Where the Trees Bleed

A post-apocalyptic sci-fi short story.

Yesterday, just before dinner, a second sun appeared in the sky. Its birth was celebrated by the fall of a thousand stars. Then it disappeared. The village Oracle pronounced it as a sign for us, the banished, to return home. I wouldn’t have found myself again among those trees if she didn't.

Their bark had darkened since I walked this road over a year ago. In those days, much was simpler. I wasn’t running for my life or chasing someone who needed to confess. The Oracle's words were true: the cursed mutant, Doc. Dramin, had come to this plagued land. If we were to return across the sea, he was needed.

“He’s making a break for the Boneyard.” Brakin's voice was losing steam.

I could feel my breath grow heavy, longing for a soft cot. We couldn't let this opportunity pass by; I was resolved to exceed along with those with me. The three of us—Brakin, Marin and I—stood at the base of a redwood, its shade a welcome reprieve in late Summer. We watched the old doctor limp past the dark trees. He stopped for a moment to scan the sky behind him.

‘That’s good. Be afraid, traitor,’ I thought as he moved on.

“He thinks to wait us out? There’s no fear of ghosts in me. He’s run himself into a corner.” Surprisingly, there were no pauses in my voice. My companions seemed rejuvenated even.

Marin's feminine hand pulled back. “Jib. You may be immune to the ghosts, but the creatures that shamble down there are worse than those in the Badlands. Do we need to get ourselves killed? Marlaco and Kilf are at the valley's entrance. Dramin will either run into us or die.” She had a point. Unsurprisingly, Marin usually did. Normally, that motherly scowl would prevent me from doing something stupid. However, a dead doctor can't lift the bounty on us.

“He can't die yet. He’s needed if we want to go home. Besides, I’ve been down there plenty of times and can handle the Old Energy.”

“As can I,” spoke Brakin, who was itching to move. We were running low on time.

“The two of you got an hour before I come looking for you.’” Marin gave us a look that reminded me of an unmovable mountain.

“But the ghost? Your skin—”

Marin cut me off. “Why are you arguing? Go get our walking, lab-coated monster!”

We started our hurried descent into the pit of giant corpses. The air grew stale as we got closer. The ghosts tickled our skin.

Now I could see further, and all my fatigue was gone. Next to me, Bracken's muscles grew slightly, and his skin, like mine, had a slight glow.

The ghosts often felt soothing to people like him and me.

Whenever I felt that familiar touch, I wondered what the actual word for the Old Energy was. Knowing that the icy fingers weren’t truly the souls of people who had yet to pass was almost comforting.

As we followed, we could barely catch glimpses of the Doc before he turned the corner or went under one of the giants.

All around were the cliffs that circled the crater called the Boneyard.

Giants laid in dismembered heaps. Their skin of different alloys was more robust than anything that could be made now. Copper veins and bones made from steel. Most saw them as statues of once-achieved greatness. To me, they were monuments to arrogant past sins. Here or there, out from a chest or a false eye sprouted a redwood. Their roots leached off of the ghostly energy that, after all this time, was still leaking from these bodies. Brakin and I did our best to stay clear of them. That deadly energy may not affect us, but other things could have been hidden in those corpses.

Flags were draped over them, depicting the iconography and symbols of the old empires that forged them.

Forgotten and all dead. Their children left to be changed by a corrupted world.

“Could they have truly walked on their own?” asked Brakin; he wasn’t as traveled here as I was. We moved quickly, but our senses were alert for any sounds or movement.

“Kind of. As I understand it, most Giants needed a person to control them.”

“Do you think we’ll learn from their mistakes?” As he spoke, I turned to one of the severed cannons that once shot lightning or miniature suns. A tree was sprouting out of it.

“Can a dog learn not to bark?” In truth, I didn’t know the answer.

However he would have responded. Brakin was cut off by the sound of rustling amidst the wreckage to our east. I pulled out my revolver.

“You’re gonna use bullets?” Brakin questioned.

“I think the creatures here will need more than just the bite of our machetes.” I caught the fringe of a white coat and we returned to the hunt.

A foreign, burnt smell hung in the air. I likened it to someone being on fire, but their skin was made of copper.

The smell was coming from the same direction as the Doc.

‘Could that smell be what brought him here?’ I wondered. We found a trail of fresh blood. Thinking it was the Doc’s, we followed it. The blood led to a legless body in a strange white suit, yet it felt familiar.

“That's too clean,” noted Brakin.

I shared his sentiment. Besides some blood, the suit didn’t show any signs of wear. Its material felt strange to the touch. What seemed like fabric wasn’t made from cotton or wool, and the armored parts of the suit had no metal.

Its helmet was completely enclosed. There were no viewing holes for the user to see through. The side where their face would be was covered only with gold-plated metal. Whoever this was no longer had their legs, which were the tastiest part of the body, according to some resident creatures who used to live in the Boneyard.

We turned the body over. I read the words on the front of the suit out loud.

“R. S. G. D. Hand of Rebrith. Crewman Jack I Barason. Copy. Number. Eight. What could that mean?”

“How could you read that?”

