Object description

There is no life in it. Even the creatures of the forest recognise it for what it truly is. It stands alone in a clearing; crooked, hunched. As dead as the dry soil that surrounds it, the twisted black branches strain, grow, reach desperately for the midnight darkness above. The roots writhe and crawl through the earth, dragging the gnarled aching trunk onward for eternity. For countless ages, this monstrosity has crept towards the fires of civilisation; inexorably approaching and destroying everything and everyone in its path. The ground dies and fades to grey around it as it casts flickering shadows on its surroundings; black flames. Its determined form, silhouetted against the night stars, is a stain on the natural beauty around it. It is an error. How could nature produce such corruption? Red sap bleeds from between its cracked boughs, seeping into the earth. Nothing will grow here again.
Imagine, supposing you could bear to approach it, pressing your palm against the blistered black bark. The world rushes away and only it remains, violating your mind; it uses you as a conduit for its malevolent soul. You would feel a diseased conscience, inherent in this distortion of nature, beyond screams and beyond fear. Just an endless void of despair and desolation. How long before you pull you hand away, appalled and terrified by the pure, unyielding horror before you? How long before you couldn’t pull your hand away at all?
It remembers the sacrifices. Trees have long memories; it still recalls with twisted joy the pain suffered on its cruel branches. The marks of rough nails still scar the surface, reminders of a ritual long since passed. Though the pagans and the peasants are nothing but history, the power willingly given in sacrifice still sustains it, forever waiting expectantly for the next innocent to be nailed, hands and feet, to its freezing, scalding bark. One hundred, one thousand years; it makes no difference to an entity without end. There is an inescapable certainty about it; an awful, confident patience. It will be worshipped, revered again; and the sacrifices will come.
It doesn’t move now. Not now, not while you’re watching it. But don’t turn your back. Even when no wind blows, the warped, twisting limbs sway gently, the twigs rattling like a twitching horde of insects.
Sometimes, it looks as though it’s melting. The sunshine, what little can penetrate the thick forest canopy, glistens on the sticky, sap-drenched bark. Even in daylight, this is a thing of terror. Its utter blackness is a void in the scenery, a dark shape that emanates darkness itself.
Growing in death, bleeding, advancing; this, surely, is evil.