The pine groaned—not a sharp snap, but a labored creak, as if it were resisting the fall. When the trunk finally began to lean, Alex retreated along his planned path. The tree hit the ground hard, a vibration shuddering through the earth.
For a few seconds, there was absolute silence. Alex walked up to the stump. The heartwood wasn’t what it should have been.
Inside was an elongated cavity—irregular, but too deliberate to be a natural hollow. The growth rings curved around it, deformed and strained. The tree hadn’t rotted. It had grown, adapting itself to whatever was inside. And then he saw the glint. A dull, metallic shimmer, barely visible in the shadows of the wood.
Alex let out a slow breath. He didn’t know exactly what he’d found yet. Но he understood one thing: this tree hadn’t been sick. It had been a witness.
The tree lay on the ground, exposed, and the cold morning light mercilessly highlighted everything that had been hidden. The cut was jagged. Not because Alex had messed up—he’d been precise. It was the structure itself that was wrong. The heart of the pine wasn’t a solid circle of rings like a healthy tree.
Inside was a long, vertical void, like a scar that had healed but never disappeared. The rings twisted around it, squeezing and warping, as if the wood had been forced to retreat year after year from something foreign. Alex knelt down and peered into the opening. The air near the cut smelled different.
It wasn’t just fresh resin. There was a faint metallic tang—old, weathered, like the smell of long-forgotten tools. He leaned in closer and saw a reflection.
A faint glint. Dull, almost swallowed by the shadows of the timber. Alex reached out, pulled off his glove, and carefully touched the edge of the cavity. His fingers brushed something cold and hard. He grabbed a pry bar and gently nudged the wood, taking his time, as if afraid to startle the very essence of the find. A metal object slid out and fell into his palm.
A bullet. Old, deformed, covered in oxidation, but still recognizable. Not a modern round. The caliber and shape left no doubt. It was old-school. Alex squeezed it in his fingers.
It was heavy. Disproportionately heavy for something that had spent decades inside a living tree. He exhaled slowly.
Finding bullets in trees isn’t unheard of. Hunters miss. Ricochets happen. Trees heal over wounds. But this bullet was too deep, too close to the heartwood. And around it wasn’t just wood—it was a void. Alex looked back inside. He saw another glint.
He pulled out a second bullet, then a third. Each one required effort, as if the tree were reluctant to give up what it had held for so long. Some were flattened, others twisted, as if they had struck from different angles…
