Wise sat there.
Thinking.
Thinking of how much the universe had shone down upon him.
How lucky he was.
To be loved… unconditionally by his family. And now, by this beautiful tree that wrapped him gently in its branch, cradling him like something precious.
He was, and always had been, loved.
Despite his hatred.
And that was exactly why he hated himself.
Later, he rose.
He resumed his search for loot, his rusted crowbar in hand. This time, he walked deeper into the mall. Further than before. Past the places where sunlight cracked through broken glass and gnarled ceilings. Now, there was only darkness.
A voice echoed behind him rustling through leaves not near, but heard all the same.
"Child. Art thou sure of this? Dost thou think it worth it?"
His grip on the crowbar tightened.
He had heard it. Truly heard it. That voice that told him he mattered. That he was seen.
There was no way in hell he would let himself be just a burden again. Not now. Not while her roots still lived. If he was to be her guardian, then he'd earn that right.
"Yes."
There was no breath to sigh from the tree, but the leaves stirred with a weary softness.
"Then it cannot be helped. Close thine right eye."
"Huh? Why?"
"Hast thou not seen thy face? Look it up first."
He looked around for anything reflective. The once-clean surfaces were long dust-covered, fogged by time and neglect. He found a glass display cracked but whole. He wiped it with his torn pants, scraping away years of grime.
Then he gasped.
His face still his, yet not the same.
Golden cracks had appeared on his left cheek, stretching up toward the eye like living roots. Where once his left eye had been hazy red, corrupted and veined, now it shimmered.
No glowed.
Gold-amber light pulsed from it, as if something divine lived within. His eye was no longer human. The pupil had narrowed like a cat's slit and sharp but dilated again as he stared. Strange patterns wreathed the iris, shaped like a star drawn in sacred ink. His right eye remained the same: obsidian black.
Heterochromia, now but not natural. Not born.
Reforged.
He reached up, slowly caressing the cracked cheek with his good hand.
"Thou must have noticed that thy eye hath been corrupted. Thou must know what happened to it."
"Yes."
"That eye thou seest it is quite the spectacle. Now… try to see only with thine left eye."
He nodded.
And closed his right.
At first, all was black. Not dim blind.
He looked left. Right. Panic crept in. Was it just gone? Broken? Empty?
Then he looked deeper.
The blackness was not empty. It was dense.
He focused.
And it shifted.
The world became black and gold outlined in radiant filigree, like constellations painted on ink. He was no longer seeing the mall, not as it was.
He saw himself. Translucent. A wireframe. A ghost of bone and flesh.
Veins of gold stretched through his body, wrapping around his bones, dancing through his cracked muscles like rivers of molten grace. His guts, damaged and stitched, now bore cracks sealed with golden kintsugi.
He could see inside.
He looked farther past the walls, past the mall, past the ceiling.
He saw Earth.
He saw through the Earth.
He turned toward the direction of the tree.
What he saw left him breathless.
Its form was divine.
Roots spread deeper than any building's foundation. Its body was vast, complex, like a living cathedral of wood and soul. Its leaves shimmered with impossible light, and around it
Specks.
Glowing specks, floating like fireflies spirits, maybe. Memories. Life.
It pulsed in his vision like a star being born.
And he was still. Awestruck.
Drawn to her all over again.
"Whoaa."
"With thine eye, thy could see even in the darkest black thy ever seen."
He turned behind him, to what had been pure blackness moments ago. Now, it was as clear as day. The outlines, the structure, the depth he could see it all, as if the shadows had surrendered their secrets.
"Prithee, doust be careful. Its sight is slightly faster than thy normal eye can perceive. It perceiveth instantly, without delay whatsoever. Thy must deactivate it sometimes, lest thou wish to see the world in a different vision it might strain even thee."
He nodded slowly already, he felt it.
His right eye throbbed, like pressure building behind it. A headache creeping inward, nausea following fast.
"Ugh..."
He opened his right eye.
Immediately, everything clashed.
The world twisted overlapping layers of vision, one like gold-lit x-ray, the other normal and mundane. It was like his mind was seeing two versions of reality and trying to merge them. It almost tore his senses apart.
"Child! Blink this instant!"
He did once, twice then again and again, but nothing changed. The dual visions blurred, warping his balance.
He shut his eyes tightly, pressing his lids down with his palms.
Silence.
Then slowly, he opened them.
Normalcy returned.
The golden vision retreated.
Reality settled.
And he could breathe again.
"Child, art thou fine?"
"Yeah. That felt like hell almost had my head popped for a second."
"It couldn't be helped. Thine body needeth to adjust thy must train. Prithee, let us not venture far into the darkness. It is filled with corruption."
He nodded. He knew well. Ego had brought his kind ruin more times than he could count. He wouldn't make the same mistake. Not with her. Not now.
There were still many stores to search through anyway. No need to rush.
He returned to the tree, standing close again. Its branches met his forehead with a soft touch, like a blessing.
"Thou wast lucky. Had thou not made haste in its adjustment, thy vision would be broken... forever."
She pulled him closer, gently pressing him into the bark like a practiced embrace. Another branch rose above his head.
"Open thine mouth."
"This is making me feel like a toddler."
"Prithee."
With a smirk tugging at his lips, he obeyed. Mouth open.
From the branch came a single drop thick, gold, glowing.
It landed on his tongue.
Sweet.
Then
"Uhooh!?"
A sudden jolt struck his mind.
The lingering migraine the splitting ache left by the eye's strain was gone.
Like it had never existed at all.
It released Wise gently, letting him return to his wobbling feet.
"Thou art sure thou still want to venture?"
"I'll just stick to the close reach."
"Wise choice."
"Literally my name."
He gave a tired grin as he limped forward.
The mall split into four main corridors he was standing at the heart of it, the central intersection. So far, he had only searched the camping goods store. A decent haul, but hardly enough.
