[Hopping Over The Hawk-Thorns] [Scary] [Videogame] [Platformer]

Written By J. J. Bartel. PG-10 Scary Videogame Platformer. Copyright 2023 

 

This dream again. Mom tells me not to learn how to climb a tree with hawk-thorn. Why is it called that? Their thorns are like hawk talons, hence the name. Everyone who tries to correct you, calling them hawthorns, is wrong. Now, my mother named me Jazer because she wanted me to be brave and fearless. So why climb that tree? Just because. I’m 10, climb up that tree, and I feel the branch break under my foot, and I feel the tumble. The thorns cut me open all over my body, and the worst thorns scratched my eyelids, almost cutting out my eyes. The eyelids were bleeding, mixed with my tears. This dream, like all the other times I have had it, has me cycling in and out of surgery, removing thorns from my arms, stomach, and head. Patching me up. In the same stupid dream, I feel myself shuddering every time the needles come. A very hard smack upside my head finally woke me from that nightmare, only to be in another. Somebody grabbed my hair, and I could guess who. 

 

“Well, if it ain’t Jaz the liar.” He tells me.

“Let go of me, Truman,” I said, grabbing his hand on my hair. 

“If I get detention for skipping class, you not getting away with sleeping.” he sneered at me. “You and your freaky eyes.”  

“I got my work done! You don’t do anything.”

He threw me onto the floor, and the chair clattered away. He grabbed my just-finished sanded plank and said, “I don’t do anything?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Mr. Scardey cat sands blocks away and piles them together, calling it art.” 

“Sashamono is the art of putting things together without screws or nails. Everything will fit together.” 

“Of course, the guy afraid of knives and nails thinks that beautiful. We sadly are stuck together on a dumb project, and I have to be saddled with someone who can’t do their end.” 

“Your just upset that he ain’t doing it for you.” A third voice said. I turned and saw a tanned Japanese athletic girl, my crush, Hana. “Truman, leave him alone before the teacher comes and docks all our grades for your fighting.” 

“We need more than a sander-” 

“He and I will get it done.” She cut him off. 

Truman scowled at her and me, then said, “I need a D not to be held back. I expect something more than this Monday.” He left. 

Hana came to me and grabbed me with her surprisingly strong hands and hefted me up to my feet like she was uprighting a sack of potatoes. Her fingers touched one of the many scars on my arms and traced her finger against one that went from my elbow to my hand. I jerked back, my body not wanting another reminder.

Hana said, “There is no shame in scars. My dad says that it’s what you do after the scars that matter.” 

I couldn’t say anything to her. 

Hana whispered to herself as much to me, “You helped me a lot before my dad reformed. We were playing, and, well, it’s been seven years. I called our parents, 911, but I can’t seem to call you.” 

I still can’t say anything to her. 

 

Later that day, I found out that Grandpa was having a birthday over the weekend, so we were going to his place. With that dreaded hawk-thorn tree. On the drive there, my parents talked about how it would be cut down soon. It’s sick with fireblight and some kind of rust, so it looks just as freakish to everyone else as it does to me. I didn’t care. I was playing Hop Girl on my phone. The platforming was easy to play and hard to master. I was trying to get past the lizard king, Wowzer, with all the fireflies, to unlock Hop Girl’s sister, Lulu. 

Grandpa smiled and hugged me. Later that day, he came to me and said, “I was your age when I was afraid of water. I then almost drowned but saved her, and now we have been married for over 50 years. 17 is that age.” He then whispered to me, “I left the toolbox open. I will keep your parents busy. Do what you got to do, Jazzy boy. And one of these days, make me a great grandpa. ” 

At first, I thought my grandpa was being more crazy than usual. I looked at the tree again, and I saw something at the top. I popped open my phone and looked through some messages. Hana was always someone interested in costuming. 

That’s why she messaged me, “Do we have a wand for the costume?” I looked back to the dreaded, sickly tree, and up at the very top was a perfectly crooked branch. It was preshaped and perfect. Someone would have to cut the branch down. 

I typed, “Can you cut this bran-,” then stopped. I hated the thought. I deleted the text because I would cut it down. 

 

It was just after lunch when, a few minutes later, I dressed in my blue hat, mittens, and orange coat. It would keep me warm and stop the winter chill from chasing sense into me. Rummaging in Grandpa’s toolbox, I grabbed a hand tree pruner and a nearby stepladder. Walking out to the tree, I felt a shiver down my spine. There were three hawk-thorns on the land, and this was the tallest and scariest one. It was the tree that made me look like a scarred freak. I rubbed my belly button. It used to be an outie, and after that tree tumble, it became an innie. I drag myself to the tree. The thorns were not just sharp and pointy but bulbous as if infected with tumors. The bark was speckled as if sick with a rash. The other two hawk-thorn trees looked alive, but this tree looked like a zombie. Half alive, half undead, entirely terrifying. Despite all the branches, I can look up and see that perfect branch, warped and twisted, her perfect wooden wand. 

