The Old Oak Tree (EPISODE 9)

That’s good.

Peter heard the words echo somewhere distant, splitting the mouth of a cave that drifted further and further from sight. He could feel himself sinking. He swallowed black liquid that enveloped and infused him, dull and cool against his ravaged throat. Vaguely, he waved his arms – not to swim, but to feel the dark waters against his skin, the water that acted as a balm to his cracked ribs and blossoming bruises. When he kicked his legs, barely perceptible ripples flowed outwards, soon disappearing, coming to nothing.

Like this, he fell. His limbs were outstretched, as if plummeting from a skyscraper, slowed only by the gloom. He fell endlessly, the surface of the waters swallowed by the dark, the bed of the endless ocean far beyond the sight of his bruised eyes.

Far, far above him, the old oak tree shrugged its leaves in a chill wind, and bloomed.

Eternities passed as Peter slumbered and fell, deeper and deeper into the embrace of the black. There was no pain. There was no time. There was no thought. But then, with violent force, the waters cascaded outwards, as if a great stone had been flung into Peter’s dream. Another came, with equal force, creating a gaping whirlpool that roared with the hatred of a hundred, murderous voices, throwing Peter about, disturbing him from his rest. Another plume of force – screaming voices, pain, pain in his chest – an explosion of air bursting through his lungs, and then, and then…

Thump.

Peter’s head impacted gently with the ocean bed. His eyes flickered open. He drew up his hand, trying to wash the dark from his eyes, but it didn’t feel like water, it felt like leaves: a thick, dusty foliage that shivered and crumbled against his fingers, stinking of the rot. Budding shoots grew in his nostrils and throat, choking him, grasping him.

Possessed with a sudden urgency, Peter flailed, ripping the leaves from his mouth, gagging black sap that clung to his fingers like blood. He tried to breathe, but his lungs burned with fungal spores, white spots of putrefaction spreading to form rheumy spots across his eyes. Peter screamed, though his voice was faint, reaching upwards, grasping only crumbling leaves, swimming through thick, smoky ash.

He screamed again, his voice hoarse. Tears stung at his eyes as his fingers closed around the old oak tree’s branch. His fingernails compacted with mould, the branch slick with putrefaction, but he maintained his grip, pulling himself upwards, reaching with another hand through the suffocating murk, searching for another branch. He pulled, feeling his legs drag free of the wet, thick soil, escaping from the shallow grave that rose up around him. He felt pain: the cracking of his ribs like snapping twigs, the heaving agony of his torso, the purple bruises that blossomed like the old oak tree across a burning skyline.

Peter climbed.

A distant scream, weak and childlike, echoed across the horizon of a thousand dying worlds. It grew louder as Peter climbed higher; the foliage grew denser and denser, pressing in on Peter’s body, finding every bruise and scar to pressure and prod. Peter gritted his teeth, reaching for another branch and heaving his body upwards.

Peter felt something shift above him as he disturbed the leaves, and closed his eyes as Isaac’s body began to fall: falteringly, brokenly, cracking bones against snapping branches, a dozen, tiny descents, a dozen, tiny deaths. He heard Isaac’s whimpered screams as the boy fell, endlessly, into the dark rot, mingling with the rumbling thunder of the old oak tree’s bough. Peter stumbled, almost losing his grip, but he hung on, crying out as the whirlpool roared about him, a vortex that simultaneously thrust him down and dragged him upwards, threatening to tear him in two. He felt his legs fly upwards, and finally let go, allowing his body to be ripped up into the endless sky, whipping through leaves and stinging branches. He flew faster and faster, feeling the welts and cuts of the old oak tree against his flailing limbs, spinning and spinning into a vortex that no longer seemed black, but instead a deep, bruising purple, graced with the migraine rings of white fire that pounded headaches through his temples. Up and up and up, and then –

He flew free of the old oak tree, and into the light of the sun. He had one glimpse of its perfect light, colourless by its sheer intensity, before it forced him to look away.

Beneath was a world on fire. Great, blooming clouds reached towards the sky, shuddering through the earth. Streaking metal comets exploded into white fire, breaking apart into smaller comets that then exploded, on and on into eternity. Men and women fought, heedless of the devastation about them, driving their fingernails into each other’s eyes, puncturing them like popped balloons, leaking pus. With knives they carved into each other’s flesh, cutting off great strips of meat, red and raw. And, all the time, they screamed hatred and terror, until hatred and terror could not be distinguished, but formed one, awful thing: one, animal impulse that tore the world asunder. And the old oak tree grew larger and larger, and its foliage reached wider and wider, and it spread across the entire surface of the world. And its leaves formed white spots, a white that blurred out the black, until the leaves ignited in the air, and the earth was transformed into an endless, all-consuming fire, and –

“Peter? Open your eyes.”

Peter gasped, his lungs filling with fresh air. Nancy was crouched over him, her one remaining hand pressed against his chest. Her eyes seemed full of fire. Peter blinked.

‘Peter? Are you awake?’

‘Y-yes,’ Peter replied. He groaned as pain erupted across his body.

‘Okay,’ Nancy said. She looked away from Peter, scanning the town. Peter could hear angry shouts, but before he could process what was happening, Nancy glanced back to him. ‘Okay,’ she repeated. ‘We need to get you out of here.’

She grimaced.

‘This is going to hurt.’