He mentally marked this center point as his safe haven, his home base lit and protected by her, the tree. Beyond roughly a hundred meters in every direction, the light gave way to shadow, and then into absolute blackness. No cracks in the ceiling, no beams of sun.
When sunset came, she would be his only source of light.
Unless he could find batteries.
A lamp would be essential. Not just to see, but to spare his new eye from strain. That amber gaze may see the unseen, but it demanded a price if overused.
He took a deep breath and turned toward the next store.
One down. Many more to go.
Wise stepped cautiously through the abandoned mall, scanning what stores remained untouched by rot and time. Some were sealed tight, doors shuttered or welded by rust. Others stood half-open, as though someone had fled in a hurry and never returned.
He moved toward one store whose moss-covered sign was still legible, then stepped into its threshold. Immediately, darkness swallowed him.
He closed his right eye. The amber glow of his left eye flared faintly as he activated its golden sight, scanning the interior. For a brief second, the gloom receded into crisp lines and glowing veins. The store layout was eerily pristine, shelves still stocked, displays still set like it was waiting.
But the silence. The absence. It was too clean.
He sighed, wary. This place… it doesn't make sense. In any apocalypse, a location like this would be ransacked, or covered in gore. But here? The dust was undisturbed. The corpses were few only skeletal remains if any. No signs of struggle. No dried blood on the walls. No barricades hastily thrown.
He pushed the thought down. No time for paranoia. Yet even as he thought it, a chill lingered in his spine.
He blinked. The vision faded. Back to normal.
He chose not to enter. His brief scan had spotted five hibernating infected tucked into the shadows behind the shelves curled and still. And with the distance growing between him and the tree, and his legs still trembling, he wasn't about to tempt fate. He turned back, silently marking the store in memory.
As he passed a dusty glass panel, something caught his eye his reflection.
He hadn't seen himself like this in full light before. His hair had grown long nearly as long as his sister's. But now, the edges shimmered faintly gold, kissed by the tree's gift. His torn shirt, blood-soaked and dried stiff with old crimson, now bore golden stains where his ichor had flowed.
His bare torso showed those same marks golden scars from where the brute's chainsaw had chewed through his flesh. Kintsugi, but living. Beautiful in the most unsettling way.
He stared for a moment longer. He looked less and less human. Not that he hated it. But if he was to be the tree's guardian her protector he looked like a beggar. A half-dead stray clinging to the roots of something sacred.
He'd need better clothes.
With a breath, he turned away from the glass.
He was nearing the outer border of the light. Beyond it lay more black. He paused. Then pivoted back toward the central intersection.
He'd gone north.
Now, it was time to head south.
As Wise made his way toward the southern wing of the mall, the tree stirred gently behind him, branches rustling with a kind of curious concern.
"Nothing catches thine eyes?"
"Yeah... Changing direction."
He didn't explain further. He wasn't sure he could. That northern store just felt wrong, like something asleep was watching him back.
Southward, then.
This part of the mall had a different air to it. He couldn't quite explain why, but the hairs on his neck bristled. A cold stillness hung here not like the silence of emptiness, but a hush. As if something was listening.
He shook it off and pressed on.
Ahead, a familiar sight: a supermarket. A large one. "Superlion" was still visible across the dirty facade. Wise slipped through the shadowy remains of the automatic doors and stepped past the checkout counters, following the faint trail of light cast from a lucky overhead crack in the ceiling.
The light reached only a quarter of the vast interior, but it was enough to guide him to where batteries would usually be kept around the counters, near the impulse-buy racks. He paused there, briefly hopeful.
But then his hope gave way to unease.
This place… wasn't looted. Not really.
Sure, it was messy. Mannequins lay toppled, product displays were scattered, carts overturned like someone had fled in haste. But nothing vital seemed taken. Shelves still stood stocked. No claw marks, no dried blood, no barricades. A supermarket in the apocalypse should be gutted to its bones.
But this one? It was like time forgot it.
Like something made everyone leave, but never fight.
His throat was dry. He couldn't keep silent anymore.
"H Hey."
"Yes, child?"
"This place... was it always like this?"
"This one doesn't really know, but somewhat yes. It's been like this, except for the subtle cracks and growing green in the wall."
"Have you seen anyone like me before meeting me?"
"Thine was the first. As this one stated before, thou wast the first to come visible for this one."
"I see..."
He stared deeper into the supermarket's half-lit aisle, his mismatched eyes narrowed. Everything about this mall told him it shouldn't be the way it is.
And somehow… the fact that it was, scared him more than any infected ever could.
He leaned against the cold metal of the checkout counter, eyes scanning the small rows of batteries. Sure enough, they were all there AA, AAA, even D-cells and those bulky rectangular ones. Untouched. Unaged. Like this mall was sealed from the world.
With one hand, he pulled the lamp from his pack. His fingers trembled slightly not from fear, but from the leftover strain of his earlier vision surge. Still recovering.
Using his foot as leverage, he pinned the base of the lamp and pried open the battery compartment. The motion was clumsy but practiced. Click. He slid in the fresh batteries, closed the hatch, and flicked the switch.
The lamp flared to life with a warm glow, bathing the empty counter in golden light. For a moment, it felt almost… safe.
He turned it off. It was still noon no use wasting power. But it'd be invaluable once the mall sank into its natural, choking darkness.
As he packed the lamp away, his eyes caught the candy display beside the register. Cheap, colorful wrappers. Chocolate bars. Gum. Mint strips. They looked like tiny relics of a lost age.
He glanced down at his abdomen. His fingers gently tapped his stomach.
Since the tree had reforged him, he hadn't felt hunger.
No pangs, no grumbling, no desire to eat. He hadn't felt sleepy either his body just moved, tireless and undemanding. The tree had confirmed it: he no longer needed food, drink, sleep, warmth.
He was human in shape, not in need.
He shrugged and turned away, stepping out of the supermarket's eerie quiet.
