As the world passed me by, day after day, I stood carefully and watched time slow down for the only two who cared to come see me.
For 10 years they visited me through the burnt ground and dead trees around me. They stepped over ashen logs and sunken ground. Through the wet summers, and dormant winters.
They visited me the most when spring bloomed which brought my branches beautiful flowers and flourishing rodents.
They climbed my branches and picked my blossoms for their mother until they left me with few. Soon, summer and fall would leave the ground with many and me none.
I was the tallest thing around for miles in this dead forest. I was the only thing left untouched, a perfect circle of life in this dead valley.
The mysterious spot where the fire had not touched was no secret to the tree that lives here. The force protecting me is buried deep beneath my roots, directly under where I was planted some three-hundred years ago.
The young boy who raised me, gave me a magical stone. My heart deep inside of me.
If someone were to take my heart, these new children would have nothing to gain from me. They would never visit this perished cherry blossom in the summer. Never in the fall or the winter. And definitely not in the spring. For I would not produce my beloved flowers. And I would have nothing to share.
My story, and all the ones I've witnessed in the making, would be over.
