Aeris

FINAL COPY:

Title: Aeris

They broke through the jungle canopy at midmorning, damp with sweat and soft declarations of wonder. The jungle made everything softer. The air, the light. Even thoughts, if left untethered long enough. The air was thick with that sweet, vegetal stillness that only comes miles from roads, wires, and clocks. Every breath tasted green.

There were six of them. Scientists, in theory. But none moved like theorists. Their boots were scuffed. Their gear was worn. They moved like people who had spent too many weeks together in too tight a radius—close, competent, tired of talking.

Jun was the first to see it.

"Whoa."

No one answered at first. They followed his line of sight and fell into the kind of quiet only discovery can bring.

The tree stood in a hollow not marked on any map, not logged by drone. It grew alone, centered perfectly in a ring of dark, unfurrowed soil. Its bark was pale, almost white, spiraling upward like it had once tried to flee the earth but changed its mind. No vines. No moss. No birds. Just the tree.

And the air around it shimmered—barely, but undeniably.

Jun stepped forward, notebook in hand. The others hung back. He always sketched the same thing three times—once fast, once focused, once blind.

He said it helped him see what wasn't visible on first glance. His mother used to say he drew ghosts—not what was there, but what was hiding behind it.

Much later, someone else would stand there too, empty-handed. But not yet.

Anya was the first to speak. "Soil’s dry. Despite the humidity. No surface roots. No underbrush."

Callum leaned in beside her. "Pollen?"

A breeze answered. A fine dust drifted from the upper branches—golden, soft, weightless. It shimmered across their faces like fog and vanished.

No one coughed. No one moved.

Jun’s pencil was already moving. He didn’t look up.

The conversation never fully returned after that.

Notebook Fragment — Anya:

Soil pH reading: 8.9. Unnatural for this depth.

Tree possibly parasitic? No surrounding vegetation within 20m.

Note: visual symmetry unsettling. Too perfect to be real.

They set up camp a hundred meters back. Anya marked quadrants. Her labels were always perfect—pencil, ruler, date. Even on sample bags no one else would see. She once said order was what kept things from growing wild. No one ever asked what she meant. Callum checked instruments. His gear was clean, but his nails were bitten raw. Jun sketched the tree from the edge of the clearing—over and over. No one lit a fire.

The tree held a faint glow, not from within, but as if the moon had remembered it—soft and silver, like breath on glass.

Camp, Night One

They worked fast. The tents were up before dusk. A tarp stretched between two trees kept the dew off their gear. Dinner was powdered lentils and vacuum-sealed rice. Hot enough to do the job.

They sat in a loose circle, trading quiet jokes.

"Ten bucks says Jun already named it," Callum said.

Jun didn’t look up. "I did, actually."

"Oh god," Anya groaned.

"Let’s hear it," Sasha said, reclining like royalty over a drybag. She tapped her mug twice before every sip—some old camping superstition, maybe.

"Aeris."

Pause.

"That’s actually... kinda pretty," Callum admitted.

"Means 'air' in Latin," Jun said.

Anya muttered, "That’s even worse."

Laughter, soft and short-lived. As it faded, they slipped back into stories and silence. Jun smiled more than usual. It wasn't joy. Just relief, maybe. Like he finally saw something he’d been waiting for.

Sasha leaned back and squinted into the dark.

"It’s too quiet here," she said.

They all looked.

The tree stood still. Pale. Framed in the dark.

Jun closed his notebook.

Notebook Fragment — Jun:

Named it Aeris. Don’t know why. Felt like it already had a name before I gave it one.

Morning After

The mist clung low as Callum unzipped his tent. Cool. Clean. The kind of quiet that pressed in around the ears.

Jun was sketching again. Anya boiled water.

Callum paused.

Sasha’s tent had moved.

Not much—just a few feet downslope. Toward the tree.

The guy lines were tight. Stakes were in. No drag marks.

He said nothing.

Breakfast passed like fog—thin, quiet, and tasteless. Nothing warm but the mugs in their hands. But beneath the silence, something else had taken root. Something still.

Callum reached for his bag. Frowned.

"Anyone see my—"

"You left it on the south marker," Sasha said. She tossed him his compass without looking. It landed beside his cup.

He turned it over three times before pocketing.

They began logging samples. Mapping the drip radius.

Anya worked clockwise. Jun, counter. Sasha lingered near the edge—boots just inside the bare ring. She didn’t write anything down.

It was Anya who found the bone.

She didn’t call them over right away. She lingered, like she already knew what she’d find but had hoped, irrationally, to be wrong.

She knelt. Brushed soil back slowly. A ribcage. Small. Curled.

Hands drawn inward, like it had died trying to hold something. Or keep it in.

Notebook Fragment — Anya:

Voluntary posture. No trauma. Hands over center. Ritualistic or instinctive?

And the tree stood still.

Watching.

Closer than it had been before.

Even though no one had moved.

Act II — Symptoms

The sun burned the mist away. But the warmth didn’t reach the feeling beneath.

Jun found an animal skeleton—curled like the human remains. A long scratch along the ribs. Others nearby. All arched inward. All facing the tree.

Sasha found birds. Huddled under roots. Every one hunched. Talons drawn toward their own bodies.

None looked like they’d tried to flee.

Notebook Fragment — Callum:

Avian and mammal remains. All fetal or hunched inward. Minimal struggle.

Facing east. Toward the tree.

Why gather?

They didn’t talk much. But they lingered longer.

Jun’s sketches looped like roots in shallow soil—circling the same trunk, over and over, without scale or horizon. Some no longer resembled trees at all—just spirals, veins, or ribs curled inward like petals.

