The Things We Do (Under Editing)

Rebound

Despite what I'd been assuring everyone, I was not fine. Surprise surprise.

Elliot was, as much as I hated to say it, right. Hallucinations came only shortly after our near death coffee trip. Though, they may have actually started earlier considering the borderline concern he'd been showing for my wellbeing. The tap dancing monkeys were new, though, and so were the creepy shadow people lurking at the edge of my vision.

Sadly, my orders from Wraith were not produced by my mind to torture me. Even worse was that I liked the monkeys better than I liked Wraith. Now, that's how you tell a person sucks.

According to my puppet-master, everything I'd done up till now was child's play. Safes could be repaired and refilled. Fires could be put out and buildings rebuilt. Wounds could heal.

Wraith wanted me to do something irreversible, something permanent. As much fear as my name caused, he wanted me to go down in history. What better than to destroy the foundation of our history?

In front of city hall, ringed by a nice big circle of grass, bushes, and flowers that you could usually find a couple of people just hanging out in, there was a giant oak tree. It was around this tree that a small town was formed. From that town grew the city of Lenoir.

I didn't know all the details since I was only there for college, and I wasn't a huge history buff, but to the locals, that tree was the symbol of their home. Even the worst delinquents didn't touch the thing. Never had spray paint or a knife touched its bark.

Me, though... I was going to cut it down, or maybe burn it.

Getting rid of a massive, ancient tree in the middle of the busiest part of the city is exactly as easy as it sounds. I staked the place out for three solid days before the area was clear enough for my plan, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. I had to work fast.

My options were limited as to how to get the job done. Fire would take too long to catch and would be noticed far too soon. A regular ax would be absolutely exhausting and I would probably fail. A chainsaw would get too much attention.

In the end, I stole a bulldozer. Now THAT was easier than expected.

Just down the street, an old warehouse was getting torn down and replaced with something new. By "new" I of course mean yet another mall with yet another Starbucks, probably an American Eagle, and maybe a Hot Topic, because obviously we needed more.

Now, I'm going to be honest, for a city with what amounted to terrorist attacks daily, the few people who saw me were incredibly unfazed by the bulldozer casually making its way down the street at 3:00 AM. I guess after a while you just learn to ignore any crap that isn't hurting you. It's the only way to stay sane.

"Makin' my way downtown," I muttered to myself as I drove. "Drivin' kinda slow because this thing's only other speed is 'stop'."

I managed to get all the way to the tree without anyone questioning me. The only other person in sight of the tree was a homeless guy who looked up at me as I set the machine against the trunk, said to no one in particular, "I'm not drunk enough for this," and promptly rolled over and fell asleep.

I would kill for a nap right now.

I purposefully set myself across the tree from town hall. Maybe when it toppled, it would hit the building. Yay, extra brownie points.

It wasn't long before the air was filled with the sound of cracking bark. Even a tree like this couldn't withstand the power of a bulldozer pushing on it. What I didn't expect was to hear a voice rise above the sounds from the tree... at least not the voice I heard.