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Of all things to nearly die from, Cleo didn’t expect a tree.
She and her friends had just survived swarms of phantoms (a rare occurrence on the Hermitcraft world due to Bdubs), and barely managed to catch a breath. Staying alive was vital. Lose two lives and you would turn on your friends. Lose three lives and you were gone for good.
The gang cautiously stepped out and felt the warmth of the morning sun grace their faces. They stared at each other, laughing about something stupid. Cleo carelessly stepped backwards, her feet barely missing a planted sapling. Everything was fine in the world. And then—
She suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Ivy twisted up her legs, wood encased her body. Cleo opened her mouth, but no air came through. Her vision was overwhelmed by green, leafy green, then it became black completely. Cleo choked.
Her friends- her friends were screaming her name. “ Cleo! Cleo!” But Cleo couldn’t move, she was frozen to the ground like she was a tree herself. Maybe she had been absorbed by that tree, absorbed by that living thing. The tree, fed by sunlight and rich soil, just wanted to grow, and it desperately did. It neglected the zombie on top of it, choosing to encase Cleo and brute force its way to the sun.
It was horrible. It was magnificent. This stubborn little tree was fighting back with all it got. Cleo was starting to feel faint. In all her (undead) life, she had survived stabs to the stomach and the heart because hey, she was undead. Zombies, withers, skeletons, they were all undead. That didn’t hurt her. But it was the sheer vitality, the life of this tree that damaged her so, that squeezed the life out of her, that stole air from her lungs. The enduring nature of trees meant they would mercilessly destroy everything and everyone in its path. And now a zombie would be killed by a tree. Funny.
Cleo was starting to feel dizzy, and her breath coming out in shorter and shorter pants. If Joe was here, she deliriously thought, he would probably compose a haiku on the irony of an undead creature being killed by life, by Mother Nature itself.
“Cleo!”
Daylight. The restricts around Cleo’s chest loosened. She dizzily stepped forward and stumbled into her friends’ arms.
“You’re alright!” “Oh my goodness, imagine the first death being caused by a tree!” “How are you feeling, Cleo?”
Cleo managed a grin. “I-I’m fine! Guess I won’t be going anywhere near trees now!”
… Of all things to die from, of course it had to be a tree. Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise that the undead’s greatest enemy was life itself.