Page 3 of The Mountain Man's Curvy Trick-or-Treat

A calm so deep it feels rehearsed.

This morning, beneath the Mother Tree in the deepest part of the woods, I pressed into her ancient energy for wisdom.

“Live. Breathe. Love,” she’d told me. More felt than heard.

Her trunk rises like a cathedral of light, sap veins pulsing in blues and greens that answer the glow in my own skin. When I press my palm to her bark, the hum aligns—mine and hers, one continuous frequency older than the stars. For a moment, I almost believe redemption is photosynthetic.

My commander says breeding with humans is entropy. But Mother Tree showed me how purity is poison—something our half-alien, half-human cousins figured out long ago.

The one piece of the puzzle I still can’t wrap my head around, though, is resonance. Been here for literal ages, not even caught a glimpse of it with a human, man or woman.

I take another sip of coffee, waving goodbye as I pull out of the junkyard, windows still down, small-town noises filling the cab. Children’s laughter, a barking dog, locals chatting amiably. In the distance, a train calls, lonely as I feel.

The mountain road coils upward, rain whispering against the windshield. The hum in my bones keeps time with the wipers—two metronomes of regret. It gnaws at me, like the occasional glitches from my failing regulator.

I should report the issues to Command. But then, Command should already know …ifthey cared anymore. Can’t even blame them. Nothing has made sense in too long to remember.

Every mile of this road feels longer than the last century.

No beacon. No orders. Just the echo of the constructs’ death-cry in my head and the promise of a tribunal that’ll never come.

Maybe that’s punishment enough—being left to rot in peace.

The cabin greets me like an accusation: a single lamp burning, tools scattered across the workbench, the faint smell of ozone and pine sap. I used to think solitude meant safety. Now it just sounds hollow. Like the faint copper taste of lightning waiting to strike.

I pour what’s left of the coffee, let it go cold in my hands. The storm outside thickens, white noise swallowing the world. I can almost hear High Command whispering across the static, reminding me what happens to traitors.

I should feel regret. I don’t. Only emptiness.

Maybe the Mother Tree was right. Without living, life is dead. Guess I’m half-dead already.

Lightning cleaves the dark; for one heartbeat, the empty chair isn’t empty. Then the world exhales, and I’m alone again. Except for a distant buzz. Like Rook’s signature flicker in the static—impossible, but there.

The wind hits the walls hard enough to shake the glass. I close my eyes and tell myself it’s just the storm. Nothing coming up the mountain. No one foolish enough to find me.

I throw off my flannel, bare-chested in the fading light. Let the cabin fill with my radiating glow. No one to fool or impress.

The hum rises beneath the rain, a pulse older than storms. My skin answers with a faint aurora, soft blues chasing through gold.

Change, it whispers—or maybe that’s just the part of me still bright enough to believe.

Far down the mountain, I can still hear the children—costume-clad shadows scattering across the pavement. Life hums on, steady and unbothered, with or without me.

Chapter

Two

EVERETT

The storm hasn’t let up. It’s turned mean. Wind howling through the eaves, rain pelting the roof hard enough to rattle the rafters.

I’m halfway to sleep in the chair by the fire, boots still on, when the knock comes.

Three sharp raps. Then another, smaller one … like an apology.

Nobody ever comes this far up the mountain. Not by accident. Not by choice … and lives to talk about it.

The hum in my chest spikes, the same whisper of change that’s haunted me all night.