Girl 1 didn't really know why, but her eyes couldn't leave the tree across from her.
Something is wrong with that tree.
And the longer she stared at it, the more dread she felt spreading across her chest.
She tried paying real close attention to the tree, straining her eyes through the falling snow to see what her subconscious found so deeply, profoundly wrong about it. But even after staring at it with focus for nearly a minute, she couldn't put her finger on it.
It looked like any other tree around, covered in snow.
Nothing special about it.
Just then, something moved.
Near the top of the trunk, a small, shiny thing caught the pale light. I
It hovered in the air, perfectly smooth. The snowflakes fell around it, but none could catch it. Every time a flake drifted too close, it simply slid off the thing's polished surface—repelled by an unseen force.
Or the surface was simply too smooth for anything to be caught on it.
