Stem and Trunk

From the beginning of the tree the branches split off everywhere. There’s no way I can make it to the top in a reasonable time, but it seems I don’t have a choice. It’s not like the lion is just going to lick me and go away. It felt like I was running in slow motion, it’s not often you’re about to be disemboweled so it gives your brain more slow motion juice than it’s prepared for. I hit the tree and suddenly everything went back to regular speed. I ran vertically and tore chunks out of the bark. I was in the tree, barely, but the creature was nipping at my heels.

I flew up and off, not like the lion could fly. Unless it was a griffin or something. The moment I thought that a pair of furry wings sprung from its flesh and a few pounces gave it the momentum to fly. Well this is an unexpected turn of events. I flew, only barely missing the car from the cumulonimbus class. But, I hope they were having a better time than I w-

“Hey. You need a ride?” One of the students asked. I nodded ferociously and swam through the air into the already full car. I very gracefully landed in the laps of three different people and they rolled up the window before the griffin could launch full speed, bonking off the window and dropping it to the ground. Mans got straight BODIED.

“Thanks, you’re really helpful,” I said, looking around at everyone.

The professor looked back at me, “How the hell did you annoy that thing so badly.” The griffin took another flying leap at the window but it was clear to him that he was hurting himself more than the car, so it left.

“I…um…long story.”

“Well, you wanna tell us? We’ve been flying around since our story and I think that makes it at least a year.”

I pondered this for a moment, “Your story?”

“Y’know, our journey of getting here.”

“Ah, no I was going for a walk and nothing else.”

“Nothing else?” He asked rhetorically. He wasn’t buying my shit story either. “What was the real reason you can’t tell us?”

“Okay fine you wore me down.”

“I can’t see how, I barely t-”

“I poked it with a stick.”

The professor stared at me, slackjawed. “You poked a mythical thousand year old creature…with a stick?”

Um, yeah. “Um…yeah. But in my defence I though it was just a lion.”

“Yeah that still doesn’t justify it. What were you hoping to accomplish besides getting horribly maimed.”

“If I’m being honest, I wanted to find you guys.”

The professor looked confused, moreso at the griffin coming back for a third and ultimately final time and it smashed it’s head against the window, leaving a bloody nose print for somebody to clean.

“Why did you want to find us?” he asked.

“I needed to talk to you about the cataclysm,” I puffed, suddenly feeling weak as I said the word cataclysm. Hooh, it makes me weak even in my internal monologue.