The Call

I hear them through the drone Their branches – rustling, stretching to touch my thoughts. I hear their whispers in my ear with the futile hope of escape. The Fighter stops me. He walks down our aisle, his steady gait keeping us chained to the confines of this place. A clang echoes through the room. Clang. Steady. Monotonous. Metal meeting metal. Heat rising in toxic vapors Steam jettisoned from the pipes. It is a molten world. We are anxious, trapped. Yet we know nothing else. Again they reach out to me. I feel their tug. It is unnatural. I feel myself turning, releasing myself from his grasp, drifting away from the others. Through the fog I can see him shout, a primordial scream lost in the haze. But for him it is too late. For I have reached the trees, and they free me.