Tree

We moved here almost two months ago in mom's desperate attempt to save her marriage. She thought that moving from the city to the countryside would make dad love her again. It didn't, of course, but all of us knew that already. Yet, she was blind to it, as she was blind to the shadow that loomed over the house. 

It's been almost two months and I still haven't been able to sleep a full night in here. Mom says I'm overreacting and that it's all inside my head, that I'm too old to say that kind of things. But I know better, I know there is something very wrong, I know that we need to get out of here, that I need to get out of here. My sisters feel it too, but it's not too bad for them, they can escape it, their nights are not haunted with nightmares. Mine are. 

My nightmares are always similar, dead people come to me and tell me how they were wrongfully executed, or how they were killed by a loved one, or how they decided to take their own worthless lives. They come to me at night with tales of death and horror, tales that make me wake up terrified, clutching to life. I'm never able to sleep after those dreams. 

Tonight I realized where they come from. I had just woken up from a specially crude one when I heard the tree outside my window rattling against the glass. It's a large tree and blocks out most of the sunshine that would enter in my room. Dad has said at least one thousand times that we should take it down, but no one does anything, so I'm left with a gloomly lit room. 

Tonight the tree branches spread like tendrils, trying to get me. The tree has been calling me. I know. It has been sending me all these nightmares as a message. I'm next. It has decided that it needs blood, and it has to be mine. And I can escape it. No matter what I do my blood will end up nourishing it. If I try to escape it will find me and have me get back. The question is not how, the question is when, it's how much longer will I be able to hold it back. How much longer do I have to live.