A Cry From the Forest
by Renae Wood
Sova stood on the edge of a crowd of trees. Through the darkness, she heard their punctuating tears, tapping the hardened earth, lightly at first, then louder as they all joined in. The air shifted nervously as its sick breath, laden with bittersweet sap, weaved through, coating everything in stickiness. It was almost time.
No one knew when they started to weep. Few had paid attention until it was too late. Some suspected it all started with a stand of trees in Brazil. Fragments of news articles,
back before everything had stopped, recounted those first strange circumstances, those telltale deaths now spread around the world — the ones involving mushrooms growing out of people’s eyes.
Most knew why they woke them up. It was written in the inky blackness that dripped, then scrawled from each victim’s mouth. The word “Listen” echoed in the languages of those who remained.
Sova heard.
Thousands of tiny feet rustled the understory, each carrying the forest’s decay, each marching outward, onward. Eyes streaming, she lit a fire, and hoped it caught.
As a plant ecologist, Renae is quite at home traversing the forests of the world, sometimes with a machete, all to understand their stories. Transplanted to the Netherlands from the forests of Pennsylvania, she now writes science fiction and fantasy, always bringing the forest’s story with her.
This story was shortlisted in the July 24 Monthly Micro Competition.