Chapter 4: June 30th

I am a 14-year-old named Lucian, and I was going to school. I am just an average kid, who used to score pretty good marks in academics, with a good school life, and with purple belt in kendo and karate. I am also proficient in English sword fighting (Shut up. I ain't flexing. I am merely boasting). It was just another day. The day was June 30th. I met up with my friend, Adam, and we both started talking about what we were going to do after school.

"Dude I told you I can't play today, I am going to the dentist.", Adam said in frustration.

"Stop making excuses, you just want to watch anime instead of play with me right?"

"Dude I'm serious, I have to go to the dentist."

"Suure my guy."

"Anyway, did you study for today's Geography test?"

"Yeah, obviously, but you are changing the topic, aren't you?"

Both of us arrived at school. There was a fully grown apple tree to our right.

"Huh? How did the tree grow overnight?", I asked, bewildered

"I don't know. Maybe they transported it here?", Adam answered

"How did they transport such a big tree over night? Plus, what is the use of it?"

"Again, I don't know. Don't ask me.", he said as he picked up an apple from under the tree.

"You aren't going to eat it, are you?", I asked.

"Of course, I am.", he said, biting the apple.

"Dude you should have at least washed it."

"Ah well", he shrugged.

I went into our class and sat down, waiting for our teacher to come. The test was on the last period of the day. I took the time to revise my Geography. And then the teacher came.

One period went by. Then another. Then another. By the 4th period, Adam complained of a stomach ache. By the 5th period, he complained of a head ache. And a few students started complaining about a stomach ache. Most of were sent to the nurse's office. One student decided to endure it and stayed back. One of my other friends, Aden, pointed out how weird it was for so many people in the class to have a stomach ache.

By the 6th period, something started happening. The sky slowly started turning red. Then it turned blood red. Well, something was definitely wrong. The one student who decided to stay back all of a sudden started choking one of the students.

"What the hell is wrong with you?", the student shouted.

The now deranged student didn't respond.

"Stop… seriously.. stop.. I-". The student started choking to death. That's when they realised this wasn't some kind of a joke. I held the student back, while the asphyxiated student started to recover. The deranged student started to scream like a wild animal.

"Dude, what is wrong with you? Are you insane.", one of the students shouted.

I was still holding him back. He looked down and noticed that the deranged student's fingers were growing longer. "Huh??", Lucian thought to himself. He blinked to confirm what he seeing. The deranged student's fingers were growing alright. So was his face. It started to turn into wood. I pushed him away. He was turning into some horror creature. The he stabbed the nearest student. The nearest student was clearly dead. Then he went onto someone else.

We started looking around for the teacher. She just ran away. I tried grabbing the now wooden humanoid but it just slashed at me. Most of us started to run away from the classroom, as did I. The wood monster started chasing after the students. The moment the wood monster ran away from the class, me and a few other people (Aden included) went back into the class.

I started off the conversation, "What the hell was that?? Did Simon just turn into a tree??"

"Yes, in fact he is now a maniac.", one of the girls answered.

"Ignoring that, is it just me or is the sky red?? I pinched myself. Certainly, isn't a dream", one of the students said.

"The sky is red and there is a tree maniac on the loose. Almost like as if something is supernatural?", I said in a sarcastic tone, knowing full well that this was as supernatural as can be

One of the students went over to the window and looked out. He said, "Uhhh, hey, uhh, the apple tree is moving."

All of us ran over to the window. The apple tree was moving around its branches, throwing apples like a trebucket. Looking closely, there was a ghoul like face on the tree. It looked at our direction and threw an apple. The apple came with such speed that it hit one of the students and smashed his face.

All of us backed away. The apple was bloodied and the student fell to the ground. He was dead.

One of the girls (Her name was Artana and I had a crush on her), went to the entrance of the class, and started barricading the door with a bunch of chairs and tables. A few people started helping her.

Before they properly barricaded the door, I went outside, thinking, "Certainly doesn't seem like a zombie apocalypse or anything, right? WhAT cAn PossIbLY Go WROng?". A lot of things, as a matter of fact. I went out. Most of the classrooms were either empty or barricaded. I went into one of the empty classrooms to see, just a lot of dead people. One person was still breathing but she was beyond hope.