“What do you mean?”

I had never before seen the look Brakin gave me, as if I had questioned whether there was a sky.

I took another look as he answered. While I understood the words, I couldn’t remember seeing them before.

Within the blood trail, trees started sprouting, growing faster than usual. The roots of nearby redwoods began reaching out of the ground towards the lumps where this ‘Jacks’ legs used to be. A sprout even began growing out of the gold shield on his helmet. Whatever body was in there would be gone soon.

We had to keep moving.

That’s when we found the source of the burnt smell.

It was like a piece of a riverboat had been sliced off and thrown miles from the ocean—except metal was where wood should have been. Its exterior was pure white, similar to the suit we found earlier. By the way the dirt had shifted around it, it must’ve fallen from a high place.

With the ghostly energy enhancing our senses, my eyes could make out the symbol of some burning turtle on the side of it.

Next to the image was more of the language I didn’t recognize but could understand.

“Remnant. Solar. Government. Starship. Hand of Rebirth. Defending those who start again.”

I could see the traitor, Dramin, looking back at us through the hole below those letters, from inside the ship. He smiled, and then a spark flashed just above him. The Doc retreated further into the wreckage of the ship.

‘Did you lead us here?’ I pondered.

“What do you make of it? Still willing to follow?” asked Brakin. He wasn’t as familiar with the old technology as I was. But this was no fallen satellite. Whatever this was had been recently built and maintained.

“I don’t recognize any of it. I know our ancestors came to this world from another, but they did so through holes in reality, for lack of a better word. Not on boats among the stars.”

“Could this have been the Sun born yesterday?”

I shrugged, “It could have been.”

“So we’re in the dark now?” Brakin pondered. “Well, what we do know is where Dramin is.”

“Anything can be in there with him, either ancient or new. I don’t know which is scarier.”

“Well, we have 45 minutes before Marin comes after us, and her skin begins to peel or worse. Let’s make a decision.”

For a second, we stood in silence, I think, hoping either one would make the first move backward. I pulled the hammer back on my revolver and we started towards the wreckage.

Sparks of energy rained out from exposed wires in the hull of the ship. I’ve been told many stories of what happens if you touch them or any water that might be close, so we knew better than to go exploring with our fingers.

I shouted into the wreckage, “Dramin! Do you know this place? Never mind! Come! Confess!” We heard no response and walked in. The “Starship’s ” walls were of unnatural materials and surrounded us on all sides. Colored panels of glowing glass stood in places. Symbols of light danced on them, fading in and out. The burnt smell remained in the air. In some places, a sound similar to a thousand bees being shook in a small bottle could be heard.

My revolver remained steady in my hands. Brakin had pulled out his warbow with an arrow ready to lose. His muscles could make one of those solid brass bolts pierce armor.

I kept shouting, “Dramin! If you confess, we’ll put in a good word. Lessen your sentence!“

I turned in peer down a hallway. Seconds later I found myself thrown to the ground. Brakin had tackled me out of the way of a solid bar of light. I looked back and saw what it did to the floor.

‘The list keeps growing, soon two lifetimes won’t repay you.’ I thought.

We kept going and turned around the corner.

In a large room, he waited, his hands working at one of those glass panels. All around us radiated a blue light where not a single speck of darkness was visible. For a second, I took my eyes off Dramin and a chill colder than the night entered my body.

Rows of giant glass tubs lined the walls. In them floated bodies I recognized.

Like looking in a forbidden mirror, I saw my face. My hands. The left pinky finger was even shorter than the other. The only difference was that the skin was paler, and no scar decorated the arms or face. I found the same within the other giant, glass cylinders. Affixed to the base of the glass was a metal plaque.

The plaque read, “Crewman Jack I Barason. Copy. Number, Eighty’ Seven.”

A voice, losing energy like the life leaving its owner's body, reached for me. “Will the truth be enough? No. I think not.”

“Dramin!” I had never pulled my revolver away from him. Unlike my hands, my voice was shaking. “First, you tell me what this place is, and then you come with us.”

At the base of the flashing glass panel, Dramin answered. “A piece of evil that refuses to die. Sins made in hopes for better futures. A false god made from decaying hands that sought to fix a broken world instead of foster a new one.”

Brakin, speaking like a true hunter of ocean-born monsters, shouted, “Your word boat doesn’t hold water.”

Dramin quickly spoke “There is no time. Jib, please take my body. Burn it to ashes and scatter them across the world. Leave them no way of bringing me back again." As he spoke he moved closer. His hand went for his back.

“Who do you mean by them? Stop! You’re coming with us to confess so we can go home.”

“The truth is not enough. I’m sorry for what we have done to you, Jack. Go! You haven’t much time. Run! Soon the Boneyard will be nothing but dust.” With that, he pulled out a gun of an unrecognizable make. His last words were, “If you see yourself, don’t hesitate to shoot first. They won’t.”

In seconds a bar of light like in the hallway shattered his head. There remained only a neck and some ashes. The blue light changed to blazing, blood red.

It didn’t take us long to get out of that wreckage. Marin didn’t question us when we came running with the headless body.