Chapter 1150: Story 1150: Eyes from the Bark
The trees in Wyrmshade Glen had eyes.
Not leaves. Not knots. Eyes.
Round, unblinking, and wide as a silver coin, they bulged from bark and branches alike. So wept sap like tears. Others twitched when you passed. All of them watched.
For generations, the glen was forbidden. Even the wild animals gave it a wide berth. But Edda Varn, a scholar from the distant city of Cindral, thought the tales of Wyrmshade were poetic taphors—exaggerations of superstitious woodsn.
She arrived at the edge of the glen on the 13th night of harvest, clutching her notebook, a lantern, and a relic she found in a forgotten monastery: a carved wooden eye, identical to those rumored in the forest.
Her research called it the Sight of Ulosh—a god whose gaze could pierce lies and mory alike.
As she entered the glen, the forest stilled.
The leaves held their breath.
The first eye opened on a trunk beside her. Then another. And another. Soon, a hundred eyes stared down from above, all glowing faintly with moonlight.
Edda pressed forward, fascinated. She whispered her observations, sketched the patterns of bark, and held the relic tightly.
But then the trees began to shift.
Their branches curled into fingers. Roots lifted, exposing faces hidden beneath the moss. The eyes moved—not randomly, but as one—tracking her like a predator studying its prey.
She heard a voice—not spoken, but in her mind.
“You bear our eye. Do you see what we have seen?”
The relic in her palm burned.
Visions assaulted her—flashes of blood spilled at altars, of n hanged by root and vine, of offerings bound in bark and buried alive. She scread and dropped the relic.
A tree near her groaned open—its bark parting like flesh. Inside, suspended in resin, was a man—or what was left of one. His eyes were wide, replaced with polished wooden orbs. His mouth was open, screaming in eternal silence.
The voice whispered again:
“We rember all. Now you will, too.”
Roots erupted from the ground, grabbing her legs. Bark grew over her skin like ivy, wrapping her arms, her chest, her throat. The last thing she saw before her eyes were sealed were the others—faces—entombed in trunks around her.
Each tree in Wyrmshade had once been soone.
Now she would be one, too.
The next morning, the glen was quiet.
A new tree stood near the edge, younger than the others. On its bark, two fresh eyes had blood—still wet, still blinking.
If you pass through Wyrmshade, you may hear whispers among the leaves, like pages turning, or mory being stolen.
And if you stare too long at one of the trees, you might see an eye blink.
Or worse—
See yourself staring back.
In Wyrmshade Glen, the trees don’t grow from the ground.
They grow from the mind.
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