Whomp there it is, another chapter with a little twist in the end. Enjoy! (I feel like when I put an exclamation mark at the end of this I'm like forcing you to enjoy reading this, is that weird?)
36. A blue light
A blue light shining out of her angry eyes, the weird tattoos on her body light up with the same blue light. Her hair is floating around her head, like gravity has no grip on it. What is happening to her? What is she doing here? Is she the one who's responsible for this storm? Her feet lose touch with the ground and her arms are wide, she floating in the middle of a hurricane, one that she seems to be controlling. But she's also standing next to me, her hand in mine.
"not my finest moment" she says as she looks at herself and a second later the whole storm is gone, she's still there though. She's no longer floating, she's no longer human. Her body made of stone, she stands there like a statue. Time goes by faster and faster and we see a time laps of the years that followed. The forest around us seems to claim her for themselves, plants grown on and around her. After about a century she's no longer visible, her body is no longer there but her spirit is. She protects these lands, these trees and the animals that live within them. she has done a great job, using the weather as a weapon to scare away anyone who tried to harm her forest. But now she's fighting a losing battle, thousands of trees are cut down every day and it's too much for her to handle without taking desperate measures. At one point one of the oldest trees in the whole forest got cut down and as it hit the ground something switched inside her spirit, it went back to her body and got her out of the stone. The blue light lights up again and can be seen throughout the whole forest and far beyond that, locals call it the forest ghost and warn everyone to stay away, scientists can't explain it. When she makes it to the edge of the forest all hell breaks loose, who wouldn't freak out when there was a woman floating towards you. She controls the water and washes away all the humans, they end up in one of the big rivers where they get eaten or drown. She controls the earth and buries all the big machinery underneath a thick layer of earth, never to be seen again. She controls the wind and blows away all the tents that the humans used. She controls fire and burns all there's left, watching carefully to not harm the forest. She does this until her forest is safe, until everyone gets the message. She'd rather let humans die than the forest, these trees make sure life exists. The day she could leave the trees alone without them being cut down, she went back to her stand and sat back down on it. Her body freezes in the same position as before and the plants and trees covered it right away. Years later I learned of a plan to destroy about half of the trees on earth and I knew I had to do something so I travelled to this forest, guided by the stories of the spirit that saved this forest a long time ago. That's how I found her, I hope she's willing to help me prevent something like that from happening even though that means killing millions of humans. For weeks I aimlessly wander through the forest, I have no clue were to go. Somehow the trees are guiding me towards the statue, as I'm about to touch it I hear a beautiful voice
"don't" it says, I turn to the voice and see her. She's small, why is she so tiny, isn't she supposed to be almighty or something. But she's here, I found her. Well, I guess she found me but whatever. "What are you doing here" she spits out "your kind needs to leave the trees alone"
I try to explain what I'm doing here but it's complicated "I needed to find you, I heard of a plan to destroy millions of trees and I need your help to stop that, please, you have to believe me" I got her attention
"tell me about this plan" she tells me, I pull out my phone and she jumps away. Without her holding it a knife made of stone is pressed to my neck, I realise she's scared of my phone. I drop it
"hey, it's just a phone I won't do anything bad with it"
"humans who cut down my trees used metal things to call more humans to come destroy me" I see earth floating above my phone, ready to crush it "I killed them all"
"wait! I'm not calling anyone I swear, I want to show you a video" she seems to calm down a bit
"very well, show me this video" I want to move but the knife is this on my neck, she sees my struggle and drops it "sorry" I lean down to take my phone and pull up the video. I put the phone down and press play, she slowly comes closer.
"mister president, we are no longer getting any wood, we need more space to build houses, factories! Your people are cramped up in the smallest of spaces and they are starving, you know we need to do this. At least half of the trees on this earth need to be gone so the human race can grow, we need to start this operation now! I suggest we set a fire, a fire so big that no one will be able to put it out. Trees will burn down and from the ashes we will rise, give me six months and over the course of the next year I assure you I'll have it all gone"
"the president agreed" I say "we have 5 months to find a way to stop them"
She looks at me suspiciously "who are you?" she gets up "why are you here" walks to where she rests "and why are you telling me this"
"well, I was minister of planetary needs, this basically means that I was there to make sure earth would survive, this job meant that I had to be at every single meeting. I was the only vote against this plan and after that I resigned, I was useless. My whole life I've been trying to stop people from destroying nature and that's why I'm here, I'd rather have humanity destroyed than this planet. But I can't do this alone, I need your help."
