but they pressed deeper into the forest. 

Twenty-mins after looking around aimlessly they still couldn't find anything. Their phones died and it was getting darker outside so they tried to head back to their car but they couldn't find the way. They were lost. Jaiden lit up the area with a small flashlight to see, that's when they saw in the dark forest a few silhouettes. The silhouettes were just staring at them. Waiting for something. Jaiden took a step forward to get a closer look at who they are. They were not human, they weren't even beast, their bodies appeared to be formally human but their skin looked like wood and their eyes were bloodshot, almost grayed out they could be blind. They were all wearing hoodies and coats covered in blood just like Michael's. They didn't notice until a second later that they were carrying weapons, axes, hatchets, knives. They didn't move a single inch even as the group got closer. 

A loud horn blared in the air, encompassing the forest. The woodmen moved, they fist swung at jaiden then the rest of them. Will fell back into the dark of the forest he couldn't defend himself. The woodmen stopped attacking him, it couldn't see in the dark. Will told Jaiden to turn his light off. “They can't see in the dark!!!” said Will. Jaiden turned his light off and they stopped attacking. They all backed away from them into the dark. They tried to leave the area but they couldn't, they were trapped in this forest.  Kamya and Jaiden tried to leave by carrying Will and Amarion but when they did the trees just swallowed them whole and they were back on the ground, in the dark, in the forest. 

“What do we do now?” said jaiden. 

“...i don't know.” said amarion. 

“Well great, we're trapped here.” said jaiden.  

They looked endlessly in the dark, searching for a way out as futile as it was. 

“Someone or something must be doing this to us. So if we find ‘em maybe we can leave?” said kamya. 

“That's the only idea we have so we might as well go with that.” said will.  

“Where do we look first though?” said jaiden.  

“I have an idea.” said amarion. 

He closed his eyes and started chanting and talking to himself. Then raised his hand in the air, “Que la lumière soit” a beam of light raised up into the air. So bright everyone there almost went blind. 

Eyes closed, Will asked “What are you doing? They’re gonna find us!”. 

“That's the point.” said amarion. 

A horde of the woodmen swarmed in. They were about to attack them but halted. Amarion powered off the light and they faded into the darkness. Amarion’s muttered again then his eyes glowed. 

“Follow me.” He said. 

They followed him closely in the dark even though they couldn’t see, they kept walking what felt like forever. Amarion suddenly said “wait.”, he was following a few woodsmen who were walking somewhere, but he saw something, a runic sign carved into the trees. It was the one in the photos at Michael’s house, Amarion knew to follow them. They kept going until the woodsmen stopped, that’s when they saw it. A Yggdrasil tree. It was large, about 150 feet tall. They looked at the tree in awe, Amarion, Will, and Kamya were found puzzled though. A tree this size takes years, decades to grow, they’ve live in this state all their life but have never heard or seen a tree this size. How did it get here? The three took a closer look at the tree, they examined it, they touched it. Touching the tree felt like all the worries in the world were wiped away. They felt peaceful like they were home. Kamya felt weird touching the tree, different from the rest, bonded to it, she could feel everything in the forest. The animals, the bugs, the branches and leaves, everything including the woodsmen. They were bonded to the tree like her but with an entire unique connection. She pulled away from the tree and told everyone else, “I know the way out!”. They were happy to leave but Amarion didn’t want to leave empty handed. While one of  the woodsmen was distracted by the tree he knocked it out had everyone else gather materials and evidence in the area that would help them develop a theory as to what was happening to the forest of Michigan.