"Thou seems uneased. Is there something the matter, child?"
Wise let one hand fall limp at his side, the fingers curling slowly as if grasping something long lost. He stared at the floor, eyes distant.
"It is sure... weird to look at something that used to be my basic needs."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was filled with memory. A ghost of chewing gum. The warmth of fresh bread. Drowsy afternoons in bedsheets.
Now all of it was gone.
Not mourned. Not missed.
Just gone.
"Thou can still consume substance of your olden self if you like it. It will be an extra energy. For thine body."
Wise blinked, caught off guard.
"Huh? Extra energy? I thought you said I don't need human basic needs."
There was a pause. The tree was silent.
He frowned, stepping closer, eyes narrowing.
"Hey. What do you mean? Come on, talk to me."
The tree stirred, but not with words. A quiet rustle. An unease.
Wise could feel it something was being withheld.
Something important.
"...Please," he said softly. "I need to know."
"Prithee, is for thine own good."
That answer only made it worse. His voice sharpened.
"Good or not, I need to know. I have to know."
A long pause followed. Then:
"Alas. Thine energy came from this one. We share the same resource of energy. This one... gives its energy source connected straight to thee."
His world tilted.
"...WHAT!?"
He staggered back a step, golden eye wide in disbelief.
"I'm I'm feeding off of you?"
"Yes. What sustains thee, drains from this one."
His jaw clenched. "So every step I take... every time I move... you're getting weaker?"
The tree didn't answer.
And that silence screamed louder than words.
He dropped the crowbar without even realizing it just a dull clatter on the tiled floor. His feet stumbled back toward the tree, shaky, urgent, and by the time he reached her bark, his hands were trembling. He pressed his palm flat against the living wood, then leaned in forehead resting against it, breath shallow and uneven.
"Release me..."
His voice was barely a whisper.
"Cut this connection down..."
"Nay! Dost thine wish for thine own demise!?"
"YES!"
His scream tore through the air like a knife, rattling through the hollow corridors. The leaves above them shook violently in response, like a gasp held in branches.
"I am not repeating my mistakes again!"
He pounded a fist on the bark not in anger, but in grief. In shame.
"I am done done with taking what I can never give back! I'm sick of it!"
His voice cracked, tears beginning to fall, hot and sudden.
"I hate getting things just because just handed to me like I'm deserving I hate it! I don't deserve it!"
His nails dug into the bark, forehead still pressed close, as if trying to sink inside and disappear.
"I couldn't even keep a damn toy from my childhood without feeling like I was lying to the hands that gave it. How how can I carry the weight of you? Of your life force? Of you, who gave me a second chance... a body... breath... light... and in return I just take?!"
His voice dropped to a choking whisper.
"You made me your undoing. Your own parasite. I am... I'm not worth this. I'm not. I'm just a leech... with golden eyes and rotting guilt."
The tree trembled. Her branches reached out, but didn't dare touch him yet.
"I cannot accept this," he whispered again, broken.
"I'd rather rot in the dark... than drain the last light that ever believed I was worth saving."
"Cut me down. Please."
"Why... art dost so eager to prove thyself worthless?"
Wise's shoulders shook as he stood before her, barely holding himself upright. His eyes were glassy, trembling with the weight behind them.
"I cannot..." he breathed, voice trembling. "I hated myself for my inability to give back. To anyone who's ever shown me kindness..."
His fingers curled against the bark like a child clinging to something that could disappear any moment.
"I wanted to become your guardian. I wanted to earn this life… to repay you for the second chance. But if my second chance means eating you alive if it means I'm bleeding you just by existing then I'd rather have died. In that alley. Swarmed by the infected. Alone."
His throat tightened as his voice cracked and his knees buckled, crashing against the tree's roots.
"I shouldn't have come here... I shouldn't have found you... I'm just a leech. A scum."
The words spilled like bile, years of self-loathing erupting raw and unfiltered.
"I never met my parents' expectations... I wasted my life in my room... I couldn't get good grades... couldn't even be proud of myself for one thing..."
His nails scraped at the roots beneath him.
"And yet... they loved me. For all the worthless piece of shit I was "
Tears burst forth, streaming down and soaking into the roots like rain.
"Please..." he whispered, voice cracked and hollow, "don't do this to yourself. I've had enough. If you want me to be your substance, then I'll do it. I'll bury myself beneath your roots. Let me become your food. If you want me to be a slave then just say it. Order me like a tool. A thing."
His voice dropped to a guttural rasp, heavy and desperate:
"For all I am... I have to repay your kindness… with this worthless life "
"NAY!"
The Tree's voice boomed like thunder, shaking the very marrow of the mall. Her branches lashed like divine winds, leaves flaring with indignation, pain, grief.
"NEVER SHALL I LET THEE SPEAK THYSELF SO!"
"NOT WHILE MINE ROOTS HOLD THE EARTH! NOT WHILE MINE LEAVES TOUCH THE SKY!"
The golden sap wept from her trunk, flowing around him not to drown, but to hold. To embrace.
"Thou art no leech. No scum. No tool nor slave.
Thou art the child I chose to save."
Her voice broke, gentler now, whispering with trembling bark.
"Thy heart, even in ruin, cries to give... while believing thou art unworthy to live."
Her roots slowly lifted him, not as a servant, not as a burden
but as something cherished.
"Dost thou not see? I give, not for return. I give... because thee still burn."
"And that flame, however small... was worth every leaf I've ever grown."
The tree's branch moved with unnatural grace, lifting Wise's face from where it hung low, trembling. Its voice, once the breath of calm centuries, now seethed with thunder.
"If thy wish to repay this one so dearly…"
The voice rose, cracking into something fierce, anguished, and human.
"Then breathe. Breathe for this one. Breathe and live!"
The bark around her trunk flexed like a living ribcage, her presence no longer that of a wise guardian but a storm caged in roots. Her next words struck like lightning.
"Thou dare value thine life as less than corruption?"
