They chopped down the Brain Tree. I came a little bit too late, to be honest, to see the whole procession. Something inside of me was too shaken by the whole ordeal to have to witness it in person. I'd have to admit, every so often, when the Esophagor was too brutal for even me to bear, I retreated to the Brain Tree for asylum. The fact that that safe haven would no longer be guarantee disturbed me, and I slept a restless night before that fateful day. The insomnia, I think, was from the guilt, though—the guilt of knowing I had eliminated my safety—and the Brain Tree's existence—by simply being too selfish to admit that I was the brains and body of Vali's kidnapping.

Everyone seemed to be a tizzy when I arrived, purposefully late. Nobody was dressed in mourning black, and nobody carried flowers to pay their respects. I knew it wasn't a funeral—the Brain Tree wasn't technically a person, or a Neopet—but I was outraged nevertheless. Whether the selfish and frightened Neopets who had signed the Brain Tree's chopping orders realized it or not, the Brain Tree had been a respected part of the Haunted Woods, and would be missed by many (whether or not they showed sympathy by attendance). It was the fault of the intruders on our—not our, their… I always slip that up—little world, and trying to impose their standards on us—them. We—they were not the same as other Neopians were, and something in them could not accept that.

Admittedly, I brought no flowers myself, but that was primarily because I didn't want to be leaving any vicious, carnivorous flowers (the only kind the Haunted Woods boasted) at the trunk of a former friend. With an aura of anger, I demanded one Neopet to tell me why everyone was so upset (and very obviously not directly concerning the Brain Tree's unfair chopping). The Neopet tried to restrain a cringe as she answered, her delicate Kiko features unused to such brazen ugliness as a Mutant Kacheek.

"A beast went into the Brain Tree before it fell. They're concerned it might still be inside."

My throat constricted. I would've added a comment if not for that fact, and the fact that the Usul was leaving quickly, obviously having no desire to continue conversation.

I knew of the fable of the beast that lay behind the Brain Tree, but whenever I had actually asked it about the beast, the Brain Tree would brush me off with a haughty comment, or a witty one-liner that sent me back crying to the Esophagor. So I didn't quite believe that they had seen it either—perhaps it had been a group hallucination. Surely this was much more likely than what I could never have verified.

The stump seemed safe enough (they were clearing away what remained of the detached Brain Tree, and I tried not to look at it directly), as Vali was crying directly over it. A Red Quiggle comforted her from behind, and I wondered who exactly that Quiggle was to touch Vali. I shrugged it off, though, less worried about the Quiggle than by not being seen by Vali, who would more than likely try to rat me out. I waited for them to leave, hiding behind some nearby trees. As I pressed my face against their thin, sharp trunks, I wondered if they felt anything when the Brain Tree was chopped down. If the Brain Tree's demolition could inspire emotion in something sentient, why couldn't it move something unthinking, of the same species?

Vali and the Red Quiggle finally departed, and, making sure the coast was clear by looking both ways, I approached the trunk to pay respects to a lost old friend. I patted the trunk, still dewy on the inside from being freshly cut, with a sort of affection, but it was awkward standing alone, ruminating aloud with an object that could no longer talk—no longer ruminate, even. I looked around, making sure I wasn't being watched for an increased sense of discomfort.

But that was when my eyes alighted upon the flower. I had seen one before at the base of the Brain Tree, but as I had never seen any subsequent flowers, I figured that one time was a fluke. Yet there it was, growing nearly out of what remained of the Brain Tree, tenaciously hanging on. It was a stubborn little bugger to grow in soil so poor—especially with a tree's roots dominating the flower around it—but it looked just as healthy and full as any flower I had ever seen in a garden shop—perhaps even more so, as if it had been granted that much more beauty for its struggles.

