The Revolt

TR11

After my talk with Jack I make my way to Thad, walking as slowly as possible and dragging my feet. I did not want to do this. One of the most unique capabilities given to a tree person was a unique curse too. It was one of those things that everybody knew about and nobody asked any questions.

And if you didn’t know, well then, that was your loss. But you are never ever allowed to ask a tree person about it. What I was about to do was worse, I was about to ask them to do it for me. The only reason it was so bad was because for the tree person involved it was a very painful process and if done wrong – which time has shown it has been done, very frequently and has lead to brain damage and even worse.

It wasn’t just the pain, as the results of sharing memories varied depending on the person/individual. For some, it didn’t even hurt much, juts a sharp prick. For others it was a whole load of pain and writhing around for a few hours in complete agony. For others it was worse, it was reliving all the memories you didn’t want – very painful, embarrassing, distressing memory that has ever occurred in your life all at once.

I’m not even sure if Thad knew what his type of pain would be if he shared a memory with me, many didn’t know if they hadn’t done it before which was rather obvious. It was the same with food, you won’t know you like it until you’ve tried it. However, it probably won’t leave you brain dead, it may put you in a coma if you’re deadly allergic to it – but that’s another story.

I digress, probably because I’m ridiculously nervous even though I have little to be nervous about, this was Thad- he was cool. He’d understand, somewhat and let me do it, it might take a while convincing him, but really that was only natural.

I’ve reached the entrance to the wing and take a deep breathe. I can do this, it was a small task. Very small. Just talking really, I knew how to talk right? I did it every day, I was pretty fluent, if I do say so myself – 

Snap out of it idiot.

I force myself to powerwalk into the wing and towards Thad knowing that if I didn’t I would chicken out and run in the other direction. I would do this.

I tentatively knocked on his door, half hoping that he wasn’t in and half hoping that he was so that I could get this over and done with then move on and quite possibly act like this didn’t happen.

“Come in,” he calls somewhat cheerfully – that’s good right? That he’s cheerful. He’s in a good mood, at least this reduces the chances of him throwing things at me.

“Hey, Thad,” I give him a small smile as I enter and sit opposite him.

“What can I do for you today Anna?”

I take a big calming breath before I reply, “Just hear me out okay? I know this is really inconsiderate of me to ask and please don’t feel like you have to do this you can totally say no. I wouldn’t blame you at all. And please don’t be offended either I mean it in a nice way – kind of. And –“

“Just say it Anna,” he interrupts, amusement lacing his tone.

“I need your memories. Okay? I need to see that pixie you were arguing with a few weeks ago.”