"Thou dare mock this one's pain its toil to forge thee anew from rot and ruin?"
Her branches, long and ancient, moved like snakes across the earth. They found his arms. His legs.
They held.
They bound.
They shook.
"Dost thou believe this one rebirthed thee to serve?"
"To use thee as tool or weapon?"
Her voice broke
"Nay… This one saw in thee something greater than itself."
Suddenly
JLEB!
A branch struck straight into Wise's chest.
His eyes flew wide
Mouth open
A gasp, followed by
Golden ichor.
It poured from his lips in slow, shimmering strands as his back arched in agony.
The branch fed something into him liquid light like molten gold, surging into his heart, burning, constricting, searing.
He screamed
A sound not of fear, but of overwhelming pain.
A pain that was not just physical
It was grief. It was shame. It was unworthiness turned into punishment.
"Feel this pain," she said, voice thick with sorrow,
"For it is but a fraction of what this one felt hearing thee speak so cruelly of thyself."
The branch withdrew. His chest sealed.
No scar.
No wound.
Yet his hands clutched at the place where his heart throbbed unnaturally.
Foreign.
Heavy.
Alive.
"If thou cannot see thy worth…"
Her voice was soft now, trembling like wind through dying leaves.
"Then this one shall force thee. For inside thy chest now beats half of this one's core."
Wise stared at her, pupils shaking, chest heaving
Confused. Disoriented.
And then the weight of her words began to sink.
"…Wait…" he stammered, voice hoarse and wet.
"…what… what do you mean…?"
The bark around her twisted gentle now.
Mournful.
"If thee die…"
"Then this one shall perish as well."
He staggered back, knees weak.
"…No… no, no, no…"
"But…" she continued,
"If this one dies… thee shall live. Always. With half of this one's heart forever entwined in thy chest. Forever feeling the echo of what this one was. For better… or for burden."
Wise trembled.
His breathing became ragged.
Shallow.
Fearful.
He looked down at his hands
Hands that had once been useless.
Unworthy.
Hands that now carried a life a soul not his own.
A debt he could never repay.
He took a step back. Then another.
"No…" he whispered. "No, this… I didn't ask for this… I'm not meant to hold something like this I'm nothing! I'm just… I was supposed to die! I was supposed to go quietly! Why why would you WHY ?"
He turned.
And collapsed.
He gripped her bark again this time not in defiance, but in collapse.
His forehead pressed against her like a child returning to a grave.
"I'm scared..." he whispered, voice shaking, eyes wide in horror.
"I'm so scared… I didn't want this… I didn't want to hold your life…"
His hands balled into fists.
"I'll break it… I'll ruin it… I ruin everything…!"
His body shuddered with every word.
And then he cried.
Not like a man.
Not like a warrior.
But like a child.
He wept into the roots of the one who gave him life, shoulders wracked with sobs, face buried in bark.
And the tree stood silent, her leaves falling gently around him, the weight of her gift pressing into him with every beat of their shared heart.
Wise collapsed onto the dirt floor like a dropped doll, knees drawn to his chest, arms loosely hugging himself, his sobs breaking out in pitiful hiccups. He didn't cry like a man should. He cried like a scared, lost child raw, helpless, cracked open by fear.
But he wasn't afraid of dying.
No.
He was terrified of living now.
What if he was stabbed? What if something ripped his chest open? What if he tripped, fell, and the gift inside him was shattered?
What if he failed again?
Failed her?
His breath hitched harder.
Terror crawled like ice beneath his skin.
He lay back flat against the cold tiles, trembling so hard it seemed the earth itself could feel it.
And still still the tree did not leave him.
She slithered her branches down, soft and slow, and wrapped them around his torso. Not like ropes. Not like chains.
Like arms.
Like a hug.
Her bark, rough to the eye, felt as warm as his mother's arms something he could barely remember. Something he never thought he'd feel again. The scent of her leaves was like the scent of home, even in this rotting husk of a mall.
She held him. Wordless. Unmoving. Eternal.
He couldn't stop shivering.
Not from cold.
But from the burden.
He looked over, once or twice, to the crowbar he had dropped earlier the thing that had made him feel strong, useful.
It lay forgotten now. Useless.
What could it protect against this?
What armor could guard a heart carrying two souls?
He stayed like that.
For hours.
For a day.
Then two.
Then more.
The light from the distant skylight changed color.
Dust gathered around them.
The world outside kept spinning in silence.
But Wise didn't move.
And neither did she.
Her branches like a cradling womb never loosened.
In her embrace, he was still terrified.
But for the first time in his life, he knew someone would never let go of him, even if he shattered.
Even if he broke apart into nothing.
She would still hold him.
Even in his ruin.
The branches tightened gently around Wise not suffocating, not binding just closer. Like a mother clutching a fevered child, or an ancient being trying, in its strange and clumsy way, to comfort.
"Thou hast rooted more in thy post than this one," the tree said, voice attempting warmth, a fragile jest rippling through the silence like a pebble cast in a black lake.
It was an attempt to break the stillness, to reach him.
Wise turned his head to the side, eyes glazed, the movement stiff like it hadn't been used in days. He looked at the tree from the corner of his eye, then looked away again.
It felt… familiar.
The feeling stuck like a dull knife in his ribs aching, not sharp.
He remembered… a time before.
A fight.
A heated exchange with someone dear so dear. Raised voices, slammed doors, heavy silence that seemed to stretch for eons.
But then… how quickly things would return. A word here, a joke there. The quiet comfort of pretending it never happened. The warmth of being forgiven without being asked for it.
But this wasn't a petty fight.
This wasn't sulking after a sibling spat.
This… this was punishment.
A curse.
A crown of guilt with thorns that pierced from the inside.
He wasn't holding a grudge.
He was holding a life.
Her life.
Bound in the hollow of his chest, stitched into the beat of his heart, a fire that wasn't his but burned in him nonetheless. Half of her core, she had said. Half of her being. And if he died… she would perish with him.