I started to go through the lockers, searching for a phone. Although mobile phones weren't allowed in the school, I knew a few people who didn't abide by that. I could have just asked the people back in my own class, but I decided risking my life was a better option, compared to asking someone.

There wasn't a phone in there, but there was a cigarette lighter there. I took it. I didn't have the guts to search through the bodies, instead I went to the next classroom. Still none. I went to ground floor, as the principal office was there, and he most definitely had a phone right? That was one of the worst mistakes of my life.

Moment I was going to ground floor, I noticed the crowd of tree humanoids. I stopped myself at the stairs. A few of them were heading out of the school building and going towards the apple tree. The others were searching every classroom. The ground floor comprises of the lower grades, like grade 1

I saw one of the creatures holding a dead child in his hand. I was disgusted by the bodies before, but dead kids is another story. Although I felt disgusted, I wasn't that big of a dumba**, and I wasn't going to play the hero.

I turned to head back, realizing going there wasn't worth it. As I turned, I saw a tree humanoid in front of me. I froze up. Looking a bit more closely, I noticed the tree guy still had a backpack. That backpack belonged to Adam. Adam had turned into a tree monster. I still had the lighter with me.

Naturally, I did what any normal person would do, and ran. At that moment, I didn't even think about lighting him on fire. Unfortunately, the now monster stabbed me on my side. That is when I got the thought of lighting him on fire. He was made of wood and was, well flammable. What I didn't think about was what to do next. I dropped the lighter by mistake and it fell down the stairs, alerting LITERALLY EVERY TREE MONSTER NEARBY.

I ran for it. The lighter was somehow still on fire and put a lot of the trees on fire. The fire started to spread around the trees like wildfire (wink wink), and most of them were now bound to die.

However, that didn't change the fact that I was still on the stairs, bleeding due to the stab wound, attempting to run away from the tree monster in front and the onslaught. The tree monster in front of me started to beat me up. I was worse as I had to endure flaming hot punches. Then the monster started to stab my non vital parts with its woody fingers. The onslaught started growing closer.

I grabbed the flaming monster and attempted to muster all of my strength into throwing him down the stairs, Judo style. I failed, but I still successfully managed to make it tumble down the stairs.

I took that opportunity to run, even though it was getting harder and harder to. I went through the first-floor stairs. I knew they were keeping an eye on me, although I had no idea which ability kept track of me; if it was hearing, sight or smell.

I reasoned it can't be smell as, well it was a tree, how could it possibly smell? Sight and hearing where the only options. I gambled, and went for the hearing option. I went through the first deserted room in first floor and found a piece of chalk. "Hopefully this will do!", I thought to myself.

I waited for the monster to come through the stairs (they were relatively slow), and then ran in one direction, throwing one piece of chalk to the other direction.

I went a little back and threw the chalk as far as possible. It landed on the flight of stairs heading to the second floor. I went through the opposite flight of stairs to reach my class. I was still bleeding and managed to knock on the door to my class before falling down.

The door opened, and I was let in, even though in hindsight, they should have just left me to die, just in case I was "infected". I mustered every ounce of strength within me to walk over to door and enter it.

I sat down in a chair. Aden brought me a first aid kit. Every other student ignored me, instead, seeming concerned at something else.

"So, it seems eating the apples of the ghoul tree "infects" you right?", I said, starting off a conversation.

Silence.

"What happened?", I asked.

"Oh, uhm, nothing. Nothing of too much importance."

The remaining students were anxious.

"What happened?", I asked again.

"I told you not-", Aden was cut off by Artana.

"We tried to contact the police about the situation with the phone Linda had. They are having a situation similar to ours. It seems supernatural things are happening throughout the world."

Just then a whole lot of tree monsters started banging at the door. Aden all of a sudden fell. He wasn't unconscious, but we had bigger problems now. The tree monster started to bang on the door.

No one went towards the "barricades" to push against the door against them. Instead, the tree monsters broke through. All of us were screwed. The tree monster in front extended its forearm so fast, that it just went through one of the students. There were 7 students left.

Aden got up with a weird look in his eyes. The tree monsters started to push through the tables and chairs. Aden went towards them, and threw a powder looking thing around. It looked like particles of ember.

"How did he get those??", I thought to myself.

Then the tree monster exploded into flames.