“Wake up. Aidren, Wake up.”

The words pulled me from a cavernous slumber. Not waiting for me to be fully roused, my dad quickly grabbed me and pulled me out of bed. I was delirious from sleep, but before I knew it, my shoes were on. My pajamas were still on, so I began to protest. Usually, he would give in, I knew how to pull on his heart, but that time he didn’t say anything. That was when I knew something was wrong, and I became fully awake. He looked scared, his eyes were quickly shifting back and forth. I’d never seen him like that, even when he was deploying to go to war. My mom was at the bottom of the stairs, and seeing her, I started to panic.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You have to go with your dad,” she replied.

“No!” I tried to pull away from her, but she held onto my arm. She stared at me for a moment, her dark brown eyes intense, so I relented. “Why just me? What about you?”

“I’ll just slow you and your father down,” she soothed.

“What’s going on?” I pleaded for an answer.

“Come on, out the back!” My father interjected loudly.

My mother gave me an enveloping hug, and my fear started to boil over. I was confused and didn’t want to leave, but the experience was surreal, so I let my dad pull me away. Before he did, my mother cupped my face in her hands, and once more looked me in the eyes. Her brown eyes shone with moisture, her almond skin paled with worry.

“I love you, Aidren,” she said.

I didn’t even have time to answer her as my father grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the back door. The sliding glass door was open, and as we passed through it, we were plunged into darkness. It was only a few feet to the end of our back yard. In the darkness, the brick wall looked solid and insurmountable. Before I had a chance to consider how we were going to get over it, my dad hoisted me up and sat me down on the top. It surprised me since he always claimed I was too big to pick up, and he hadn’t done it in a while. I thought that this might be the last time he ever would.

My father was up and over the wall in seconds, and then he lowered me down on the other side. He placed his finger over his lips for quiet, but at that point, I was so scared and confused that I couldn’t even form thoughts, let alone words. We slunk down a long alley that was between the houses, and after quickly glancing along the intersecting street, we sprinted across. Just as we got into the darkness of some trees and the entrance to a trail, a loud scream pierced the night, followed by a loud bang.

My father pulled on my arm, and we began running down the dark trail. I quickly ran out of breath and started begging to stop, but we kept running. Abruptly, we turned off the path and plowed into some bushes and between trees. Lights began to flash above us, and I could hear voices yelling through the dark. The bushes kept catching on my thin pajama bottoms and scratching my bare forearms. More lights started to flash in the surroundings, coming from different directions and kept getting closer. We stopped at the base of a large tree, its trunk rough and gnarled, and its long branches hung out like a giant umbrella.

My dad’s breathing was deep and labored as he said, “We’re too late.” He slammed his fist on the trunk and rested his head on his forearm.

“Hands up,” boomed a voice from off to the right.

My father straightened his back and turned around after the man’s yell, and I could see his fists clenching in the broken illumination.

In a coordinated effort, multiple people come out of the trees at the same time. They all had rifles with blazing lights mounted on them, which were pointed in my father’s direction. They were dressed in close-fitting black clothes, with black ski masks and helmets covering their faces. They yelled again at my father, and I shrunk back against the tree in fear.

“Get down,” a man directly in front of my father yelled.

My father ran toward the man without warning, and multiple loud bangs, like a bat hitting a metal trashcan rang out. My dad fell back, his arms flailed in the air, and he landed on the ground.

“No,” I yelled hoarsely, unable to comprehend what I just saw. Then I started to cry as the terror of what was happening gripped me. Simultaneously, all the men stopped pointing their guns at the prostrate form of my father to point them at me. I sobbed and feebly attempted to ask them not to kill me. I didn’t know if they would listen, and I wasn’t sure they understood me through my tears.

As the men stepped forward cautiously, everything around me began to shimmer with different colored lights. The men gave off a glow that changed with every movement they made, a dark red sheen came up from the ground, and the branches of the tree glowed green and ochre, shifting slightly in the swaying wind. My hands were glowing white when I looked at them, but I could see from the corner of my eyes that as I focused on each object, my hands changed color to mimic that of the object within my gaze.

The men, most likely soldiers I realized in the back of my mind, continued to move forward at a steady pace. I knew I didn’t have a chance, but I had to try and get away from them. I jumped to my feet and turned to run, immediately tripping over a root and falling back to the ground. A root jabbed me in my side, and my head hit hard on the ground. Adrenaline was still pumping through me, and as I placed my hand down to help myself up, the color of my hand changes ochre as it comes into contact with the tree’s root.

Immediately I felt connected to the tree, as if we were one and I could move it like my own body. It was also a deeper connection than that. I felt like I could do more with the tree than I was ever able to with my body as if I could move it like it was a part of me if I wanted.

My attackers halted at my fall, but they resumed moving forward as I began to stand. With my new connection to the tree, I envisioned the branches reaching down and grabbing the soldiers. The tree did as I thought and reached down. The men began to scream as the gnarled branches tightened around them. Flashes of light burst from multiple muzzles as a few soldiers managed to pull the triggers of their guns. The steady staccato of rifle fire echoed through the area. Pieces of earth were kicked up from the impact of bullets creating dozens of dirt fountains. I wanted the soldiers gone for what they were doing to me, for what they did to my dad. The branches of the tree shot upward while simultaneously releasing the men. I only heard their screams fading into the darkness.

I let go of the root, falling to my knees, my head felt like a helium balloon, and my vision swirled like I was on a carnival ride. I didn’t know if it was from my weird connection to the tree or my fall, but I knew I had to run. I took a deep breath, and as I stood, intent on going to check on my dad before I fled, my body seized like the time I stuck my finger in a light socket, only one hundred times worse. I fell to the ground again, this time barely noticing as a root dug into my ribs. The last thing I saw was a pair of black boots walking towards me.