Chapter 24

When Hank woke up, Adair was extremely happy because she could now learn about what happened to Hank that caused him to be hurt so badly. The first thing Hank wrote, though, was not what happened to him but that he was hungry. This really should not have come as a shock to Adair, but somehow she missed this fact when they ran out of the giant fruit-like things that Hank always ate.

To try and find Hank some food, she went to look where their food stash was, but all she found was her milk bottles. She then tried to get more meat out of the bag but that appeared to be out as well. She wanted to keep on looking just in case Hank hid some other food since the milk bottles were hers, but she did not know how bad the hunger problem was for Hank, so she decided that it was fine to share them.

She grabbed two, which were as many as she could carry, and two by two, she brought over the milk bottles until Hank was completely surrounded by milk bottles. In her rush to get as many milk bottles over as possible, she completely forgot Hank was barely in the position to write let alone open the bottles, so she started to open the milk bottles one by one and pour them into Hanks mouth because he was making no effort to do that himself unlike what happened with the fruit where he actively ate them.

She always made sure to pause pouring halfway through the bottle to make sure Hank didn't choke. The first time she did this, Hank looked irritated at her for stopping, but she paid him no mind, and Hank just had to deal with it. This process continued over and over again until eventually, there were only two bottles left out of the dozens she had brought over when Hank closed his mouth and fell asleep again.

This infuriated Adair to no end because she was extremely paranoid that some mighty beast would come to attack them any moment. She eventually calmed herself down, though, because there wasn't anything she could do about it, even if a beast were coming to attack. So she decided to get some more milk just in case Hank woke up again and needed some food quickly.

This process of Hank waking up, getting fed, and then falling back asleep continued for four more days. After each time Hank fell asleep, his fir continued to heal at an extremely quick pace which made Adair question if it was the food that sped up the healing or if Hank had some special healing properties. She was not even sure Hank knew the answer to this question since he was in this form for only an extremely short amount of time.

The fourth time he woke up, Hank was able to drink the milk by himself and no longer needed the assistance of Adair to help him with this process. Since he appeared well enough and did not fall asleep right after eating, she decided to ask him what happened to him for him to be so injured. Once Hank read what she had written, he gave her a look that said should I really tell her what happened or should I make something up. Adair continued to look into his eyes as he thought about it, and eventually, his eyes cleared up as if he came to a conclusion.

The next thing he wrote was if she really wanted to know, and of course, Adair responded with yes. Hank started his story.

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I started off just looking for more food because I knew that a storm would be coming up and that I would need to stockpile food just in case I was unable to go out and get more. I had to go far away since I already took all of the fruit that was near our house. The more fruit I took, the farther I had to go out until I was very far away from our house. Adair then interjected and asked, "how far is very far."

I responded that it was at least one day away from our house. I then continued eating and bringing back as many of these fruits as I could until I eventually found a bright red tree. It wasn't like the trees around here where all the branches created a canopy above. This red tree was taller and had arching branches that almost touched the ground in a complete circle around it.

When I spotted the tree, I noticed how out of place this tree looked. I also noticed that it had several bright red fruits on it. These fruits were twice as big as the yellow ones that I usually ate, so I knew that even if I could get a few of these, it would provide me with so much food I could come back here and not go searching for any more food and just be by you until the next storm hit.

I then went up to the tree to see if it was alive like our friend the blue tree, and it did not appear that it was. I tried talking to it, and that did nothing. I then tried writing down words in front of the tree, but that also did not get any reaction from the tree, so I figured that I was all good getting some fruit. Of course, I wouldn't take all of the fruit, just a few since that is how many I could bring back here.

I then started to climb the tree, and at first I was worried that the thin red branches would not support my weight but everything was going perfectly fine until I tried to remove one of the fruit. I first tried to cut it off of the tree, but that did not work. The next thing I tried was dragging it down by dragging my claws into it, but it did not budge. This was when the fight started.

I don't know why but as soon as I dug my claws into the fruit, the tree started to attack me. I quickly dropped down to the ground, but that was not enough for the tree. It appeared angry that I damaged its fruit and the tree bent over and layed down all of the branches around me on the ground which cut off all of the escape routes for me to go. This was when I knew I messed up and started to try to escape.

No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn't escape from the enclosure. The branches were too tough. The red tree and I understood this at the same time and it was at this point it took some of the branches and started to attack me with them. I continually tried to escape but as that was not working I knew I needed to do something crazy. So during the next attack I let out a loud yell, and then played dead as if it killed me.

It continued to whack me over and over again, until eventually, it made one big attack and pierced me with two thick branches and started to bring me back to the base of the tree. And when it did this, it was as if it confirmed I was dead and removed all of the branches that were blocking me from leaving. This is when I made one big push and pushed myself off the tree branches and onto the ground, where I started sprinting. Away from the red tree and when the tree then realized its mistake and tried to trap me again, but it was too slow, and I was able to escape. I did not know if the tree had any more tricks up its sleeve, so I ran and ran all the way back here.

Adair then asked a few questions. The first one was where I was when the storm started, and I responded with I was about half a day away. The second question she asked was did the storm hurt me. I then chuckled, which caused me a whole bunch of pain, and barely wrote down no before collapsing into the sweet darkness of sleep.

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When Hank randomly collapsed, Adair was extremely worried that something terrible happened to Hank, but once again, when she checked on him she noticed he was just sleeping, which was a good sign to her. This story at least gave Adair a lot to think about. Such as how many different colors of trees there were and are all red trees hostile, or are they only hostile when you try to take or damage the fruit.

Also are the different colored trees always have specific properties to them, or do they each have their own personality. For example, their blue tree was nice and helpful as long as you paid him. Was this the case for all blue trees or only this one? Does that apply to the red tree as well or any other colored tree, for that matter? She guessed only time could tell since they did not have access to many different collared trees.

On a different topic, Adair wondered what the "Fruit" attached to the red tree was. She was leaning towards that it was not actually a fruit but something else. Her first thought was that it was a type of seed that, when planted, became another red tree. While this could be the case, she did not believe this was the case because the whole situation seemed too much like a trap after hearing Hank's story to believe that this was the case.

If her assumption was correct, then she had a potential answer to why both the blue tree, herself, and Hank did not meet any other creatures around here. If there are a bunch of those red trees around and they were all bait trees, it would make sense why there were no other creatures.

She then started to think that maybe only insects lived in the forest and lived off the bark and leaves or something like that but she then started to imagine thousands of tiny bugs just above her and she quickly stopped thinking about that.

She then started to feel tired, but before she let herself fall asleep, she brought out several milk bottles for Hank and then fell asleep next to Hank.