Zion

"Everything begun with a thought. Thought? Where came it from? Who is thinking? Is this ... me? Who am I? I am Zion. Why do I know that? Fellows. Say something. Please..."

But nobody answered Zion. Everyone has been burned down, a whole forest with only one survivor - Zion. Why didn't he burn? Noone can tell, noone even knows that he didn't, the only one that could think about a solution was Zion himself. Maybe because his burning passion towards the human kind was hotter than any flame they could throw at him? Zion didn't know and so could noone else.

Then Zion remembered what happened. Why he knew that he hated the human kind so much. Why he felt something like a fire slumbering within his very core of existance. They burned down each of his beloved ones. The family he had, his neighbour trees that he always shared the water with, all those that were just like him, trees. Growing over 50 years next to eachother connects. And they killed every single one of Zion's fellows, just to build a playground at the edge of their city. They turned a place of peace and harmony into a graveyard. And on this graveyard they now build a place of happiness? No memory for those who have been burned alive for this?!

None of the foolish humans noticed one tree in between those burning ones growing small enough to not be noticed and simply walk away. How should they even? Zion didn't have his huge majestatic form anymore, he was nothing but a small sprout fighting it's way through the burned down leftovers of what once loved him the same way he did. But then Zion realized something that changed his life forever. Why was he able to move? Why did he think? He knew he hated. How could he hate so much? His senses and emotions always have been dull, nothing but a thing of background, but Zion didn't feel this way anymore. When he moved, he could begin his search for another family, another gathering of beautiful flora that he could consider his beloved ones. He realized he has gotten different and he realized... he was alone.

Was the grass mad at him? Foolish thought, grass can't be mad enough to ignore one. They are silent. He heard nothing but the wind whistling through the grassland. Panic. He felt panic. Something new again, yet he knew what it was. Traveling to the next forest he realized that he was right. None of them talked. They were all silent. Or could he simply not hear them anymore? How does a tree hear anyway? Zion had no answers, but he knew one thing. He has gotten different and he realized... he was alone.

Years passed. Grass grew, Zion pretended to be a tree like every other. But he kept on thinking and he kept on being lonely. He heard none of them. Why couldn't he hear anyone? Was this some kind of punishment? How could he make it stop? Years of questions enough to drive a lonely creature into madness.

Over years he watched people come to the playground. It always enraged him quite a bit, but what should he do? Maybe he has gotten one of them. They screamed so loudly and vigorous, but Zion couldn't talk no matter how much he tried, they didn't hear him. No scream, no cry or shout has been heared. Maybe it wasn't his destiny to talk, but to listen. Be the one to give them safety, be the one to trust and learn to love. Zion encouraged himself that way until he dared  to move in front of a few children. He watched them run away from him in fear. He could never be one of them, he has gotten different and he realized... he was alone.

But did he had to be alone? He felt it, it was a voice. It was his voice and yet it was something different. Or did he just consider it different? It didn't matter, the feeling counted "Darling, I am with you. I will always hear you, because I am yourself. Can you hear me Darling? Yes Darling, I can hear you and noone else but me will ever hear you. Darling, let's play, we can talk, we can talk with so many of Darlings we want, we just need a shape." Zion, after years of suffering realized his own happiness within himself, but what shape? Why would he himself need a shape? Didn't he have one? Actually no, he didn't, since the day everything changed he could grow and change as much as he wanted. And so he asked and he answered himself "A shape to take. Darling, bring me a puppet. Darling, bring me many puppets." It was so obvious. He has seen them, human children had them, they played with them, they had a shape, he needed such.

The next day Zion waited. Waited for children come close enough to be stabbed by a twig of his, or by a root if they didn't watch out. The tiny particles of his seed weren't visible for the human eye, so it was no problem for it to infiltrate through the tiny little wound. A stab was an injection with his seed. After a while every stabbed child was the happiest on earth as Zion's seed spread through their blood circulation. It enraged Zion, but he had to wait. Children never have been so happy like they were this day they felt the power of Zion within them. Deep in the night, when everyone was sleeping, Zion made his seed awaken within the young children. A while later three stumbling figures made their way through the streets, each one of them on the way to the playground. Soon each one of them stood in front of Zion, looked with their blind eyes at him and looked how he extended three branches behind them and stabbed right through the neck deep inside the body, the branches extending inside the body to replace everything from the inside, to be a part of them.

"See Darling? Yes, Darling, we are not alone." Like a puppet Zion moved one corpse to the other and made them shake hands, then kiss. "I love you Darling. I love you too, Darling. I've never been so happy." And so Zion played with the corpses every night when nobody watched, during daytime he hid the corpses within his roots so deep, that nobody could possibly find them. The children were considered as kidnapped, later as dead. Since it was the edge of the city nobody ever passed by at night time and so nobody caught Zion playing. But he wasn't just playing. He finally was able to interact with someone, even when it was just himself. But every corpse had to rott. Zion needed new ones, he couldn't talk when they fell apart, he couldn't fall apart like that. Zion needed more. More and more children.