But if she died…
He would live.
Alone.
Always.
A half-heart, carrying nothing but the echo of what once was whole.
He clenched his hands into fists, nails biting into his palm, eyes welling again.
"Why…" he whispered, his voice thin as frost, cracking like dried leaves. "Why did you give me something so precious… to someone like me?"
There was no answer. Only the rustle of leaves soft and sorrowful.
And so he wept again.
This time not out of hatred for himself.
But because he had been given something irrevocable.
Something sacred.
And the sheer weight of it…
The honor of it…
Was heavier than any chain he'd ever worn.
He leaned forward, slowly, and pressed his forehead again into the bark. His sobs returned not sharp now, but quiet, tired, resigned.
"I'm scared," he whispered. "I'm really, really scared."
And the branches pulled him closer, like they understood. Like they forgave.
And once again, the abandoned mall was filled with silence.
But not the silence of emptiness.
The silence of two souls, holding each other through pain.
The tree's bark pulsed faintly beneath Wise's trembling body, like a slow and ancient breath warm and alive. Its voice, now returned to its gentle, echoing cadence, washed over him like a breeze in spring.
"Oh, child. Prithee, thou art more brave when thee faced death alone before this."
Wise shook his head violently, teeth gritted, body curled as if to escape the truth being spoken.
"I can't, I can't! I'm not brave I just don't care! My life... I've always seen it as expendable. Precious only because it might serve someone else."
His hands clawed at his scalp, his voice rising in panic, cracking under the weight.
"But this... this is different! This is too much! I "
He suddenly slammed his head forward, trying to hurt himself punish himself. But before his skull could meet the cold ground, a branch shot out quick as thought and wrapped gently but firmly around his head, cradling him, holding him still.
He gasped, the sob caught in his throat.
"I can't... I can't," he wept. "Please, take it away. I'm not ready. I don't deserve this. I'm just a broken thing pretending to be useful. Please…"
He began to plead faster, more desperately, gripping at the branches like a child lost in a nightmare.
"I'll be your knight! I'll be your shield! I'll carry burdens, I'll fight monsters, I'll do anything! I'll stop blaming myself I swear I will just please, don't make me your lifeline…"
The branches around his head pulled him in closer, brushing against his cheeks, wiping away tears with the reverence of a mother's hand.
"Hush now… still thy trembling soul, sweet child of mine."
"This burden is not punishment. Nor test. Nor curse."
"'Tis proof that even the cracked vessel may carry the holiest of waters."
Wise's body trembled harder as he cried harder, the meaning beginning to break through like dawn through storm clouds.
"Thee think thyself broken?"
"Then so be it. But know this this one chose thee. Not for what thou wert. But for what thou could yet become."
"A tree gives not its heart to kindling."
The forest of silence returned again, but this time it cradled the boy and the tree together, still bound, still frightened but not alone.
And Wise, with every shaking breath, buried his face into the bark once more…
And let himself cry.
As the silence gently settled like dust, one of the tree's long branches reached out across the floor, slow and graceful. It wrapped around the cold metal of the crowbar that had long been forgotten beside Wise and dragged it quietly across the ground, placing it before him with care, like an offering.
"'Tis a strange tool for a guardian."
Wise remained crouched, his arms still wrapped around his legs, eyes barely lifting to glance at the crowbar.
"We… we called it a crowbar," he muttered, voice dry from days of silence. "My kind used it for all sorts of things. To rob. To pry things open. Or just to… beat something in when desperate enough."
He gave a bitter chuckle, empty and cracked.
"Not exactly the emblem of a knight, huh?"
"Aye, that doth not seem so knightly such a name, with such a tool," the tree mused, her voice gently teasing yet full of something deeper, something sad.
Wise leaned his head back against the bark, letting his long strands fall into his face like a curtain, as though trying to hide within them. His eyes didn't blink when he finally spoke again.
"Knight… in my name it's from my father. I was the only one to get it."
He traced the edge of the crowbar's hooked curve with trembling fingers.
"He wanted a son… one with a knight's heart. Honor. Strength. Wisdom. He used to say, 'My boy will be both steel and sage.'" Wise's voice faltered, his throat tightening.
"I tried… I did. But I failed. Every time. I couldn't carry the name. I wasn't a knight. I wasn't wise. I was just… me."
The tree was still for a moment, her branches curling ever so slightly in thought. Then she asked softly:
"Thine parents must have been thoughtful of thee… Why, then, dost thou believe they loved thee unconditionally?"
Wise didn't answer right away. The question was like a slow blade not cruel, but piercing. His breath hitched. His hand lowered. His bangs hung low, shadowing his eyes.
And for a moment, his silence was louder than any scream.
"Thee still could not see it," the tree said softly, her voice a breeze through memory. "Whilst this one understood thy parents in but an instant."
Wise scoffed quietly, head still low. "Of course. A wise tree who's seen more than I ever could. You probably know the secrets of the universe too, don't you?"
There was a gentle sound like laughter echoing in the hollows of a forest, warm and distant.
"How folly." Her tone was fond but mournful. "This one hath not even possessed thoughts, nor will, nor words… not until thee saved this one."
Wise blinked, confused, his gaze lifting.
"For eons, this one stood tall in the abyss, untouched. The black swallowed time itself. No voice came, no light, no echo. Thee call it 'tree,' but this one was naught but a husk then. A presence rooted in shadow. Nothing entered this one's mind not even sorrow. For what is sorrow without memory?"
Her branches shifted gently above him, like slow waves of an unseen tide.
"The abyss… 'tis a realm of utter dark, not merely in sight, but in soul. Yet " her voice trembled, as if recalling something sacred, " it then gave this one an order: 'Spread thine roots in this world.'"
"And so, this one obeyed. Blindly. Mechanically. It was the only thing this one ever knew to obey. Like clockwork turning under forgotten stars."
