Rooted

Brynn

"Are you hurt?" he said. It was strange, but I did not expect him to sound so human. It sent a chill down my spine that made me jump. Panicking I grabbed the closest sharpest stick I could find.

My heart was beating so loudly I was afraid it would run faster than I could catch it. He stood unsure but unflinching as I stared, his emerald green eyes evaluating my very soul. He was a fair deal taller than me, but his back had a knot in it, causing him to hunch over. It was not the deformity that gave me pause, however, for although he sounded human, it was clear he wasn't. His skin was that of a trees', his hair a tangle of ferns and moss, and his fingers long and root-like. He stood as tall as he could with an air of understanding and there was sympathy in his eyes.

"You are safe," he said, " are you hurt?"

"No," I said, still not convinced anything in the last hour actually happened. As much as I wanted this all to be a dream, a nightmare, I knew it wasn't. His smell gave it away, I can never smell in dreams and his was so powerful it made me dizzy.

It was the smell of sap: rotting leaves, wet moss freshly hit with sunlight on a warm summers day. That smell made me sick, not because of how he actually smelled, but because it meant this was all real. Felicity was dead, and monsters are real.