Aaron shifted his coat against the bitter winter wind. He was offered a fragile warmth in summer, but as Christmas loomed, a chill penetrated his bones, making his joints creak. Despite the freezing temperatures, there's no snow on the salted ground surrounding the mountain. The distant mangrove forest has some covering its leaves, but not here. A rare Bald Cypress, about 80 feet tall, has been spotted in the distance and his class was given the opportunity to see it up close.

  He looked around at his students, their eyes downcast and hardened. It shouldn't be this way. Alex and Hannah were keeping close, for warmth and support. They've been closer ever since Lucas lost Nina. It would be that way he supposed, Lucas had a hard time looking at his old best friend and his girlfriend ever since he lost his own during the excursion where Nina cloned a tree.

  Nina was good. Fastest girl on the track team, it's a shame how she went. Every woodland excursion since has brought memories back to the forefront, but Bald Cypresses are important and everyone here knows it, not your common mangrove. Normally it was class B's turn to go on one of these, but the cold hit them hard and most of them have a fever- or covid, funny how that was everyone's concern a few years ago.

  In the distance, Aaron spots the Bald Cypress, and he readjusts the grip on his axe. He motions for the students to lay low and fan out, they know what's at stake. They'll be quiet.

  Aaron silently prayed while he waited for teams B and C to arrive at position, you never wanted a close formation around a big tree, their roots make dealing with groups all too easy. A greater one like a Bald Cypress? He could only hope the salt would have slowed its growth.

  Movement rippled through the towering Bald Cypress, it's leafless branches buzzed before numerous cracks were heard. It's bark splitting revealing rounded amber sap streaked with black, resembling eyes. Unblinking and predatory, it saw them. The earth trembled as the ground around the tree ruptured in jagged lines as it uprooted itself. The massive tree; resembling a many dozen-legged spider; it's spindly legs moving with a speed that belied its size, humanity long learned they could never outrun the trees. The moment the trees learned fighter jets could move faster every airbase was hunted down its last.

  The only way to kill a tree was by cutting its heartwood, the problem was getting close enough. The Cypress quickly closed the distance. Its roots whipping toward the class with a crack, intending to impale them. Aaron and his students swung their axes by rote memory. The technique so practiced that they couldn't see their own hand move being the only thing that allowed them to sever the larger roots. One of his students didn't swing fast enough however, and a root punctured through Kaeden's torso. The root lifted him off the ground before a desperate swing severed it, saving him from desiccation. The tree's thirst can dry a man in seconds.

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  Aaron was thankful that the Bald Cypress wasn't a cloner. Desiccation was a preferable end to cloning a tree. He saw in the distance Hannah in team C being knocked over, she's a goner.

  The next half hour was spent with Aaron's class attempting to close in on the tree in order to hack its heartwood, only made possible by the tree's rapidly depleting stamina.

  It was time for a headcount.

  The gym class lost Hannah and Trevor, Kaeden who got skewered early on was being patched up. Aaron's eyes settled on Lucas, who lay slumped against the mangled root that punctured him, Alex and Hannah were crouched next to him, Hannah's face streaked with tears. Lucas' eyes were unfocused, his breath came in shallow gasps.

  “I didn’t want this for you,” Lucas rasped, his voice barely audible. “I didn’t want you to suffer the same fate.” He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "I'm sorry... I haven't been a good friend. Not since Nina..." He went quiet, his words hung in the air, unfinished. Aaron turned away, giving the trio some privacy, considering it a blessing that Alex's muffled sobs were softly covered by Hannah's weeping.

  ----Flashback----

  Lucas and his girlfriend Nina were stationed at the ocean irrigation site for weeks, a project undertaken to salt the ground to make the mountain area safe from the ents. A simple job away from the forest's demarcation, no trees having been spotted their entire deployment. The air was getting colder now, the chill had nothing to do with the season. Rumor has it that the trees were sucking up carbon, freezing the earth one breath at a time. Reverse global warming, they called it, but all Lucas could see was a world dying faster than anyone could fix it.

  They were laughing when it happened. A small Dogwood sapling crept behind them. By the time Lucas spotted it, the silky roots were already curling around their boots. They moved quick, a single hack from them both cutting it's heartwood into three sections. A sapling was nothing, Lucas turning to Nina, relief on his face that they got it before it was too late. Nina, understandably looked pale. Yet, she was becoming unnaturally pale as he saw lines writhing beneath her skin. No, no, no! The dogwood was a cloner. A twig erupted from the corner of her eye, unfurling into a delicate pink flower. Her axe fell to the ground as her root-filled corpse twitched abnormally.

  At first, Lucas ran, he made some distance while the tree was still growing in her but cloners grow quick. A root sprouted from her hip, curling like a grotesque tail, she dropped to all fours, her back bending at an inhuman angle. This one will use all four limbs to grow roots when it sets.

  Cloner or not, it was just a Dogwood. Forced beyond his means, Lucas cut it down- and wept.

  ~end