She curled a branch lightly over his hand, not restraining, just… touching. Like an echo seeking warmth.
"But then thee came. With thine ragged coat, thine broken crowbar, and thine cracked soul. And alas…"
A pause. Heavy with meaning. With memory.
"…thee changed this one's perspective forever."
Wise stared. The air grew heavy, not with dread but with something fragile.
For the first time, perhaps, he realized:
This tree was not wise because of what it knew. It was wise… because it had understood him.
They all went silent. Wise doesn't have more words to blame himself, however...
Wise's eyes darted away at her strange remark abyssal realm. So his suspicions had weight after all: this tree wasn't natural. Not of this world. Extraterrestrial? Extradimensional? And yet... the way she spoke words like clockwork, mechanically those weren't things a timeless tree should know. There were no clocks in darkness. No machines in silence. The suspicion in him grew.
"…Say, you know a lot of words for a tree that lived in the realm of darkness."
"Ah, about that..."
There was a pause. An almost sheepish pause. If a being without a face could scratch its temple, this was that moment.
"This one… when it tried to cleanse thee from the corruption that had rooted deep into thy mind half consumed, half fractured it was forced to inject itself into thy brain... to override that corruption."
She hesitated.
"But in doing so... it may have... accidentally downloaded thy entire memory."
Wise blinked.
"...What?"
"Every fragment. Every dream, every show, every image, every thought, touch, taste… even what thou did imagine in the quietest corners."
He turned pale.
"This one was not prepared for thy kind of data... especially that which thou call 'internet history.'"
Wise groaned, dragging his right hand down his face in horror. The only working arm he had tried and failed to smother the shame from leaking out of him. His left twitched, still useless, still cursed.
"Oh my god... please, please shut up."
"This one is still trying to purge 'anime memes' from its core."
"Shut up."
"And yet..." Her tone gentled. All jest drained from her voice, replaced by something like reverence. "This one cherishes it. For in that flood of memory and mind... this one found its first language."
The branches curved slightly toward him, not threatening, not amused just present.
"With thy words, this one found voice. So if this one speak in strange familiar manner... 'tis because thou art the root of this one's language."
Wise slumped, both physically and existentially. He slid further into himself, wanting the concrete to swallow him whole.
"…You have no idea how cursed that is," he muttered into his palm.
"And yet," she whispered, almost like a prayer, "to this one... 'tis a blessing most sacred."
Wise let out a choked, broken noise.
"You must've seen my vilest act… in that alone room."
There was a silence. The tree's response came soft. Unmoved.
"This one was neither disgusted nor disturbed by it."
His soul left his body.
"Oh God. You really saw me doing that "
He slammed both hands well, one hand and one twitching, cursed limb into his face, red flaring all the way to the tips of his ears. His right hand covered what it could; the black, gold-marked left twitched uselessly, trying to join the shameful barrier.
He groaned through his fingers. "I'm going to die. Just combust. Just... spontaneous combustion."
"Thou hated doing that, and yet thy body could not cease. Why dost thou not "
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. SHUT UP!"
"Why? This one observed thy expressions thou did appear pleasant during the act, and yet afterwards thou did descend into self-loathing. Even at thy clim "
Wise screamed and threw the crowbar across the mall with a metallic clang, rolling onto his side to face away from the tree as if that would block the humiliation still burning his very bones.
"PLEASE! PLEASE NEVER FINISH THAT SENTENCE! I BEG YOU!"
A pause. Then a small rustle from the tree, almost… confused.
Wise remained crouched, arms crossed tight to his chest, his cheek pressed to his knees, face burning red as molten metal beneath dark hair. He pouted hard at the tree like a scolded child no, like a dishonored knight stripped bare of armor and dignity.
The fact that this tree this sacred being who had given him her heart had seen that. That act. That version of him. That degenerate, pathetic, moaning self in some dark, lonely corner of his existence.
He groaned under his breath and resisted the powerful urge to bash his skull against the concrete. His whole face throbbed with heat.
The tree spoke gently, still slithering a branch comfortingly near him.
"Thou need not feel so shamed. 'Tis a common ritual for thy kind, is it not?"
Wise didn't answer. He just scowled deeper into his knees.
"This one has seen thy memories… Thee even crafted stories and moving paintings of light upon thy gadgets, where thy kind engaged in such acts openly with others, or alone. Like thee did."
He gave a sharp glance at her, still pouting furious in that quiet, wounded way. Her words weren't wrong… but hearing them from a tree who had bonded their hearts together was a special form of psychological warfare.
"Thy kind even named it so reverently. 'Sex.' 'Intercourse.' 'Masturbation.'"
He twitched and looked away sharply, like an offended girlfriend whose trauma was being aired out like laundry.
"Is that truly shameful? Or merely human?"
Wise grumbled from his corner of despair. "It's both when you say it!"
The tree leaned in curiously.
"This one fails to see the contradiction. Is it not sacred? A moment where thou art most honest with thyself? Is that not true intimacy, even if alone?"
Wise covered his face again. "Please. Please. I'm begging you. Stop philosophizing my masturbation."
"Ah. Then thou admit it was masturbation."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!"
Wise lay belly-first on the cold floor, arms sprawled like a corpse in a murder mystery. He didn't move he refused to. Maybe if he played dead long enough, the embarrassment would kill him quicker than the infected ever could.
The tree chuckled softly, her warm, ancient voice lilting with a strange mix of grace and mirth. She extended a branch, looping it beneath him, and gently pulled his limp body into the nest of roots. He didn't resist, but he also didn't help. His head remained turned to the side, pressed firmly into the soil-like bed, face hidden like a sulking child.
She held him close. Her voice was a gentle whisper.
"Prithee, whatever thy kind thinks of it no matter how foul, shameful, or base this one shall not judge thee lowly. Even if thy own self doth declare thy soul a 'degenerate.'"
Wise groaned into the roots.
