anyone available to go scream in the woods with me? it’s fun, free, and the trees like to gossip about us afterwards
They called them the Screaming Woods.
It had been that way for years. People went to the woods and screamed. Some as therapy. Some out of anger. Some out of desperation. Rumor had it that if you listened hard enough you could hear the trees scream back.
That was ridiculous, of course. The trees didn’t scream.
They whispered.
They spoke in the hushed rustling of their leaves, the groaning of their trunks, the stretching of their roots.
The trees knew. They could hear the screaming. They could understand the wails. They would talk amongst themselves once the people were gone.
That much energy put into a place with that much life…it had to go somewhere, and so the trees had grown wise and personalities had developed, until, if someone looked hard enough, one might actually be able to make out faces in the bumps and ruts along the bark.
Still, they were very much trees, and people, while a passing amusement, never held their attention for long.
And then, one day, there was a different scream. The trees had heard it all before: heartache, agony, grief, excitement, joy, anger, but this one was different. This scream shook through their trunks, vibrating down through their roots, shivering out through their leaves. This scream echoed through the suddenly still woods, higher and higher until human ears would have no longer been able to detect the sound.
The trees stopped their conversations to listen. The creatures who called the woods home hid in their burrows and froze in their steps.
Then the air began to crackle, softly at first, then louder and louder, cracks cutting through the air like branches breaking from their trunks. Soft white light danced out from the source of the scream, carrying its power with it, racing up trees and jumping across branches, up and out, flowing faster and faster. The trees felt it hum along, warm and tingly. The creatures it touched dared not move as it licked across their skin like fire.
And then the scream stopped.
There was silence and stillness followed by a single, solitary sob, that rang through the woods. The light pulled back as if it was being sucked into a vacuum, back to its source. The trees held their breath as the human stood up and walked away, leaving the pool of crackling light unnoticed behind them.
They didn’t share stories. They didn’t gossip in hushed whispers. They didn’t wonder about the nature of people. They didn’t do anything that they would normally have done after a scream.
They could feel it wasn’t done.
They watched. They waited. They felt.
The sun set slowly over the trees and still the woods stood eerily still and the pool of light swirled in patterns on the ground.
The moon was high in the sky, the crickets not daring to chirp, the frogs silent where they sat, when the pool began to grow.
The trees took notice, those closer sharing what was happening with those further away through the quiet tingling in their roots, not daring to make a sound themselves.
Even the wind refused to blow through the woods as the light flowed up into the air, twisting and climbing and folding in and around itself. A shape began to emerge. A familiar shape. Two legs solidified, feet flattened against the forest floor, arms stretched out to either side, a body, a head, a face, flowing golden hair.
The woods had never thought to ask how people were made, but now that they witnessed it, not a single tree believed that this was the normal way.
The light began to fade, centralizing in the being’s chest, its eyes still closed.
The light went out and for a moment nothing breathed.
The being gasped, and eyes the color of a clear sky gazed around in shock.
The trees watched as the being examined fresh hands with new eyes, squinting through the darkness.
“Is it female?” one tree who had heard of such matters asked with a rustle of its leaves.
“I think so,” replied another with a small creak.
“Is it human?” asked another through its roots, the question echoing around the woods.
No answer came.
They watched her explore her body with tentative movements, shaky at first, growing smoother as muscles began to understand the ways in which they were supposed to move. They watched as her head tilted to the side and curious eyes surveyed the woods around her.
A tree shivered as she moved close, fingers brushing through its leaves.
A top the color of the leaves that were just touched knitted itself over the woman’s body and a giggle rang out through the trees. Fingers grazed against the trunk of a birch, and a flowing white skirt built itself around her waist.
The woman smiled, eyes flashing through the woods. Another giggle rang out, and then, on steps as light as air, the woman made her way out of the woods.
It was a long few minutes before a breeze rustled through the trees.
“That was…different,” sighed an old oak.
“What was it?” asked a maple sapling nearby.
“We will have to wait and see.”