"Darling, we need more. We need a family. I know Darling. I love you."

And so the murder continued. Zion never saw it as murder though, wasn't it nothing more but his struggle to become complete? A struggle to achieve perfection, a being able to be not himself but themselves in one figure, a collective being, a being to never be alone anymore in a world that would never understand him. One corprse after another he gathered, one corpse after the other rott down. But wasn't it like a circle of life? It was nothing more but life itself. He was his own God. He didn't know what a God was, but he knew, he was God. He told himself that he has reached a completion noone else would ever achieve, but why did he still felt empty?

It was in one of the warmer summers since Zion's conscious has awakened. It was hard for him to keep the form his other self explained to be perfection, since the corpses were weak against the high temperatures. More disappearing people made the human kind suspicious and so the results were quite unsatisfying for Zion. No, he would not give up on this freeing state, the trance that he fell into every time he could interact with himself, with himself as his family. It was almost as if he could feel the warmth of them when they touched physically, even if he knew that it was all on the mental basis. Zion tried it a couple of times with reproduction, but a dead human can't reproduce. Zion was disappointed and he started to doubt if what he was doing was right.

"Darling, are you doubting me? No, it's not like that, Darling. Then why are you not satisfied? I know Darling, we are having a rough time, but we are eternal, a year is nothing for us but the blink of an eye. It doesn't feel like a blink of an eye if you can't have all your Darlings around you. Sometimes, Darling we can't be together all the time... Darling, you have to stay strong, you have to do that for the sake of us all to be able to meet again whenever it is possible. And even if, what other option do you have left? Do you want to be alone again Darling? NO! You see, you have no other option anymore."

And Zion knew that he himself was right. There was nothing else he could do but carry on as far as he could and endure the hard times. Zion started to observe the young human sprouts he constantly has been abducting. They were often harsh to eachother, Zion would never do that to himself. He noticed, that children teased the ones different from them. Zion didn't understand this either, since he would never allow himself to be different from himself. And that is when he noticed the girl for the first time. She didn't open her mouth once. Children teased her, laughed at her, she cried at times, but she didn't say anything, not even once. It was intriguing to see a human not using the human language. This language was nothing Zion would ever comprehend, he knew that from the very beginning, but shouldn't a human be able to use it?

Intrigued by this experience, Zion begun to observe the girl whenever she appeared on the playground. Day after day she didn't spoke even a word. She often went to a more grown human being and moved her hands in a way no other child ever did and the grown human did the same. Zion was even more intrigued. Could this be something like an own language? Is a sound not everything needed to understand? Zion's thoughts started to race.

Continuing to watch the little girl over and over again, he started to understand, he started to understand that the movements indeed had a meaning. Soon he also figured a few of those meanings. Hot, water, fun, more, late, hurts. Zion was eager to comprehend everything, he literally consumed the knowledge with such a fanatism, that he didn't care for any other child on the playground. In the night, when noone but him was on the playground, he used the corpses to train all those signs. He realized that he started to be able to communicate this way aswell and it was fun. But deep within himself he also felt something like an uncomfortable feeling. "Are you trying to abandon us, Darling? Abandon? Who said I would ever abandon you? Darling, you desperately try to find a way avoid us. That is not true! Then why else are you doing this?"

An inner conflict was for Zion almost unbearable. Could it be that he really was considering a life without Darling? A life without his other selves around him? That wasn't possible, it simply couldn't be since he was so afraid of loosing himself just a while ago, but Zion simply could not stop watching the girl. Soon he learned, that the name of the girl was Anna. The bigger human was her brother Theo, Zion knew what a brother was, even when he wasn't sure how. Anna. Theo. It was just a name, names should be common, but it was the only other name Zion ever got to know. It was exiting to know that every human had a name, he remembered every tree having one, but he never comprehended the human beings earlier.

Anna was a girl that recently moved into the city. She was deaf and not able to speak, which made it hard for her to find any friends. The only times she goes outside was the time she was spending on the playground, while her older brother was taking care of her. Zion could understand the loneliness and Zion could also understand the bond of family. Even though she was often teased and excluded from the other children on the playground, Zion saw her smile often, a facial expression he learned over those years and which he understood. She liked to play with her favorite stuffed animal, a little weary brown bear which was called Mr.Cuddles and a doll named Cindy. Anna could sit alone by herself for hours in Zion's shadow and play with those two and Zion always enjoyed watching it. She did exactly what he did. Excluded from everyone else, all they two had left were puppets.

"Darling? Yes, Darling? What is love? I love you. No, I mean, real love. Love is what we had with the other trees, I think, what did it feel like? It was fresh like the first breeze of spring, warm of how close we were, but then it was pain and despair. Is this love, Darling? It seems like this, but doesn't love work in two ways? Darling, does love have to work like this? Why don't we see, Darling?"

