Chapter 2: Unsanctioned Execution

Chapter 2: Unsanctioned Execution

The next morning, the office was silent.

Not the usual Tuesday morning hum of keyboards and hushed conversations, but a profound, tomb-like quiet. Greg was the first one in, or so he thought. He flicked on the lights to his pod, illuminating rows of empty chairs and dark monitors. It was unsettling. Their section was notoriously early; Dan was usually already there, nursing his first coffee and second grievance of the day.

Greg set his bag down, the silence amplifying the soft thud. He booted up his terminal, the familiar glow a small comfort in the unnerving emptiness. An automated notification chimed, a single red flag on his project dashboard. Odd. He hadn't queued anything for immediate action.

He clicked it open. PROJECT ID: 734-CUMBERLAND. STATUS: ACTIVE.

A jolt went through him. Project 734 was his. A long-term prospect for late April. The catalyst was a lone hiker with a history of going off-grid, a textbook low-impact selection of the kind Dan favored. The location was set for a remote stretch of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. But the system said it was active. Now.

A green icon blinked beside the project ID: LIVE FIELD FEED AVAILABLE.

A cold sweat prickled Greg’s neck. This was wrong. All wrong. Projects were never moved up without weeks of logistical planning and multiple sign-offs. It was impossible. Had the system glitched? Was this some kind of error from the new PQC watchdogs?

He hesitated, his cursor hovering over the icon. His job was to monitor and ensure smooth execution. If a project was live, he was required to observe. His finger clicked the mouse almost of its own accord.

A video window bloomed on his screen, the connection crisp and immediate. But the image wasn’t the rocky outcrop in Tennessee he had designated. This was a forest, ancient and dense. Sunlight struggled to pierce a thick canopy of leaves, dappling the ground in an eerie green twilight. The camera was stationary, hidden skillfully within the bark of a tree.

And in the center of the frame, lashed to the trunk of an enormous, gnarled oak, was Dan.

Greg’s breath hitched in his throat. It was unmistakably him. His cheap suit jacket was gone, his tie askew, and a thick gag of dirty cloth was cinched across his mouth. His eyes were wide with a terror Greg had never seen before, darting frantically. Thick, unnaturally tough-looking vines bound him to the tree, pinning his arms and legs against the rough bark.

Then, a figure stepped into the frame.

It was Director Cheryl Bishop. She was no longer in her severe pantsuit. She was dressed in the practical, earth-toned uniform of a National Park Ranger, a canvas pack on her back. She moved with a silent, fluid grace, her face calm, almost serene, as she circled Dan like a biologist observing a specimen.

Greg fumbled to activate the audio feed, his hand shaking so violently he could barely control the mouse. Static hissed, then clarified into the sounds of the forest—the buzz of insects, the distant call of a bird, and Dan’s muffled, panicked grunts.

Bishop stopped in front of Dan, her piercing grey eyes meeting his. “Mr. Slater,” she said, her voice clear and cold, carrying perfectly to the hidden microphone. “Yesterday, I informed you of a change in protocol. A necessary evolution in our work to better serve the needs of the Telluric Maw.”

Telluric Maw. The name was alien, biblical. It was the term she’d used in private, not in the official memo.

“You chose to ignore this directive,” she continued, her tone flat, devoid of anger or any emotion at all. “You believe your methods, your ‘efficient’ and ‘low-impact’ selections, are superior. You believe the old way is the right way.”

She reached out and rested a hand on the oak tree, her fingers splayed against the bark as if feeling a pulse. “You are a man of limited imagination. You see the soil, the trees, the catalyst. But you do not see the whole. You cannot comprehend the palate. The hunger.”

Dan struggled against his bonds, his muffled noises becoming more frantic.

“The Earth requires diversity. It requires passion, fear, arrogance, complexity. A rich tapestry of life to fuel its own. Your monotonous offerings were an insult. A starvation diet.” Bishop took a step back, her gaze sweeping the small clearing. “Therefore, a correction is necessary. A demonstration for those who, like you, may be slow to adapt.”

She looked directly at the tree where Greg knew the camera was hidden. For a heart-stopping second, he felt her eyes on him, through the screen, through the hundreds of miles separating them.

“You wanted to run your project your way,” she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper that was somehow more terrifying. “Consider this an offering of a new type. A catalyst of defiance. Of hubris. Let’s see what kind of growth this provides.”

She turned and walked calmly out of the frame, disappearing into the dense woods without a backward glance.

Dan was alone. For a moment, nothing happened. The forest was still. Then, Greg saw it.

The ground around the base of the oak tree began to darken, the soil churning as if boiling. The thick, tough vines binding Dan tightened, visibly constricting. A low, guttural groan came from Dan, a sound of pure agony.

From the churning soil, pale white roots, thick as snakes, erupted and slithered up the trunk of the tree. They weren't woody; they moved with a fleshy, muscular quality. They swarmed over Dan’s shoes, his legs, burrowing under his pant cuffs, seeking purchase. He kicked, a futile, spastic motion that only seemed to excite them more.

More roots surged from the ground, wrapping around his torso, pulling him tighter against the ancient bark. A thin, thorny vine shot out from a low-hanging branch and coiled around his neck, its thorns piercing his skin. Tiny beads of crimson welled up.

Greg could only watch, frozen in abject horror, a silent scream trapped in his lungs. This wasn't a murder. It was a consumption. An absorption. The sanitized terms from the memo—‘Restoration Projects,’ ‘demographic parity,’ ‘holistic representation’—flashed through his mind, their true, monstrous meanings now laid bare. They weren't saving the planet. They were feeding it.

The audio feed crackled with the wet, tearing sounds of Dan’s clothes and the sickening squelch of the roots burrowing into him. His muffled screams became a continuous, high-pitched whine of unimaginable pain. The great oak tree itself seemed to pulse, its leaves rustling in a wind that wasn't there. The very earth was alive, and it was devouring his coworker.

Greg wanted to look away, to shut down the feed, to run, but he was paralyzed. This was the true nature of his work. This was what his logistics, his data analysis, his carefully selected ‘catalysts’ led to.

The process was brutally efficient. Within minutes, Dan’s struggles ceased. The roots and vines enveloped him completely, forming a writhing cocoon against the tree trunk. The cocoon pulsed, shrank, and was drawn into the bark of the oak as if it were nothing more than a drop of water on a sponge.

Then, it was over.

The ground settled. The roots receded. There was no blood, no body, no trace that Dan Slater had ever been there. All that remained were his torn, empty shoes lying on the now-undisturbed soil.

The live feed winked out, plunging his monitor back to the project dashboard.

PROJECT ID: 734-CUMBERLAND. STATUS: COMPLETE.

Greg stared at the screen, the silence of the empty office a suffocating blanket. He was going to be sick. The world had tilted on its axis, revealing a chasm of primordial horror beneath his feet. And he was standing on the edge.