There, beneath the gnarled roots, was Halo, lower body buried in moss-laden vines that moved independently, possessed. Their constriction increased second by second.
Several feet away, another tree held a second copy of him, slowly taking shape in the woods. The exact predicament he'd been fleeing.
"Too tight!"
Fighting made it worse. His hands were completely immobilized, and he could feel what was happening to his bones, the small cracks, the joints pulling apart, slow but deliberate.
He didn't understand the mechanism, but the trees had demonstrated their nature clearly enough. Hostile didn't begin to cover it.
His thoughts scrambled for solutions while he strained against the crushing vines. Force alone wouldn't free him, and intelligence was useless when it only showed up after the fact.
However, his mind grasped something, an experience even.