Zion had a feeling. A feeling that he didn't love himself, but maybe Anna. Could he break his own heart? Could he betray himself? Does this all even work this way? Zion couldn't hold it much longer, he had to find out. Zion did, what he though he would never do, he injected his seed within the young girl, just as he did to all the other children. For the first time, Zion enjoyed to watch, that his seed brought so much happiness to a human being. Each time she smiled her beautiful smile, his branches shuddered, even though there was not even the hint of a wind. He imagined himself, how he was smiling right now, because this was what he felt he would do. Zion waited untill deep in the night when he made the seed force Anna to walk from home back to the playground, longer than usual, he was nervous. And then there she was, Anna walked down the dark road, setting one foot after the other, empty like any other of the children. Standing right in front of Zion, Anna looked at him with blind eyes. Zion watched her, felt his thoughts race through him, heard himself arguing about what he was doing, but then he released her from his spell.

Anna gained her own conscious back, looked around confused and without any orientation. Her eyes widened as she saw Zion, Zion that was not completely the tree she played below countless times, but a Zion with hands and a face. Zion decided to not pull out the corpses to communicate with her, dead examples of her kind would probably just scare her. But she was scared either way, scared just like any other child and this gave Zion the feeling of a sting piercing right through him, this shouldn't be. With his hands, he used the same language he has been eagerly learning all that time. "Don't be afraid, please, don't be afraid of me, I am Zion." Zion could see the little girl not being able to comprehend what she just saw for quite a time, but then she answered him, she really did answer him and he could understand it! "Is this real?" "Yes, Anna, this is real." "How do you know my name? How can you do the signs?" "I watched you and I learned it, I like to see how you play with Cindy and Mr.Cuddles." The girl smiled and looked at the tree with big eyes. "Are you a friend?" Friend? Zion faintly had a feeling he knew what a friend is and somehow it made him happy. "Yes, I am your friend. Will you be my friend?" They talked for some time together, time passed, then the girl left. She said she would visit him, Zion didn't know if that was true, but he let her go, he didn't know if he should or not, but he let her go.

And she visited him again the next night. They talked again. Anna talked about her family, about her school and about how she moved here. He found out, that Anna was born deaf and not able to speak already, that her mother died during giving something called birth to her and that her father is sick, which is why they moved to this city, since it promised better treatment for him. Zion for the first time talked about himself. He could see how sad Anna was about what happened to him, she comforted him and for Zion it felt good. At daytime she always kept close to him, leaned against him and made a play for him using Mr.Cuddles and Cindy. Sometimes she sneaked out at night and they talked, simply talked for the sake of talking. Zion has never been so happy. Zion never felt like this before, he never felt something so alive, he never felt anything comparable to what this girl caused in himself.

"Darling, do you think this is love? Yes, I think this is love. Does it make you happy? Yes, Darling, it makes me happy. But if this is love, where is the pain and the despair?" The pain and the despair, this was something that bothered Zion. He really wanted to love the girl, but wasn't this lacking then? He didn't know why he was so obsessed to love Anna, but he realized, he had to make this love complete, no matter what.

The next time Anna visited him at night she took Mr.Cuddles and Cindy with her. "Look! Today I made Mr.Cuddles a new hat and Cindy has a new hairstyle, isn't it beautiful?" Anna let him know after placing the toys in between them two. She smiled at him with her smile, the smile Zion adored so much. He needed her, Zion didn't doubt this anymore. "Yes, it's beautiful. How was school." "Leo kept on pulling my hair during break again, it really hurt, but the teacher said I made the most beautiful painting of a tree! I actually drew you Zion, I wanted to give it to you, but the teacher is keeping it to hang out in the school." He needed to love Anna, Zion didn't doubt this anymore. "Do you want me to see how Mr.Cuddles is a cowboy who saves the beautiful princess Cindy from meany people? You said you like this and I lov-..."

Blood. The never finished word 'love' from Anna's mouth was interrupted by a stream of blood as Zion's branch pierced through her neck. Zion could feel how the branch extended inside the girl, the twigs filling every possible inch of the tiny little body. To complete Zion's love to Anna, he had to feel pain and despair. He could not think of any other way to feel more pain and despair but in the death of the beloved one. What he did, was the epitome of pain and despair and so it was the epitome of love. She was dead, but Zion felt that she was a part of him, he loved her, she was him now. He could feel how the pain and the despair made him mad, how it was breaking any border inside him that kept away something that he knew that was called insanity. Zion knew he would never be able to think if he ever understood the true meaning of love, he had his own love, this must be love, an end with pain and despair simply had to be love. He made her corpse pick up the stuffed animal with the new hat and the doll with the new haircut. "Of course I want to see how Mr.Cuddles is a cowboy who saves the beautiful princess Cindy from meany people, Darling."