Anya forgot tools. Callum lost track of logs.

They sat longer at lunch, like leaves caught in still water—adrift but anchored, unmoving, unspoken. Pollen shimmered in the sun. It didn’t itch. It smelled... warm.

Notebook Fragment — Sasha:

Pollen collected. Dense. Cohesive. Sweet scent. Not dispersing in air.

Possibly neuroactive? Check against stimulant profiles.

Unnatural behavior?

By evening, Jun had moved his bedroll closer to the clearing.

No one commented.

Act III — Descent

Rain came that afternoon. A soft curtain over the clearing. Most retreated to their tents. Anya wandered.

She thought she saw someone near the clearing edge—just past where the brush started to thicken. A figure. Not moving. She blinked, and it was gone. When she stepped closer, there were no tracks. Just soil. Smooth and dry.

She found fabric.

Torn sleeve. Expedition gear. Stained deep. The collar still bore the ghost of lettering.

Beneath the roots, bones.

Spinal column pierced. Ribs collapsed inward. Roots threading through like veins.

And etched near the base—a spiral. Not natural.

Notebook Fragment — Anya:

Root growth through remains. Depth ~30cm. Carved mark—repeating spiral.

Not breakage. Intentional. Not recent.

That night, they didn’t sit together. Jun’s hand was wrapped. His knuckles were swollen. Split. Blood bloomed through the rag like rust.

He said Sasha took his sketchbook.

No one checked on her.

Her tent had slumped inward, leaning like a flower too long in shadow—soft at the stem, bent instead of broken.

At the flap—just a touch of dried red, the final petal before rot.

The next day, Anya and Callum fought.

Over the tarp. Over space. Over nothing.

But this time, when she turned away, Callum grabbed her wrist.

Not hard. Not soft either.

She pulled free. Said nothing.

Jun didn’t intervene. He watched. Sketching stopped.

Later, Anya walked toward the tree. She moved slowly, reverently. Her hand touched the bark.

Callum watched her.

His breath slowed.

She whispered something, and then turned to look at Callum.

She smiled.

Not kindly. Not cruelly. Just knowingly—like someone who'd seen the end of something and accepted it.

“I saw Sasha,” she said, voice low, almost tender. “She’s still here. Just... underneath. It’s not death. It’s remembering.”

He remembered holding the rock earlier. He hadn’t meant to take it—he’d just been gripping something, grounding himself. Now, it was in his hand again. Solid. Real.

What if she was right?

What if the tree only took what was offered?

One step. Then another.

He raised the rock.

Anya didn’t move.

She just stood there, eyes open.

Then, without warning, he swung.

Anya staggered. Blood sprayed across the bark—bright red, startling, beautiful. She didn’t fall.

The second blow took her down.

The sound it made wasn’t something that belonged in the jungle.

It was something else.

It was human.

A little further off, Jun’s sketchbook lay shut. Not dropped. Placed.

No one touched it.

No one looked for him.

Notebook Fragment — Anya:

Callum’s afraid. I’m not.

The tree keeps us. Like roots keep soil.

It only takes what it’s given.

Act IV — Collapse

They called his name.

He didn’t answer.

When he looked up, his eyes were red, raw. For a second, something in him lit—recognition, or hope, or something worse.

“Anya?” he whispered.

Then it shattered.

The scream that left him bloomed like rot bursting from fruit—wet, voiceless, old. It tore through the jungle louder than anything they’d made in days.

The dust rose around him again, unseen.

He scrambled backward, palms slipping in the mud. His lips moved but made no sense.

"No—don’t breathe it, don’t—it’s still—"

"They’re gone, they’re gone, I had to—"

"She wanted it—she asked—she smiled—"

They moved gently. One knelt, hands extended—open and slow, like approaching something wild that still remembered pain.

Callum fell forward, hands gripping his own face.

And then came the sobbing.

Ugly. Guttural. Heaving.

His body shook uncontrollably—chest stuttering, arms spasming, vomit rising, collapsing against itself.

The moment was silent around him except for the sound of it:

The sound of a name trying to return to a face.

They wrapped him in foil. Oxygen mask. Wrist restraints.

No one asked about the others.

Not yet.

A little ways off, half-buried in moss, something rested where he'd dropped it.

A piece of bark.

Red-stained. Clean.

Etched with a spiral.

Too perfect to be wild.

Epilogue

The facility was clean. White tile. Fluorescent lights. One chair. One bed.

Callum sat on the edge of it, hands folded in his lap. The notebook was beside him. He hadn’t asked for it—they gave it back anyway.

Aeris came up more than once in the notes. One responder flagged it as a possible teammate.

No one found that name on the manifest.

Callum never explained.

The report on the desk was slim:

Atmospheric Composition: Normal.

Pollen Composition: Harmless.

No neurotoxins. No psychoactive agents. No pathogens.

Subjects likely experienced acute psychotic decompensation under stress.

Trigger: Unknown.

No one said the word madness.

They didn’t have to.

Callum stared ahead, breathing shallow. Occasionally blinking, like someone had to remind him to. The notebook was beside him. He hadn’t opened it. Not yet. But he kept his hand near it, as if something inside might still be unfinished.

Final, Unsigned Note — Unknown:

The tree never moved.

The tree never wanted.

It was us.

It was always us.

As Callum sat alone in the sterile light, the breeze outside the glassless window shifted.

Through the screen, a fleck of yellow dust drifted in the air.

Barely visible. Almost nothing at all.

Maybe he saw it. Maybe he always had.

He didn’t move. The human mind is soft soil. Something always takes root.