Cautious and somewhat suspicious, I lifted my hand off the trunk and got onto my knees, sidling up to the flower. I hadn't been down on my knees in dirty in ages, and in some ways, it felt like returning home. A wave of calm fell over me, but I was still inquisitive about the flower and its mysterious origin. Curious, I bent forward and stroked its petals.

You would think being chopped down would be painful, don't you? You'd think it would be a slow and terrible process, that extends your life into your final moments of agony. You'd think that all your mind could focus on in your last hour—not spared any short time to blink out of consciousness—and you'd only find torture within every second you remained existing. You'd think it'd be one of the most brutal methods of demise, and utterly condemnable for those who committed it. I did too, at first. But that was before Vali arrived.

I don't know if I even saw her so much as I felt her—that warm essence that signaled her return, and just the very meaning of her continuation. There was something blissfully beautiful about her childish naiveté, that innocent state that we all pine to return to. It's that position before the world has seeped under our skin and faded our insides with its soul-sucking stonewash—when the slate is clean and we've just been given the permanent marker to write on it with, not yet understanding its implications. If we had all of our world-weary knowledge we had now back then, when we were still starting out, maybe we'd have done it differently. Or maybe we'd have fretted over that blank slate until death came to take us away from a life lived in anxiety of a horrendous mistake. So maybe it's better that way, being knowledgeless and impressionable. Maybe it's better to make stupid decisions first, for experience.

Vali embodied that, and though I knew I was corrupting her in subconscious ways, guiding her to make marks on that slate she wouldn't've otherwise, I still felt for her as my own little daughter. As a parent, I was in the position to influence those messy stroke marks, to make them in my own image until Vali had copied them too long, and strived for a different vision.

And maybe it wasn't the selflessness I assumed it was that filled me with such joy when I saw Vali. Maybe it was a selfishness—she was my idol, my ideal, the blank slate that I desired to seize back, ripping the current failure that I had in my hands to shreds. Perhaps I desired to steal it from her, not allowing her to make what she wanted of her life when she had matured—to seize the steering wheel of her life and live forever through a vessel, a body not my own.

But none of that really mattered, when I thought about it. All that really mattered, I realized, was that Vali was there, the shining model of perfection untapped, unseen, unrealized. She was pure—the fountain of youth, and even if I didn't get a second chance, I somehow knew I could start my life over again in her presence through a delicate shift in perception. I had known that all along, deep in the recesses of my brain, but now it came forth into my consciousness as I attained it, took the steering wheel of my own ship and guided it away from the black sea of a post-modern reality to the bright horizon of things transcendental. She, my revelation told, was the treasure every man searches for, as immaculate and rare as that fleeting flower.

So when I looked upwards and saw the beast, its essence was no longer so black and bleak, full of emptiness and terror. A life well lived doesn't fear Death—it only fears losing grasp of that which makes it full, and that thing the soul clings onto like a zebra mussel to the hull of a ship sailing towards paradise. That thing, once found, is hard to lose, as it lies within, intangible.

Death looked like an angel in those moments, descending upon me like a feather caught by the wind. It smiled at me with a glorious face, carved from immortal material. I smiled back at it, and it held forth its hand, welcoming me to its kingdom. It mouthed mysterious words to me, and touched my highest branch—a jolt of electricity ran through me, an electricity that tingled like soda bubbles against the nose. I shuddered, and looked up to Death, as if for explanation why it had not taken me immediately. Patiently, it motioned towards the ground.

There at my trunk bloomed my epitaph, a Neopian beauty of flawless grandeur.

I could feel my body fall backwards, but I was no longer there. I found myself dispersing among the trees, spreading like steam jettisoned from an exhaust pipe, liberated back to the ghostly, gorgeous world. For a moment, I tried to grasp the sensation to form it into words, and I struggled, groaning as I felt momentary pain strike through my expanding body as it tried to condense for that final task. But then I let it go. It was pointless, and I was needless.

It drifted through me briefly, and then I was perfect.

I am the Brain Tree, and this is my death.

My meaningful, dazzling death.