The redhead endless sufferings

chapter 5:hanging tree

Chapter 5: Hanging Tree

{The memory hit Cale like a punch to the gut. The night air was cold, the scent of alcohol still lingering on his breath as the flashes from his teenage years blurred before his eyes. He had been fifteen when it all began, when he had first picked up the bottle, and when his life had been forever altered by that person.}

{That person... his friend. His drinking buddy. They had met at a bar, a dark place where lost souls gathered, where the broken ones sought solace in whiskey and lies. It was there that they first crossed paths, a strange bond forming between them like a connection neither of them had expected. Both of them hiding behind the bottles, pretending to laugh and live, when in reality, they were both drowning in their own pain.}

{But the world was cruel. Too cruel.}

{He recalled the last time they met-the tree where they would meet in secret, away from the eyes of the world. The place where they could be free, where the weight of their loneliness could be momentarily lifted. The last time he saw them, they had been laughing, like they always did, but the look in their eyes was different.}

{That look would haunt Cale forever.}

[Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
They strung up a man
They say who murdered three]

{The song played in the back of his mind, the lyrics haunting him like a dark lullaby. The memories of that fateful night flooded back. His friend, the one who understood him better than anyone else, had been gone. They ended their life beneath that very tree, a place that had once been full of hope and secrecy.}

{The image of them standing there, no longer the person he had known, hanging from the tree... the image was burned into Cale's mind. The world had stripped that person away, just as it had done to him, and in the end, it had claimed them, too.}

[Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree]

{Cale remembered the last thing they had said to him, their voice filled with an emptiness that only the truly broken could understand. "Come back here," they had said. "Meet me at the tree again. We'll be free." But in the end, it was a lie, one that neither of them would ever be able to keep. Freedom didn't come; it never did.}

{And now, years later, Cale stood in the shadow of that tree, alone.}

[Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Where dead man called out
For his love to flee]

{Cale could hear their voice in his head, calling out to him, begging him to flee before it was too late. The pain of that moment, the helplessness, was still there. That's when the realization hit him: they had wanted to escape. They had wanted to leave the world behind, but the tree... the world had pulled them back. And now, Cale was left to carry the weight of that loss, unable to move on.}

[Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree]

{He closed his eyes, his fists clenching as the world around him seemed to warp. The memory was too much, the weight of their loss pressing against his chest, choking him. It wasn't supposed to be this way. It wasn't supposed to end like this.}

{The tree-the hanging tree-had once been a place of solace, a place where he and his friend could escape the pain. Now, it was nothing but a reminder of what had been lost, of the emptiness that remained in the wake of that loss.}

[Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Where I told you to run
So we'd both be free]

{The final words echoed in his mind. He had told them to run, to escape the pain. But they hadn't. They hadn't made it. And now, Cale was left with the guilt of it all-the guilt of not being able to stop it, of not being able to save them.}