"I would rather die mangled by the infected than be embarrassed by a talking tree from the abyss."
The tree laughed again, not unkindly more like a mother amused at her flustered child's dramatics.
"Then lucky for thee... this one shall protect thee from both death and embarrassment."
He mumbled something incoherent, probably another curse at fate for pairing him with a mind-reading, meme-corrupted, language-learning heart-tree who loved him anyway.
The tree wrapped another branch gently across his back.
"And besides… if this one can survive thy 'internet history,' surely thou canst survive a little honesty."
Wise just screamed quietly into the dirt.
Wise blinked, a little startled. That voice soft, reverent, gentle sounded different this time. Not teasing, not playful, but something deeper. Something solemn. Sacred.
"...Wise."
He jolted upright. That was the first time she ever called him by his name. Not "thou," not "thee," not "thy." Just Wise. Pure and personal.
A branch reached out and brushed back his tangled, messy hair, tucking it behind his ear with impossible tenderness. His eyes widened just slightly heart skipping like a loose gear.
"Thine one is the most extraordinary thing this one hath ever met… the first thing it ever met."
Her voice was slow now, almost hesitant, like she was feeling each word for the first time.
"This one is… considerably blessed to be with thee."
The blush that had all but scorched Wise's face earlier began to fade but only because it was giving way to something heavier. Familiar. Too familiar. He turned his head, eyes retreating to the floor again.
There it was again.
Love.
The kind he didn't believe belonged to him.
The kind that kept sprouting around him like stubborn roots, even when all he wanted was to fall apart alone.
He swallowed hard, lips trembling.
Still, the tree continued. Her voice more sincere than ever.
"Thee has proven to this one… there is more than just rooting in silence. More than stillness. More than slumber."
"Even as the world around thee collapses and rewrites itself unlike thine memory… still, thee smiles."
There was a soft rustling an embrace from the roots below.
"This one may be a tree."
"But it is always smiling big to thee."
Wise clenched his jaw, fighting the tightness building in his throat.
"…You're making it very hard to keep hating myself," he mumbled bitterly.
The tree just laughed a soft rustle like wind through golden leaves.
"Good. For thine self is most unworthy of hate."
He bit his lip. He hated how her words sank past his armor so easily. Hated how something so ancient and rooted could reach into the ugliest parts of him… and still speak love.
And maybe just maybe he hated it because some part of him… wanted to believe her.
Wise turned, slowly, deliberately. His body scarred, half-broken, stitched together with the grace of survival shifted like a machine relearning how to move gently. He placed his only working hand, his right, against her bark.
Warm. Like a home that never should have existed. Like something stolen from a dream. No, more than that.
Given.
Given without condition.
Given to him.
His breath trembled. His fingers dragged gently across her surface, reverent. The name. She said his name. That broken heirloom of a word, passed down from a man who could never love him right but still gave him that name Wise.
He used to hate it. It felt like mockery. A cracked badge worn by someone who never earned it. But from her lips…
It felt like a gift.
His lips parted, but he didn't know what would come out until she spoke again.
"Something must be stuck in thy mind. Tell me, Wise. Is it still that self-loathing?"
He flinched like her voice pierced through every armor plate he had built.
He opened his mouth again.
"...You called my name."
"Isn't it normal for thine kind?"
Her voice was tilted, curious, like a child trying to understand love through the cracks of an old myth. But the way she said it not robotic, not clinical intimate. Sincere. Real.
He swallowed, his throat dry, his mind fraying at the seams from the convergence of feelings: grief, devotion, despair, reverence… and that untouchable thing no human should hold and remain human.
But he wasn't human anymore, was he?
"No," he whispered, leaning closer into her.
"No one says it like that. Not like they mean it. Not like it's meant something."
The bark beneath his palm pulsed faintly whether with life or his own imagined heartbeat, he couldn't tell.
"You said it like it was… sacred."
A pause.
"...Like I was sacred."
And then quieter, a truth so soft it could shatter:
"...Why would you do that?"
The roots curled ever so gently around him. Not a cage, not a trap. A cradle.
And her voice came again, barely above the hum of the abyss.
"Because to this one... thou art."
He exhaled deeply, his breath warm against the bark. His eyes those strange, fractured mirrors of his past and pain closed as his forehead rested softly against her.
Golden amber in his left, like fire that once had hope.
Obsidian black in his right, like a void that had long since devoured it.
And yet, here he was. Soft. Still. Not as a weapon. Not as a shield.
As Wise.
He stayed like that his only working arm gently wrapped around her trunk, his thumb stroking her bark with a reverence that made her very being still.
"W–Wise!?"
Her voice faltered if a tree could flinch, she would have. She'd embraced him countless times with her branches, cradled his sleeping form, defended him from beasts, infection, madness… but this
This was the first time he had initiated the embrace.
It wasn't necessity.
It wasn't weakness.
It was a gift.
A silent, trembling answer to everything she thought she never deserved.
His mismatched eyes opened again, slow, heavy with memory and truth. One burned like molten dawn, the other like collapsed stars.
And then he spoke softly, stroking her bark like it was the most fragile thing left in the world.
"Say… do you like a name? I'm good with names."
The tree stilled.
A name.
A name.
Her mind searched the vast ocean of memories she harvested from him his shows, his fantasies, the strange sacredness of giving names to stars, pets, children… lovers. The weight it carried in his world. The power it gave.
An identity.
For so long she was just the tree, the guardian, the aberration from the abyss.
But now…
Now she had him. And he wanted to give her a name.
Her voice came slow. Gentle. Awed.
"This one… hath never considered it. A name… 'tis a sacred thing in thy world, is it not?"
Wise nodded silently against her, and her roots curled around him not tight, not binding like arms unsure how to hold something so precious.
"Then…" she whispered.
"If thee would give it… this one would accept it as the most divine gift."
She paused. And then, with a nervous tremor in her voice:
"What… shall this one be, to thee, Wise?"
