Hidden Hearts

Cassie stared in abject horror while the attacking army swarmed the dense forest, their weapons droning like killer wasps. Their armored tanks laid waste to anyone in their path until they threatened her friend Odora with giant metal claws.

"Mercy! Mercy!"

They showed her none.

For miles the wind carried her painful groans, but the enemy refused to listen. When Odora fell with a deafening thud, the birds returned her soul to Artemis.

No, I can't bear to watch!

Cassie's parents had warned her never to fight back. If you see the enemy, pray for a quick end. If you show them your face, they'll make you suffer.

Why?

They hate us. They show no remorse. They carve their knives into our flesh, peel away our skins, and slice us into pieces while we bleed on the floor.

Cassie's heart pounded with violent fury as they approached her home next. She wondered if her fear would kill her before the monsters.

But they overlooked her.

She sighed with relief. By some miracle they didn't notice —

No!

Not Diana!

They revved their killing machine, which roared louder than a lion. Cassie trembled as her best friend cried to her goddess.

"Oh, Artemis! Protect me!"

Cassie couldn't watch in silence while they murdered her dearest friend. Her brave soul committed the most heinous crime among her kind.

She revealed herself to the enemy.

With a scream Cassie forced her way through the core of the oak. She peeled herself from her protector's grizzled bark with a pain akin to ripping a bandage off a wound. Burning fire raged across every pore of her skin. The oaken sinews reshaped themselves into a young human female her enemies would recognize.

Now Cassie could speak as one of them, a desperate move to save her childhood friend.

"No, don't hurt her!" she cried in a raspy voice.

The enemy paused.

For the first time since the slaughter began, the General silenced her weapon. She shielded her soldiers and gazed upon her newfound foe with suspicion.

"Who are you?"

"Please don't kill my friend!" Cassie shielded her own oak with her slender body, shaking with terror. "She's innocent."

When Cassie swallowed, it hurt like razor blades.

The General looked almost puzzled. "Your...your friend?"

"Her name is Diana, and she helps you every day." Tears of sap welled in Cassie's eyes. "She breathes in your toxins and cleans the air."

"What on Earth are you babbling about?" The General took three purposeful strides toward Cassie, her weapon outstretched. "Are you an eco-warrior?"

"A what?"

"One of those tree huggers?" The General's voice grew louder with each passing second. "Idiots who strap themselves to tree trunks to make our lives difficult?"

Cassie pressed herself against the trunk, desperate to resume her natural shape.

"You...you're attached to the tree!" the General exclaimed. "How is that even possible?"

A stunned expression flitted across the General's face as though she was questioning her own sanity. Over the centuries humans could never tell where dryads ended and their oaks began, bodies and souls intertwined in a delicate balance as the gods had intended.

"I'm one of the Hidden Hearts," replied Cassie.

"Hidden Hearts?"

"I...I'm a..." Cassie paused. "Your ancestors called us dryads. We're the hearts of the oaks. They protect us, and we give them life."

The General laughed and gestured at her form. "Nice get-up. Moss and mushrooms woven into your hair. Clever. But dryads are a myth."

"And yet here I am."

The General stopped mid-laugh, her derision turning to anger. "Look, lady, I'm just doing my job. I got a family to feed. This world's falling apart. I ain't got a choice."

"You always have a choice." When Cassie took a step forward, the bark tugged at her bronze flesh, forbidding her from venturing any closer. "If you kill us all, you will die."

The General scoffed.

"Our goddess, the Lady Artemis, will petition Apollo and Poseidon for revenge," continued Cassie. "Once they show their rage, it will be too late."

"Greek myths are stories. Grow up!"

"Stories that explain how nature works," retorted Cassie. "Nature is real."

"I've had about enough of this." The General revved her weapon once more and turned to her soldiers. "Cut it down. All of them."

"No, please!"

"This one..." The General pointed at Cassie. "This one belongs to me."

Her soldiers nodded and prepared their tanks to attack.

"Spare Diana!" cried Cassie. "I beg you!"

The General met her gaze. "Diana—as you call it—goes down first."

Diana shrieked in horror as their tanks grabbed her by the roots, tearing her from the ground. "Oh, Cassie! How has it come to this? Why do they hate us?"

Cassie gazed at the heavens. "Artemis, save us!"

Diana's spirit escaped before her oak protector fell with a sickening thud, bones breaking across the dusty soil. One by one Cassie's friends succumbed to their demise. Until she was the only dryad left alive.

The General stared as Cassie sobbed, inconsolable. The lush evergreen and deciduous forest now lay empty, a barren field of utter desolation and ruin.

"Your gods are fake," hissed the General. "We don't believe in superstition anymore. If they were real, why don't they smite me?"

"You..." Cassie hiccupped. "You'll regret this."

"So long, tree hugger."

The General vanished inside her tank and drove away, leaving Cassie alone.

Cassie shrank back inside the oak, drawing her knees to her chest. "Artemis, why me? Why didn't you save her? Why don't you help us?"

Her cries did not fall on deaf ears.

Poseidon battered every coast with horrific storms while Apollo's blistering heat consumed the northern and southern ice. Smaller and smaller the habitable land shrank on Planet Earth. Locusts lay billions of eggs in the remaining fertile soil, decimating their food supply.

As humans shriveled to skin and bone, the General knelt before Cassie, begging for a single acorn to eat. "Mercy! Mercy!"

Cassie smiled as the General breathed her last.