Mother Village -finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina... ◆

The Mother Tree was still standing. But it had changed.

"But now you're back," the woman continued, rising to her feet. Her joints cracked like breaking branches. "And the village is dead, Fina. All of them. Every family that fed me, I fed on in return. Only the children remain—trapped inside me, not alive, not dead. Waiting for a mother who never came." Mother Village -Finished- - Version- Ch. 1 Fina...

Fina shook her head.

Fina spun. A woman sat on a low stone at the base of the tree. She was old—older than the Council, older than the village itself, it seemed. Her skin was bark-brown and cracked like dry earth. Her eyes were two hollows with tiny flames flickering inside. The Mother Tree was still standing

"No more children."

The path down was overgrown with thornvines that hadn't been there before. She cut through them with a rusted machete, the blade singing against the thorns. Every step felt like wading through mud made of memory. Her joints cracked like breaking branches

Fina looked at the skeletons. Then at the glowing crack in the tree.