The trees began to clutter and wind themselves into tight knots, spiraling up toward the sky. We had made it with only two of the beginning eight of our recovery team. Probably better than saying no one made it, but how it ended... It was all the same.

Dr. Cortez dropped his travelling sack into the notch of gnarled tree. Half of its body was consumed in spongy moss. He took a full turn about, marveling at the lost forest. It had been home to an extinct race of hunters who, by all accounts, could be traced back to the Green Forest.

"We made it," he said nodding his head. It was caked in dirt and blood from a nasty bump way back. I had paid it no mind when he continued without change in personality.

"Yes, we did. Let us mark our maps and begin back so that we may get a distress signal free," I said quickly.

"We are home."

I should have checked that bump. "You would think so after the hell we have suffered."

"No, I am saying we're not leaving."

"You can't give me a good enough reason to stay."

He pulled from his belted hip a silver pistol and aimed it between my eyes. I was no quick study in weaponry, being an geologist after all, but I knew it was a powerful gun he held. My hands shot up in surrender reflexively. "Cortez, you've got to be shitting me."

"If we tell them where this place is we'll be allowing them to destroy the last standing untouched part of human history. They would taint this place with their foreign chemicals and uproot it with their machines. We must protect it as the Cha'gen did." His eyes were wide and pupils dilated. How long had he been withstanding this madness?

"We can have this land protected, you know that."

"After the red tape is cleared there won't be a land to protect. Its why I killed Lily and James and Bernard and..." He trailed off. Shame softened his features. "They only saw the practical side. But you... you were supposed to be different!" He pulled the gun straight, but his hand was shaking dangerously.

"I am. I'm on your side..." I backed into a tree and felt the softness of the moss. It was welcoming, like a bed after a long trip. For all she knew this would be where her head would lie last. "I'm just tired, and hungry. Its been a long trip and my body is aching."

"Don't give me that crap! You're no negotiator traitor!" He pulled the trigger.

I tripped over a knotted root and the bullet pierced the tree behind me. A loud old groan echoed above our heads. It was as if a voice hadn't been used in generations and it was mad it had been provoked in such a way. Suddenly, a root pulled free of the ground and snatched the doctor into the air, slamming to and fro. The first slam killed him but the old groaning didn't stop until the leg ripped free of the bloody pulp.

I vomited and ran, my shaky legs doing me no justice. I tripped all the way to the clearing where I left behind the last of my team, dignity, and the secret of the Cha'gen's disappearance.