Disclaimer: This horror story is purely fictional. Any resemblance to name, place, organization or community is purely a coincidence. The story is neither meant for harming any living being, nor does it encourage readers to believe in paranormal activities. The images used in the post are only for representation purpose. They are downloaded from internet and the author doesn't bear the rights of the same.
Warning: Reader discretion is advised!
Story till now: Read at Haunted Tree - Dark Territory
Covered in the layers of bedsheets, I laid there awakened amidst the terrific aura of fear. The sound of crickets had suddenly denoised that night. Everything was calm and pacified. It was just 2 days past full moon day and there was enough light falling on the leaves of tamarind tree near our house as it was quite visible from my bed itself.
Profusely sweating and shivering simultaneously in the cold weather, I rose up to my feet and glanced at the peaceful surrounding, although terrified about the events in my teacher's house. I was more terrified on thinking how I reached my room from the entrance of the door where I felt unconscious for quite some time and doubted whether my teacher had reached my home.
The high possibility of my mother's existence in the house during such odd midnight hours gave me a sigh of relief. I was the only son of my widowed mother. My father died of chronic heart failure in our own house a few years ago the reason of which I was never told. I looked around for the sight of my mother so as to verify my assumption of my mother bringing me upstairs as she always did when I came home drunk from parties sometimes.
I came out of my room and entered living room where I found nothing in particular except that the door to the basement was unlocked and slightly open with my mother's footwear near the door. Now that I was confirmed about her presence I, at once, directed my legs towards the basement with a doubled curiosity that she never allowed me to go down there while she herself was there tonight. With heavy steps on the old wooden staircase, I reached the basement flashing my torch and called out to my mother without receiving any reply. I tossed my head around in search of my mother and instead stepped onto one of the rigid bags and fell down.
I flashed the torch on the things fallen out of the bag and was quite surprised to find my father's unseen photographs included in those things. The other things included wooden artifacts and toys which seemed to be the excellent works of my father and photographs of few trees in which one of them was that of the tree which had almost deceived me. I was taken aback. There was a long note lying beside me.
"Dear son, your father was a successful legal woodcutter and a timber supplier in the country since a decade. He used to cut down old trees for producing timber required for the city dwellers the unused part of which he kept with him to design wonderful toys out of his hobby. He kept a photograph of the tree before cutting them down and the toys, both in the basement.
It was just a few months ago that he got a contract to cut down an old tree on the outskirts of the town which was reported to show some obnoxious behavior in terms of growth and shedding of leaves irrespective of season.
One fine day, your father headed towards that tree and was startled at first upon glancing at the very tender, pale and bright green coloured leaves of the tree contradicting the description received by him during the contract. There was no way he could confirm about it and moreover, there was never a mistake in the official statements and hence he proceeded to chop it down.
As soon as he was about to lay his machine on the tree there arose a fire in its stem which was small enough to be extinguished by a bucket of water. But the fire refused to vanish even after using 4-5 buckets, that was when he decided to cut the tree as the fire was neither growing large nor burning the tree even slightly. He did accordingly, leaving aside the burning stem for it was so firmly rooted that the machine was unable to even move the leftover stem an inch aside.
The tree was however proved unfit as timber which left all the wood with him and he thought of renovating our house with the obtained wood. He did it within few months and also designed an evil-looking creature and kept it in the basement. I got aware of his experience with this tree when he told me about it few days later and I was frightened. I was further angry on him for making a wicked toy out of this one too, though I rarely visited his basement.
The next day he was found dead in the basement with no external injury seated in his wooden chair with ambiguity on his face. The police investigation, however, reported it as an unfortunate incident due to a heart failure. I raised you, my son, with great care stepping aside this unforgetful memory of your father. In order to hide the past and secure your future from negative thoughts, I even locked the basement forever and never told you what existed there.
I had written until this line many years ago so that I may show it you after you complete your teenage. Today I got a phone of your teacher who advised me to share it with you now as she was confirmed, you're more mature as a person, now. I hope you understand me.
Love, Mom."
I was startled upon noticing on the floor, the same creature carved in the wood as that I saw during my several experiences with that haunted tree, the truth of which had dawned upon me very late. I trembled with fear upon realization of this harsh truth which was now a terrible past of the tragic experiences which I perceived. With a torch in hand, I looked out for mother in the bright light of the fire. There she laid, down on the ground in the dark corner of the basement meeting a horrible death due to this tree. I was emotional yet terrified at the same moment. The teacher was not a real living identity, I realized.
The only thing left with me to do was to destroy the past including that bag of toys and all those photographs so that I would face no more horrible experience henceforth. I lit a match and set the bagful of wooden toys on fire and threw all the photographs on it. Trembling with fear, while I rushed upstairs, I watched the entire basement getting caught in a fire all of a sudden.
I at once reached the main door, forced it open and stepped out into the lawn to get away from the dreadful instance which had befallen me until few steps upon which there appeared several evil-looking figures from the toys marching towards me from all sides. I turned back and ran hastily inside the house in order to reach the telephone and inform the cops for immediate help. But before I could even move ahead, the entire house was in flames. Upon observing carefully I noticed that the walls and ceiling of our house were transforming into raw wooden textures and it appeared as if the tree was trying to grasp the entire house within its stem, simultaneously burning like anything.
Before I could think about anything else, the house took the shape of the ill-fated wicked tree which was concerned with my strange experiences, the curse of which had befallen upon me from my father and was entirely in captivity of the curse then. A huge roar of laughter which resembled that of my teacher was heard. The tree suddenly shed all its leaves filling my entire house which caught more fire and turned the house into ashes within a couple of seconds.
"Did you hear about the case of woodcutter's family?"
"Yes. Fate had it done. The mother-son pair can't simply go missing as mentioned by cops in their report."
"True, but equally true is the fact that cops upon careful examination stated so. The house was entirely empty and there were no traces of anything which could provide any evidence of happenings of last night, they said!"
"So tragic it is! God bless the souls!"
They walked away and I could see some leaves shedding all over me. Since then I am captivated in that same fiery tree until it finds it's next target!
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