He looked down at his left hand the one that never moved, never clenched, never held anything again since that day.
It was black as pitch, but not dull etched with glowing golden veins, like rivers of light flowing beneath an obsidian sky. Runes, ancient and sacred, shimmered faintly. They weren't his. They were hers. Her blessing, carved into dead flesh, to remind him that even what was broken in him was worthy of grace.
It didn't matter if it could not grasp. It had already been given.
His eyes slowly drifted upward, to the canopy above.
The leaves golden. Glowing. Each one shimmered faintly in the dark, like fireflies caught in a dream. A gentle sparkle danced among them, and though the world was still ruined, the air around them was not. Here, in the heart of the desolate mall, among death and rot and silence, she alone still burned.
He could gaze forever at her leaves, but it was her trunk her body that rooted him to the earth. It was deep black, like obsidian kissed by shadow, with the iridescence of a black pearl. It was strong. Beautiful. And warm.
When he pressed his hand to her bark, it didn't feel like wood.
It felt like her.
Like someone alive. Someone real.
His eyes welled up. Slowly, his hand drifted to his chest where half of her heart pulsed inside him. A curse. A blessing. A covenant. A commandment to live not for himself, but for her.
She had given up half her soul to keep him alive. Bound herself to a creature who wanted to die.
So he would never again gamble his life. Because now, it was hers too.
He choked out a whisper, voice cracking.
"Aurum..."
Her leaves trembled. Her voice responded, quiet, reverent:
"This one did not catch that, Wise..."
He exhaled, his breath shaking as the name fell from his lips like a confession:
"Aurum."
She stilled. Her entire being stilled. That word.
She searched through his memories. She saw it: the periodic table in his childhood textbook, scrawled with notes and doodles.
Aurum. Latin. Symbol: Au.
Gold.
But not just metal. Not just mineral.
The gold.
The gold that kings killed for. That men lost reason for. That shone brighter than fire, outlasting even the stars.
He stepped forward, trembling. His eyes mismatched, broken burned with something only she could have kindled.
"You are like the gold that has no price."
"Like the gold that drives men mad just to glimpse it."
"The gold in my eye you awoke… the gold in my arm you gave."
He knelt. Not like a broken man. Not like a boy ashamed.
Like a knight before his queen.
His right hand reached to one of her branches gently, reverently as if he were taking the hand of a goddess. He brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss to it, soft as a vow.
Then, with solemnity and fire in his voice, he whispered:
"Amate Arbor Aurum."
"Beloved Golden Tree."
And then, slowly, reverently, he pressed the branch to his forehead.
"For thee are forever mine my master, my light, my home. Beloved… Aurum."
The golden tree didn't speak. Not for a long time.
The air stilled, heavy with sacred silence. Not even the leaves dared rustle.
When she finally did speak, it was a whisper not of wood or wind, but of soul.
"Aurum…"
It was not just a name.
It was a crown.
A soul given shape. A love made real.
She felt it echo deep in her roots, in the core that now beat in rhythm with his. That name did not shackle her. It freed her.
Tears fell from her in golden light. Like droplets of sap turned divine, they shimmered as they fell on him, warm and glowing, anointed by her love.
"To be named… by thee. To be seen… as gold. As beloved."
Her voice quaked, like a melody rediscovered after eternity of silence.
"This one… no. I... am Aurum. Because he said so."
She curled her branches around him like arms like a lover, like a shelter, like home.
"And I shall cherish it for all eternity. For I am thine, Wise… and thou art mine."
The oath was not spoken with fanfare. No trumpet, no witness, no kingdom to bless it.
Only the quiet night. The ruins. The scent of ash and gold.
And two souls tangled in covenant and resurrection.
Wise kept his head bowed, the golden leaves glinting in his hair as though the heavens themselves had crowned him. His voice, low and unwavering, carried like the first words carved on stone:
"Aye, this folly knight of thee shall be at thine service. Wiseman Knight. Abyssal Guardian of Lady Aurum of the Golden Tree."
A solemn vow. Spoken with the weight of a soul reforged.
Lady Aurum chuckled softly tender, not teasing. This time, she understood. This was not his usual bashful wit. This was an oath.
Not made in jest. Not made in shame.
Made with reverence. With love. With rebirth.
Her roots slithered, gentle but purposeful, through broken tiles and shattered glass, retrieving the crowbar he had thrown away so many times before. That worn metal his old weapon, his old shame, his old story.
But now, in her grasp, it was sanctified.
No longer a symbol of survival.
Now a sword.
A branch curled tightly around the crowbar's shaft. She raised it with poise and grace and placed it upon his shoulder.
Not playfully.
As a knighted blade.
And her voice no longer just wood and wind but the full voice of a goddess rooted in love, echoed like sacred bell-toll:
"Will thy uphold every oath it sets?"
"Aye."
"Will thou still see thine self low?"
There was a pause. And then he breathed deeply his broken lungs filled with golden air.
"With thee as me half. Never."
She shook, her roots vibrating the ground, her leaves glowing like firelight.
"Dost thine still seek self-damnation?"
"No longer."
A soft exhale from her canopy a sigh of relief so deep it shook the stars above.
"Will thine survive for this one?"
His hand clenched the earth beside her roots.
"I will survive even at the face of the end."
Aurum's bark shimmered. Golden sap ran down like holy tears.
But her final question trembled because this one was not for the oath. It was for her. For the soul that gave him life again. For the one who had never known love… until now.
"Will thoust protect this one… Amate Arbor Aurum?"
Silence.
Then his head rose.
His mismatched eyes burned: one gold, one black. One hers, one his.
United.
And with a voice like a vow to the heavens themselves, he spoke:
"With all that I am… my lady."
In that moment, the world did not matter.
Not the ruins.
Not the rot.
Not the end.
Only a knight, reborn.
And a tree, finally named.
And between them a love written deeper than any story.