39 039

WARNING WARNING WARNING

Seriously, don't read this chapter if you are soft hearted. I know such people and while I believe you readers would likely not be... Doesn't hurt to give a warning.

WARNING WARNING WARNING

For a long time, he wondered how he was able to see his surroundings. As a tree, he didn't have eyes. Yet, he could see. Well, it was sight but it didn't seem to come from the same kind of properties as the sight of humans and beasts. It was more of a feeling of sight, a different kind of sense that replicated things. He spent the years trying to probe this peculiar feeling. It was a way to stop himself from turning mad again and could provide him with benefits when he woke. If he learnt something. At the moment, he had yet to. He felt close yet far from enlightenment. But the possibility was there.

After decades, he saw something new. A human. A man. He was a robust fella wearing crude cloth and holding onto an axe. Owl deduced that this was a lumberjack. He tried to see his face but it appeared blurry. He knew this was a man but he was unable to see his features. Still, he was happy just to see a human. Then, he saw the human place his hand on the trunks of trees surrounding him, marking a few with a slash of his awe for some reasons.

He placed his hand on Owl's bark. The touch felt warm. Then, the man swung his axe at him and slashed some out of him. It was painful. Incredibly so. It was, after all, being slashed. And Owl, who knew what it was like to be slashed as a human could compare both sensations. They were identical.

He screamed in pain though only he heard himself. He wanted to move and twist his body as a reflex to alleviate the pain. But trees don't move. He could feel the sap leaving his body as if blood trickling down. It was horrible.

The human didn't even care and moved on to the next tree while Owl continued to howl in pain. The sufferings remained for a few days, until the sap coagulated and formed some kind of slab. It was still making him feel slight bits of pain from time to time, as if an old wound that never healed well.

And weeks went by…

Then, one day, the man came back with his axe. He walked up to Owl and looked at him. For a moment, Owl wondered if the man noticed he was in there. That this tree had more to it than others. His guess was wrong. The man only looked up to decide on a direction.

A direction for the cut.

He swung his axe mercilessly at the base of the trunk. Owl howled in agony. It went on for hours as one can't fell a tree in one fell swoop. Unless they were cultivators and this man was clearly a mortal. He needed dozens and dozens of swings to fell down this tree that was Owl. The torment it brought to Owl was impossible to describe. Even a pig being slaughtered had it better. He kept on feeling himself being slaughtered here. With every swing of the awe, he felt as if he was being bisected at his middle section. After all, trees had roots… And so, he felt the torture of suffering continuous bisection.

The sharpness of the axe, the loss of sap dripping down the wound, the tearing from the lack of support… He felt it all. Until, eventually, it happened. He fell down. He saw his vision change. For the first time in years, he was laying down on the ground, supported by it. Yet all he received was torment. Alive but in two parts. He could feel both parts of his body as if he was both at the same time. It stinged like nothing else ever did.

At that moment, he began to hear voices: "Just give up" "You can give up" "You don't need to push yourself" "Come on, it hurts" "You're allowed to give up"

He gritted his imaginary teeth and bore with the pain. Or at least, tried to cope with it however he could. Which ended up being him screaming with all he had in his mind. He wouldn't give up for he remembered this was the trial to accept the element inside his core. He needed to succeed in order to breakthrough. As he recalled it, the voices faded as if they had never been there.

But the pain remained. And it continued to make its presence known. What's more, the lumberjack wasn't down yet. He began to hurl his axe down at the many branches. It was akin to having his arms cleanly cut. Though for the bigger ones, the man had to slash down a few times. Having an arm being ripped off, its agony was not something that could be conveyed. Only through experience could one learn the torture of it. And Owl was constantly being taught for hours. The worst was that regardless of how many parts he ended up being cut in, he could feel them all even after the deed had been done.

All the pain accumulated to bring it to a brand-new height. He screamed for it to stop, he begged and prayed the heavens. It was to no avail. He kept on wailing, yelling and shouting. He was the only one to hear his own words. The lumberjack, without knowing better, simply continued his business. He picked up the trunk now bare and towed it away. Another pain was added to the long list of sufferings as his entire body was raping against the uneven hard soil.

Owl kept screaming madly and lost himself in the pain.

As the man brought back the trunk to his house, he put in in the front yard and went in. It was only the next day that he continued to work and started cutting the trunk in finer and smaller parts. Then, he stored them.

Owl was still in there, crying and screaming. He had lost his mind many hours ago. He was no more than a husk of his previous self. Even as the words asking him to give up returned, only screams and wailings answered them. He lost his mind to the point that he couldn't even hear them. He wasn't 'him' anymore. Owl didn't exist any longer at that time. It was just still him yet not him. It was something different. A separate himself was in charge. And it was a being filled with madness who knew nothing but the feeling of pain. It had no sentience or awareness. It only felt hurt all over its many body parts.

And the pain continued. It ravaged its mind without stop.

The lumberjack sometimes picked some of this wood he cut to burn and heat his home. It enabled 'him' to feel what it was like to be burnt alive.

In rainy days, it felt himself being drowned, especially the parts still out in the wild.

In stormy days, it was being hurled around and broken.

In snowy days, it was being frozen from coldness.

And time flowed.

He was feeling itself cut in many pieces, sometimes burnt, sometimes drowned and after a while, he began to feel itself being eaten up alive by crawling insects from underground.

A long time later, it felt itself decompose and return to Earth.

Until only one part was left. By now, it had no longer any connections to any other parts and only felt a meager pain compared to before. Since no other part remained in existence, he only felt the pain from this one.

It was a very small wooden amulet hanging around a man's neck. The man was a soldier and went to war. It was during that time that it reverted to him. Owl's self reemerged. Decades had gone by with him being crazy and out of existence. In a way, it saved him.

As he reconnected with the fake reality, he could feel the pain from being the amulet. It was savage but he could withstand it. Compared to the previous feelings, it wasn't much. The torment was real but manageable. He endured worse…

After more time, not much, the soldier died on the battlefield. Many dream to be heroes only to end up dying in a ditch. This was the fate of this nameless amulet wearer. And Owl ended up being drowned in blood and buried under bodies.

He began to feel the return of the torment and unable to withstand it, he lost his mind again after a few days. He was in complete delirium, incapable of awareness.

When he awakened once more, he saw himself in front of him. The man version of him. It spoke: "You really look like shit this time"

He recalled everything that happened and recognized who was in front of him. It wasn't himself but his inner demon. And the fact he was here meant that the trial finished. The torment he felt during this trial was something he would never forget. It had such a great impact on his psyche that he would take years for him to get over it.

The inner demon knew his thoughts as they were also his. He stated: "Great power doesn't come for free, you should have known better"