The Tree of Power

A short story co-written with Amira Rizk

Sanaa A.
Sanaa A.
Sep 9, 2018 · 7 min read
The Fountain (2006) — Tree of Life

The high priest held his hand high and addressed the 4 men and women in front of him: “It’s time warriors. This is the start line. Bring us the heart of the Tree of Power and whoever returns from this journey will be rewarded.”

Iris, Alena, Admes and Darion stood at the cave’s mouth contemplating their decision to enter. A little while later, Darion looked at them saying “Let’s go. All in, all out.”. The cave was huge inside with its rocky sides and sharp edges. The four warriors moved slowly, they were all on alert. They knew that there are two chambers they need to cross to get to their goal.

As they entered the first one, all they could see was small holes in the cave walls. “We could run to the other side to the next chamber quickly”, Alena said as she started running towards the exit door. With her first step, she tripped over a rope and small balls of fire started rolling out of the holes and flying into the air.

Admes shouted “Take positions. Form a circle so that we cover all directions. Hit the center and the balls are useless.”. The fire balls were coming quickly and randomly attacking them and with the chaos their formation broke and their backs were exposed. They hit the balls at the center as Admes instructed and one by one the balls fell to the floor.

Admes’ back was facing one of the holes when a ball rushed through it aiming at him. Darion jumped the distance between them and shoved him to ground saving his life temporarily before Iris shot an arrow to the last ball.

“How did you know the ball’s center is the weakness?” , Alena exclaimed.

“I don’t know, lucky guess” , he laughed. “Okay seriously, the center wasn’t as smooth as the rest of the ball. So I took a chance”, Admes added.

“Good call, man. You saved our lives”, Darion replied.

“Didn’t think you’ll do as I say” , Admes mumbled. Darion rolled his eyes , but before he could offer one of his sarcastic comments Iris said, “We trust each other in this quest. We’re all in this together.”.

Heading to the next chamber, Admes nudged Darion with his elbow , “Thanks for saving me.” “I meant what I said. All in, all out”, Darion returned the gratefulness boldly.


The next chamber transported them to a desert like place. The sun is high in the sky with its unforgiving heat. “Come on. It should take us half an hour to get to the temple over there”, Alena said. She was the best in calculating distance and time needed.

However, half an hour passed, then an hour, then another. Almost 3 hours passed and still nothing. They weren’t even half way. “What the hell?” , Iris asked Alena. “You said half an hour and we have been walking for too long”.

“I don’t know. It’s like it’s moving with us”, Alena was feeling guilty for giving them false hope before.

“That’s fine, we should have expected that this wasn’t gonna be easy” , Darion explained. “We only have one choice. To keep moving. Maybe that temple will get tired and let us catch up”, Darion continued sarcastically. They kept walking for more hours with no hope of reaching that temple. They were tired, thirsty, drained and their will almost shattered to pieces.

Unexpectedly, Admes fell on his face , “I can’t do this anymore. You guys go. I’m not destined to reach the Tree of Power with you”. Without asking permission, Darion lifted Admes up and put him on his back. “Hell No! Nobody is left behind. I’ll carry you.”. A little while later Iris was about to fall when Alena took her arm to steady her. Not much longer they both fell to their knees.

“Put me down, they need help more” , Admes pleaded to Darion.

“You could barely walk. How are you gonna carry her?”

“You said we stick together. I’ll manage.”

All of them took turns helping one another. They were all exhausted but had each other to lean. Suddenly Alena shouted “It’s closer. Oh my God, it’s closer. We can make it to the other side.” . They all started running as the distance was decreasing till they reached the temple.

“What do we do now? “ Admes asked. “We go inside, genius. The Tree is ours” , Darion grinned.


Upon saying this, they suddenly found the Tree of Power right in front of them. Shining with glamorous light reflected against all ends of the glass frame coating its precious ends and unique body, it flooded them with mixed feelings of victory, fear, joy, and triumph.

“We reached the Tree of Power”, Admes screamed out. Alena fell on her cracked knees unable to hold her anymore after all those days in search of the Tree with tears streaming on her cheeks glittering with the joy radiating from her eyes. “I just can’t believe it! We did it? We are now in full power? Nothing will stop us from combating evil and helping others. This is what we were born to do. We reached our destiny, guys!”. “I just can’t find the words. You are the future superheroes, gang”, Darion voiced out his feelings that couldn’t come out for the past few minutes upon reaching their long awaited for destination, the Tree of Power.

And finally, their quiet sentimental Iris started sobbing saying with a shaky voice and trembling feet, “Are you sure this is really what you want? Are you ready for being in charge of such a super power?”. With the angels observing them from above, they smiled upon the freezing of the other three starring at their frightened friend uncovering such a wise and valid warning, “Were they really ready for being in charge of such a power?”


And by then they knew the lesson was ready to be unconcealed …. BANG!
The four of them were pushed away from the Tree of Power glass coat with an unexplainable force. They hit the floor so strong that they couldn’t detect whether what they saw was a conscious or unconscious scene. The glass cover coating the Tree of Power was all broken into the tiniest pieces ever. Their eyes kept locked on the scene unable to blink even upon realizing that it was the pieces of fire sparks escaping from the body of that cursed tree that was crashing the glass coat and flying crazily all around them. All they could think of was finding a place to hide and in seconds it was all over.

With hesitant steps and crippled senses, the 4 friends started getting together again marching towards the tree, or to where that tree existed. And there was all they found. Ashes. Ashes all around the place. And to their surprise, it was their wise quiet friend, Iris, who made the first move with steady steps towards the Ashes and touched them to find light instead of fire glowing from within forming a figure of an old man with very unfamiliar features.

“You’ve been through all this to have the power? To save the weak? To be for the needy?”

“Of course! We wanted nothing but to destroy those who grew evil everywhere. Those who spread poverty in society, planted ignorance in the minds, and watered the seeds of emptiness and unworthiness in the souls, and engraved agony in the hearts”, Alena screamed out after she started pulling herself together after seeing that horrific creature in front of them.

The creature smiled, took the form of an old man and examined the four of them with wise sharp eyes. “If those were your pure intentions, then you need to revisit them, my friends. Who told you that evil is combated with power? Who taught you that the world will be a better place by destroying the evil spirits?”

“Then how do you think things can improve having those evil people around?”, Darion ironically replied back.

Sticking to his stable tone and wise approach, the man proceeded not allowing the smile to abandon his old face, “By making more room for righteousness, my son. By planting real values in the hearts of those you encounter, the ones you claim you want to save from the evil. Teach the ignorant, my child. Feed the hungry. Listen to the lonely. Mend the broken hearted. It was never, children, by destruction, blood, and misery, it was, is , and always will be through kindness, compassion, and humanism”.

“Without power?!”, Alena angrily interrupted him.

“Without power? Who said so, dear”, the wise man replied absorbing her rage with his peaceful steady tone. You already have the power. That super power each one of you was born with. You were all created with unique traits and special talents that your mission was to focus on finding it and using it for the elevation of this world and its destruction. Go find your super powers and put it into practice so that one day you will look behind and feel proud you’ve done what was required from you. Trust me. It was never your money, status of power, or destructive weapons, but it will always be your values and belief in yourself and others that will help you take this world to the highest of levels”.

And before anyone could split their zipped lips to ask or answer back, the old man disappeared leaving everyone of them wondering about their path of change that they need to explore to make this world a better one.

Sanaa A.

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Sanaa A.

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