Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24957984-20140720022756/@comment-24101790-20140722022129

My edits were a little more extensive than planned so I made edits below in case you don't like the phrasing. A little more advice, I would also describe how the trees need for sacrifice is effecting the park. (It seems as if the tree needs to eat in order to preserve the land.) The story (in my opinion) could use a little more revision and some more feedback from other people to help improve the overall story.

Another day begins in Florianopolis. The population starts to wake up, get ready for work, and get used to the bustling movement of the city’s streets. James is not an exception. He might struggle to wake up, but his adventurous and hardworking spirit gives him incentive to rid his car, exit home located on Córrego Grande and go to the city’s downtown, where he finds his office and something that has been worrying him recently, the gigantic fig, located on November 15th Park.

As an experienced botany scientist and the president of the Ministry of Environment from Florianopolis, James begins to make a restoration project about the park, where students, professors, searchers from Santa Catarina’s federal university, and scientists from private laboratories are involved.

During the afternoon, dominated by the freezing wind, James exits his office and after visiting some stores, he starts examining the park. There, he notices the tree has a resected trunk, probably due to the lack of rain the country has had recently. He also thinks the pollution, present near the benches and the trees could be causing problems.

Since he thinks it’s too early to get precise conclusions about the fig, he waits for the next day to meet the scientists outside the university.

James ends his work period, and when he exits his office, he looks at the tree, far away, and imagines its future conditions. James finally leaves work and goes home.

A few days later, he opens his house’s door, picks up, and reads the newspaper. On the front cover, there was information about a lost person that disappeared after leaving November 15th Park. James is confused by this news and decides to go to the place to ask people if they know what actually happened.

Upon arriving, James finds out that people are starting to make theories about what has happened. Some say that it’s a huge lie from the newspaper, others claim that the place is suffering from something supernatural. Even though James don’t believe in these theories, he considers the humors. He exits that place and talks with a group of scientists that were waiting for him in his office.

“Dear scientists, please go to our discussion room. Just go upstairs, we will talk about the project there,” James orients.

Everyone goes upstairs, and they enter the dirty discussion room. James takes a while to start the discussion he wants to start, but after a while pretending he’s distracted, he finally begins to talk.

“Gentlemen, it’s an honor to see you all today. We are about to execute a project of extreme importance for the city. The November 15th Park is a tourist spot that needs to be fixed, and the one hundred and forty-three year old fig needs to get immediate treatment. All of you will be responsible for DNA collection of the tree and performing a soil acidity test. I’m going to call the university group to participate in the project’s progression,” James concludes.

Nobody opposes the proposal. James decides to end the discussion, and goes to work after everyone has left. He thinks about the disappearance again. He starts to believe in the supernatural theory and the uncountable possibilities about what really happened there. He runs the possibilities through his mind even while sleeping.

During the day of the investigation, James is exhausted because he has not slept well. He is constantly forgetting what he needs to do at his office. Even in poor spirits, he waits for the afternoon, and then he meets the university group and the scientists from the day before.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Don’t be concerned about how I look, I am not going to cancel the search because of this! Anyway, we need to analyze the place right now and let’s try finishing the analysis as soon as possible,” James explains.

Everyone goes to the park. While James keeps exploring the entire place, the university group extracts the soil and some vegetable from some trees, and they also analyze the urban surroundings, while the other scientists are focused on extracting pieces of the fig and the soil.

At sunset, everyone is done with the analysis. Everyone leaves, and James leaves the place with satisfaction and some anxiety since the results will be released the next day.

The day of the results arrives. In the morning, James receives a call from the private laboratory.

“Doctor, we had weird results. The soil anxiety is extremely low, the fig is sick and the DNA has, in some way, changed. We don’t recognize the DNA of the tree, but we expect the fig to become a different plant soon,” they explain.

James is confused by this. If the result from the scientists are weird, the university ones might be even weirder. Just by thinking of this, James receives another call from the university group.

“Doctor James, we’re glad to announce that the soil’s anxiety from the other trees are at normal levels, and the plants are healthy. However, the paths need some cleaning up,” they affirmed.

The analysis from the university calms him down, but he still has questions about the fig. Is there something about it that nobody has discovered yet? James stops thinking about that and goes to work. There, he pays a cleaning service company to clean the park during the night. By what he has seen, he expects the cleaning to be a quick and safe since he didn’t see much pollution there.

When he leaves work, he looks at the fig for a while. He notices something with a weird clarity. It seems like the tree is releasing a weird substance that permeates the air with a green color. James ignores, thinking it’s a trick of his mind. He goes away, leaving the cleaning employees in the park.

The next day, James is shocked by the news on the front page. According to the newspaper, more people disappeared yesterday, and every one of them were janitors from the company James called.

James decides to work and investigate the place. When the freezing night arrives, he sits on a bench, and he waits.

Around the early morning, James stands up and looks closely at the tree.

He notices the color change from the park’s ground, and the fig has become a vibrant green color.

What’s going on? He thinks. After feeling surprised by the beautiful, but also scary scenery, James is surprised to hear the fig’s voice talking slowly.

“I’m so hungry! I need humans!” says the tree, without noticing James.

The tree's skin is now completely green and extremely vibrant. James is desperate, and tries to figure out a way to escape the park. The tree is angered by his attempt to escape and it begins to chase him.

“You have the smell of a Florianopolitan! I need your body! Don’t try to run from me! I need your love! You and the city wouldn't exist without me!” the tree shouts, while chasing James.

James successfully opens a house’s door from the public market. He tries to flee, but the fig’s giant trunks catch him by his legs and wrists. He’s violently dragged until he sees the tree again, which now has giant eyes and a huge hole under it. Even the roots are visible.

“I am proud of being born in this place and I want to take care of you, but I whole-heartedly refuse to be your dinner!” James shouts.

“You bastard! Don’t shout like that in front of the thing that permitted your birth! The Island of Magic wouldn't exist without my presence! I need you and a handful of other people!” The tree seriously tells him.

The tree throws James on the air, and its trunks go trough James’s body. The fig devours his heart, legs, and arms voraciously. It throws the remaining parts of the body out into the sea and the park goes back to normal.

In the morning, the population notices that James has disappeared. Nobody knows what happened and nobody will ever know where James is. The tree is still hungry, and if you’re from Florianópolis, you might be the next one to sacrifice your life to let the city stay alive, unless someone stops the one hundred and forty-three year old violent tree that is in the November 15th Park.