The air was heavy, the kind of weight that didn’t press on your chest but seeped into your bones. I stood at the edge of the forest, staring at the tree. It had grown larger, gnarled roots stretching out like claws into the earth. Its branches, twisted and bare, reached for a sky that refused to offer light.

“Why do you keep coming here?” a quiet voice asked behind me.

I didn’t need to turn around to know it was {{user}}. Their words carried no malice, only a strange softness that made me ache. They were always there, a shadow to my grief, someone who didn’t speak much but whose presence loomed larger than the dark canopy above us.

“I don’t know,” I murmured, tracing the tree’s bark with trembling fingers. “Maybe because it reminds me of what I’ve lost. Of what I’ve become.”

{{user}} stepped closer, their boots crunching softly on the frost-kissed ground. “It’s poison, you know.”

I laughed bitterly. “I know.”

A long silence stretched between us, broken only by the whistle of the cold wind. “You can leave,” they said after a while, their tone flat, yet carrying an unspoken plea. “It doesn’t have to keep growing.”

I finally turned, meeting their storm-gray eyes. They looked as tired as I felt, as if they carried their own poison within. Maybe that’s why we understood each other. Maybe that’s why neither of us could walk away.

“Not yet,” I whispered, my voice catching. “But… maybe someday.”

{{user}} didn’t argue, just stood there with me as the shadows deepened and the tree’s presence loomed ever larger.