She stands there looking at herself, thinking. "come here" she says and I do, I stand next to her. She points at the plants that sit on the stone in certain patterns "do you see that" I nod, unsure of what to do. "you have a choice here, when you touch this statue you wake me, I go back to my body. I tell the trees to revenge their brothers and sisters and they will start killing humans, mother nature will turn against humans and they will win. This will mean that anyone can die, your family, your friends, maybe even you, one by one all humans will die. Nature will rise again and rule this world. If you chose to not wake me up you'll have to figure it out on your own, if this fails and I feel the heat in my roots I will cause the end of this world. Floods will drown people, fires will burn them, wind will blow away your buildings, earthquakes will make whole city's disappear. Now chose"
So the choice I'm given here is either kill everyone or kill most of the people. Well, I don't want humans to extinct. I raise my hand and touch her cheek, her eyes light up blue and so do the lines where plants used to be.
"good choice" she says. The woman next to me steps into the statue and breaks out of the stone, I just woke the forest spirit up. She sits down on her knees and murmurs words, words that I don't recognise, they must be of another language. I don't know how long we've been standing there but at one point she gets up, walks over to me and offers me her hand. I look at it, unsure of what to do, I look back and forth between her hand and her eyes, as if I'm asking her what I'm supposed to do.
"this is what humans do right, when they meet new people. I figured if we'll be spending a lot of time together, we might as well introduce ourselves, but clearly you're not good at this, I'll start. Hi, I'm Beca, protector of forests" she looks at me expectantly.
I'm shocked, how is she so much different than she just was, I'm lost for words.
"tell me your name" she says, seeing that's she's not going to get anywhere with me
"Chloe" I say as I'm mostly recovered from my shock
"well, Chloe, take me to the president" and all I can do is nod, we leave right away. It took me weeks to find her but it takes her a day to get out of the forest, I look around me and notice the trees are moving really fast for trees. She sees it "they're waking up" she says without looking at me, without stopping "you should see them when they are fully awake" and the subject is dropped. We make a weird couple of travellers, she looks somewhat like a monk and I look like… well, like an idiot but we have no time to stop and change. I don't even think she knows our ways but I don't dare open my mouth. A helicopter flies us to the white house, it takes us hours to get in, since I resigned I technically have no business in there. But in the end we do, Beca is determined to stop this and I admire her for it. She marches straight through the door, into the room where the ministers are having their meeting. Guards start shooting at her but the bullets never hit her, somehow she stops them and they fall by her feet. Glass breaks and shards of it float in the air, one for every person in the room, except for me. She spots the president and he cowers under her gaze, a piece of glass makes his way over to him and presses to his throat. She makes his way close to him and turns her back on the other ministers but as soon as one of them moves a shard shoots at him and pierces his heart. No one else dares to move. Her face is now really close to the presidents, who looks like he's about to cry.
"you!" she shouts "it was you who ordered them to destroy my trees, now it is I who will destroy your kind. Starting with the most rotten of them all, again, you" and the glass shard starts cutting deeper and deeper through his skin. These are only the events that happened inside the white house but outside there was panic, people got killed by plants and trees. Earth was splitting on some places, letting whole buildings collapse and more people dying.
Her tattoos started to light up again but for a completely different reason this time, she sees it and falters for a moment. The next moment every person in the room is dead, except for her and me. She turns to me "they have her Chloe, they have her. We need to find her!" and with that she runs out the room, I follow her. She seems to get closer to something or someone because her tattoos get brighter and brighter, we get to a big locked door and she tells me to stand back. She doesn't realise I have a key card but I let her do her thing until she understands that she's not able to break through this door. I simply walk over and swipe the card passed it, a light turns green and the door opens. She nods her thanks and snatches the card out my hands as she runs passed me, I run after her. We get through more doors and down many stairs until we reach a room and she looks like she might explode, so much light is coming from her. In the room is a girl, she looks younger than Beca but she has the same tattoos. She seems to be asleep, Beca runs to her and starts sobbing as she sees that the girl is unresponsive. The girls tattoo's light up red and Beca lets out a sight of relieve, this must be good. It is, she opens her eyes and doesn't seem to believe that the other is really there. Beca laughs in a teary way and she hugs her. When they pull back, they share an intimate kiss and I feel kinda like a jerk being in the same room. Well, they pull apart soon enough, the women get up and Beca leads her to me. "Chloe, I want you to meet someone, this is my wife Emily. Emily this is Chloe, the human who saved my life" we say our greetings and quickly make our way upstairs, Beca stops me when I want to go outside "if you want to live you need to stay in here, Chloe I need you to lead your people to a better way of life, you're the only human I trust and I think that you'll be a great leader"
Again all I can do is nod, I'm getting slightly emotional right now. Beca walks to the door with her hand in Emily's, she turns around and looks back one last time.
"you know where to find me"
And she's gone, I'm left here to pick up the mess that she left behind. That storms she showed me a long time ago must be when Emily was taken from her, the storm that caused her to turn to stone, the storm that she created and controlled. Is there something she isn't capable of? I guess we'll never know. But she did me a huge favour and I'll do everything in my power to lead humans to live in harmony with nature, giving as much as we're taking.