Mother Village -finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina... »

The path down was overgrown with thornvines that hadn't been there before. She cut through them with a rusted machete, the blade singing against the thorns. Every step felt like wading through mud made of memory.

Its trunk, once wide as a granary, was now split open like a pod. From the crack pulsed a soft, amber light—warm, rhythmic, like a heartbeat. And wrapped around its roots, as if the tree had grown around them, were the skeletons of children. Mother Village -Finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina...