The Origins of Christmas Trees

He strode away, down the hall, while I sat on that gorgeous chair, a jumble of shock, anger, and confusion.

Numbly, I rose and walked out into the cold night air. I climbed into the waiting sled, and was whisked away, back to the facility in B sector, back to confinement. The sled touched down and Carpet was there, with his leering grin, which only seemed to get more obnoxious when he saw my obvious distress and seemed to revel in it. "Looks like somebody had a good time tonight," he said suggestively.

I ignored him and walked into the building. He brought me downstairs and escorted me to my room. At the door, he asked if he could come in for a night cap. I slammed the door in his face as a response. I went to my bed and cried for hours as I tried to figure out how to extract myself from this mess I'd gotten myself into.

My alarm woke me. I sat up in bed groggily, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. As I stood up, a wave of nausea rolled over me and I felt dizzy. I bolted for the washroom and made it just in time to empty my stomach. I knew this was morning sickness; I had taken enough health classes to recognize the symptoms. I finished throwing up, then brushed my teeth and got ready for breakfast.

Caramel appeared at my door, more sullen than normal. I asked him if he could take me to see Dr Mistletoe before I went to the dining hall. His eyes narrowed and he asked why. I told him I wanted to discuss my morning sickness symptoms with the doctor. Caramel shrugged and said, "I guess."

So he led me down the corridors toward Dr Mistletoe's office. Or at least, where his office used to be. When we arrived, the plaque on the door was gone and there was a crew inside cleaning out the contents.

Alarmed, I shouted, "Why are you doing this? Where's Dr Mistletoe?"

One of the workers shrugged and said he didn't know, just that they were ordered to clean out this office. I turned to look at Caramel, who simply shrugged and gave me an 'I don't know what's going on either' look. In a panicked voice, I yelled, "Take me to Dr Silverbells right away!"

We hurried down the hall and around the corner to the office marked Dr Kit Silverbells - Lead Physician and Program Director. I banged on the door. "Dr Silverbells, are you in there? Dr Silverbells, it's Holly. We need to talk, now! Dr Silverbells?"

There was no answer. "He must not be here," said Caramel, glumly.

I rounded on him, fury blazing in my eyes. "I'm aware of that, you idiot! Where can I find him?"

"I'm not sure. At this time, he might be in the lab at -19 6N 7W R3. Or he might be in the dining hall. I'm really not sure."

"Useless!!! I'm going to the lab first." I stormed off down the hall, not even bother to see if he was going to follow. I arrived at the lab to find Chestnuts and Stocking working over some samples. Chestnuts said she thought she saw Silverbells in the dining hall earlier, but wasn't sure where he was right now.

"What's going on Miss Jolly? Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, I need to speak with Mistletoe or Silverbells right now!"

"Calm down, Miss Jolly. There's no need to yell at me. Now let's just pause, and you can take a deep breath, and once you've calmed down, you can tell me what's going on."

"I don't need to pause or calm down you stupid cow! I need Silverbells or Mistletoe now!"

In a firm voice, Chestnuts said, "Miss Jolly, you're obviously agitated. I think maybe you just need to step back, take a deep breath, and calm yourself. I can't help you if you're yelling at me."

"You useless, stupid cow! There's a plot to overthrow Santa and I think Blitzen has captured Chocky and Dr Mistletoe!!!" Gasps issued from Chestnuts, Stocking, and Caramel.

"Those are some wild accusations, Miss Jolly. Very wild accusations. And very baseless, I'm sure. Caramel, will you please escort Miss Jolly back to her room? I'll send one of the doctors to check on her shortly." Caramel nodded, and made to grab for my arm.

I elbowed him in the chest, kicked him in the groin, and dashed out of the lab. I ran blindly down the halls, turning left and right blindly, not caring where I was going, just trying to get away. Several startled elves jumped out of my way as I raced down the hall wildly. At one point, as I rounded a blind corner, I collided with a cafeteria worker and we both fell.

I scrambled to get up, and heard shouts and heavy running footfalls coming closer. I was on my feet again and running. Ahead, coming from an intersecting corridor, was Carpet. He grinned and raised a weapon and fired. I felt a sharp prick in my side, but kept running straight toward him. He raised his arms to grab me and I ducked underneath him.

I was beyond him now and running toward the elevator bank, but now my feet felt heavier and it was getting harder to run. My dizziness returned, and the hallway swam in my eyes. Then I was on the ground, crawling toward the elevator. I blacked out just as Carpet reached me.

******

I returned to consciousness in a darkened room. There was water dripping somewhere behind me, and I could hear some chains clinking idly. My hands and feet were bound with rope, and I appeared to be secured to a post. I looked around, my vision still swimming, but I couldn't really make out much beyond some light spilling in from under the door, about 10 feet away.

I struggled against the ropes to no avail. I tried to stand up, but another wave of nausea rolled over me and I vomited all down the front of my gown. I started calling for help and crying, but nobody came.

Later (I'm not sure how much later) the door opened and an elf I had never seen before entered, carrying a plate of food. He untied my hands, but ignored my pleas to let me go. He simply said, "Eat,", then stood back and watched me eat. When I was finished, he retied my hands, collected the plate and left.

They must have put something in the food because I passed out again soon after he left. At some point I woke again needing to relieve myself. I screamed for someone to come, but nobody did, and I ended up pissing myself.

I must have passed out again, because at some point I was woken by that same elf, who had already untied my hands and shoved another plate of food at me. "Eat," he commanded again.

"Please let me go. Please. I won't tell anyone. Please? I'll let you fuck me if you want. I'll give you anything you want. Please just let me go!"

He stared at me impassively, then repeated the command to eat, ignoring my pleas. I ate reluctantly, chewing my food mechanically and not really tasting what I was eating.

When I finished, I felt a familiar sensation in my bowels. I told the guard I needed to relieve myself. He sniffed the air and replied, "Smells like you already did."

"No, I mean I need to do the other thing...you know...poop."

He wrinkled his nose in disgust and said, "Alright, I'll see what I can do." He retied my hands, collected the plate, and left me in the darkness again. Several minutes later, he returned with a bucket. He tossed it at me, and it clanged as it bounced off the concrete floor, then it rolled out of my reach.

"Can you move it closer?" He barked a laugh and left me, whimpering piteously. The urge to relieve myself was pretty severe now, so I had to move myself around the pole and stretch out my leg to try and snag the bucket. Eventually I was able to catch the bucket and pull it toward me.

I was grateful to relieve myself, then pushed the smelly bucket away from myself. I began to cry again as I pondered what was happening. I had no answers; I was quite literally in the dark.

Hours later, my captor was back with more food. "It fuckin stinks in here!"

"Please let me go," I pleaded.

"No can do," he replied.

"Then, can you at least empty my bucket?"

He sighed and said, "I guess." He took the smelly bucket and left me with the food. I scanned the plate to see if there was anything I could use to sever the ropes. There was a reasonably sharp bone in the turkey thigh, so I ate the turkey quickly to expose the bone, then I stuck it under my leg. Just in time too; he returned just as I covered it. He watched me eat the rest of my meal, then took the empty plate away.

Once the door was closed and his footsteps retreated down the hall, I grabbed the turkey bone and turned it in my hands, looking for the sharpest point. I ground that point against the concrete floor, trying to sharpen it. My wrists were becoming chafed as I frantically tried to fashion the bone into a tool that would help me escape.

After several hours, my wrists were raw and bleeding, but I was determined. I kept at it until the bone was whittled down to a sharp cutting surface.

As I was sawing away at the rope binding my hands, the door opened again. This time, Blitzen strode in, accompanied by Dr Silverbells. Dr Silverbells looked nervous, while Blitzen's face remained neutral. I looked up at them in terror.

Dr Silverbells spoke, but this time it was not in his usual supercilious manner. "Miss Jolly, I am here to check on your health, and the health of the sapling."

"Go fuck yourself doctor!" I spat. "You don't care about my health. If you did, you'd let me out of here. Please let me out. I just want to go home."

"I'm afraid we can't let you go, Miss Jolly. Not until you've given birth to the precious sapling inside of you."

"Can I go then? Once you've got your precious sapling?"

Dr Silverbells licked his lips and shot a questioning glance at Blitzen. Haughty and aloof, Blitzen stood silently, backlit by the light streaming in through the door. He shook his head.

"We'll see, my dear. We'll see. In the meantime, I'd like to take your temperature." He approached and knelt down and placed a hand to my forehead for a moment. Then he fished out a thermometer from his coat pocket and asked me to open my mouth. I sighed and opened and he stuck it in to take a reading. The he indicated he wanted to feel around my belly to ensure there was no internal damage.

After he had done this, Dr Silverbells stood up and returned to Blitzen's side, near the door. "Other than some trauma, she appears to be fine," he said to Blitzen.

"Good." Turning to me, Blitzen said, "My dear, I wish things had happened differently. You and I could have been happy together, but that is no longer the case. You will remain here, until you've given birth, then you will be executed. But maybe that's for the best...I don't think you'll want to be around to see our plan come to fruition. Farewell."

"NOOOO!" I screamed as the door banged shut, engulfing me in darkness again.

******

Awaking several hours later, with a purpose, I pulled out my turkey bone and began sawing away at the ropes again. Within half an hour, I had my hands free, and from there, it was an easy job of removing the ropes binding my legs.

I scrambled to my feet, suffering through another wave of nausea and puking all over the floor. I stood there retching and wiped the spittle and vomit from my chin, then I began to think about what I would do to escape this room. I thought about hiding behind the door and rushing out when the guard opened it and entered the room. That seemed too risky.

My better plan involved getting back down and sitting with my back to the pole, like I was still secured, then beckoning the guard over and stabbing him with the turkey bone. So I sat back down and tucked the severed rope under my legs so he wouldn't see it when he opened the door. Then I waited. I did not want to fall asleep again.

Some indeterminate time later, the door opened and the guard reappeared with my food. As he bent down to untie my hands, he glanced at my legs and his eyes widened in surprise (because the ropes weren't there).

I whispered, "Surprise mother fucker!" and jammed the turkey bone into his neck with all my might. He fell back, clutching at his neck as the blood gushed out around the bone. I jumped to my feet, grabbed the gun from his holster, and fled.

I didn't even know where I was. I ran blindly through corridors making turns, but still seemingly not getting anywhere. Panicking and rushing on pure adrenaline, I ran down one empty corridor after another. Finally, a cramp in my side slowed me up and I stopped to catch my breath. At that point, I noticed the coloured tiles on the floor and it dawned on me that I was still in the research facility, just on a different floor. All I needed to do was to get to the elevator banks, then I could escape.

At the next junction, I spotted the plaque on the wall that said I was on -29 N6 E4. I then calculated how to get back to the elevators, and rushed south and west. As I was racing through one of the corridors, a klaxon began blaring. They must have found the guard's body in my cell!

I put my head down and ran faster. I heard heavy footsteps and shouting in the distance. The klaxon's tone was insistent, urgent. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt nauseated again. Still I kept running.

As I rounded the final corner to the elevator lobby, I stopped dead. A dozen guards were arrayed in the lobby, stun weapons drawn. I stopped and stared at them. So many weapons, so many hard, determined stares.

I barked a laugh as I thought about exhausting all of my options except one. There was only one way out now. Only one way for me to go out on my terms.

I heard one of the guards yell "Don't!" as I placed the gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.

*********

EPILOGUE

The chairman and his entourage entered the Blitzen Research Facility, and they were led down to B22 level by an obsequious little elf, who was desperately trying to ingratiate himself with the North Pole's new ruler. The chairman ignored the little pest, and strode along the tall, wide corridor until he came to a room at the far end. The puny elf rushed ahead and opened the door for the chairman, then waited for him to pass and enter the room.

"So Mr Chairman sir, given our successful overthrow of Santa..."

"Our successful overthrow?"

"Sorry sir, your successful overthrow of Santa, with the assistance of a large portion of the elven population. Anyway, given that you mighty trees still need to breed, we decided to begin experimenting on humans to see how susceptible they were to your Solution, sir. This is a group of humans whose plane crash landed just inside our territory about ten months ago.

We captured them and brought them here to conduct some experiments. The results have been quite promising."

He ushered the chairman out to a balcony overlooking a large habitat. There were a few dozen humans down there, in various states of undress. Some of them were fucking each other, and others were getting fucked by trees and elves. There was even one man taking it up the ass from Dasher.

The obsequious little elf, Dr Silverbells, spoke again. "We brought them here, fed them, and began pumping them full of the Solution; eight times the dose we gave to the elves because human physiology is so different than our own. And so far, we have not lost even one human. They all obey without question, sir! And their females are also capable of becoming mothers to the trees. We have already had one human female deliver a new Scotch Pine sapling from your very own breeding stock, sir!

There are billions of human females, sir. You might be able to reverse the trend of global climate change if we can convert enough humans and impregnate them. That would certainly help your brothers in Amazonia and Africa."

As he observed the copulation going on below between a short Douglas Fir and a blonde woman, the chairman replied, "That was already part of my plan..."

THE END

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