“I’m crazy,” I said to myself. I climb the stepladder and trim off the first thorn, longer than my finger. It felt like cutting off a warped knife, and before the thorn fell to the ground, the open branch wound did something horrible. The tree bled. It was not human blood, but unlike any sap I have ever seen. The dark green and grey ooze slowly leaked out of the wound. It was somehow shiny and dull all at once. 

“It’s like its mutant ooze. That kind you only see in comic books. This stuff.” I shook my head. “This stuff would make supervillains.” I poked it with my cutter, and it coated the tip. As I went to cut the next branch, I felt some clingy resistance. 

“Great, so it’s sticky too. I guess I gotta trim the thorns before this freak tree gunks up my cutter.”  I stared at it briefly before shaking off my creeping dread and fear. After several minutes, I trimmed off the thorns off the first branch. The tree branch, now free of thorns, leaking its freakish zombie sap like poisoned honey to the ground, did some good. It let me see the next branch to trim. 

“I just need to trim off enough thorns to climb safely.” A few minutes later, the second branch was cleaned off. Half an hour passed, and I managed to clean off several branches. Unfortunately, this meant trimming branches I would be stepping on and climbing up. Snipping thorns above my head resulted in the sap leaking onto me, my hat, and my coat. If this tree didn’t kill me, Mom would. 

“No backing out now,” I said to myself. A few minutes later, the second branch is cleaned off. One hand on a clean, safe part let me hoist myself up a bit to trim even more branches. An hour later, I was a fifth of the way up the tree. I felt exhausted, so I put the trimmer down and pulled out my phone. I sat on a tree branch, and with my back to the trunk every so slightly swaying in the wind, I played Hyper Hop Sisters. 

 

I just collected all the bonus fireflies without dying once. If I entered Wowzer’s Castle and beat him without taking damage, I could unlock Lulu and an alternative costume to Hop Girl. Before I could try the castle again, it was the haunted forest. I unpaused the game and began hopping up the dangerous tree. Thankfully, I can use the glitch to hop on enemies’ attacks, allowing me to skip parts of the level. That allowed me to beat the tree and all of its monsters without taking damage in under a minute. I paused the game and looked up. 

 

“Man, I wished real trees could be glitched win.” I put the phone away and spent another hour trimming and climbing. As I was getting higher, the branches were getting smaller and smaller. On the one hand, that meant sometimes I could trim entire branches off, and that also meant that it was hard to find a branch that could hold my weight. I was now a little over halfway when I stopped again. The cold wind picked up speed, and the trunk was less sturdy, so the tree swayed a bit more. I sat down between leaking green and grey tree zombie puss and a thornless area. I put the pruner on what I thought was a stable position and started the game again. 

 

The castle stage was not just filled with freakish, unkillable threats but also instant death traps. Thankfully, I used another glitch. About halfway through the level, you can wombo-combo one of the zombie tortoises, and if you can cheese hard enough, you can earn so many points that the game will reward you with more lives and temporary invincibility. That allowed me to run past the upper firewall without timing it. That shortcut led me to Wowzer. With two fake outs, I got him to overcommit to a jump, and I slid under him, hitting the bomb that exploded the bridge. He falls into the lava, and Hop Girl saves the prince. 

 

“Yes!” I shouted. I finally did it! “He’s in this castle, not another one!” I was so happy I forgot where I was. I let go, and it fell, somehow past most of the branches, and hit one of the bottom branches. It didn’t break as the sap stuck to its back. 

I could see the screen, the game text said, “You survived all those threats? Hop Girl, you are so brave.” With all my shaking, I also saw my tree trimmer fall, hitting the ground. It landed on a pile of thorns. I noticed for the first time that there were seemingly hundreds, thousands of thorns. Those zombie tumor tree needle knives, I overcame them all. I noticed that I had climbed over fifteen feet, and I looked up to see the perfect branch less than 10 feet away from me. I looked down again and noticed my phone. The end credits played and showcased all the levels I had beaten. I missed most of them, but I looked down to see my character, Hop Girl beat the tree and enter the portal to the final level. 

“Yeah, it takes guts to beat the game on the hardest difficulty. I already beat one haunted tree. I can beat this one.” With my gloves, I grabbed the nearest thorn. Thankfully, the top of the tree was smaller, weaker, and I could tear off the thorn with my gloved hands. I felt like Player 1, ripping and tearing through the thorns, making my way to the top of the tree.  Up at the top part was the perfect branch. I grabbed the base of the perfect branch and tried to break it. Through my gloves, I could feel it cracking in the wrong way, threatening to split the branch in half. I grabbed the top of the tree and, through adrenaline, ripped the top of the tree off. The undead blood sap began to leak from the top wound. 

The wind kept picking up, and the weakened tree could not hold my weight. The top portion of the tree trunk began to crack. I was going to fall from a much greater height than before, and based on how it was breaking, I could feel that the trunk would fall towards extra thorny branches. I swung myself around and forced the cracking to go in the opposite direction, towards the area that I had trimmed. I put the perfect branch between my teeth. With a loud crackle, the hawk-thorn tree top fell. As it fell, it hit branches, slowing my descent. On the way down, I grabbed my phone stuck to the branch. When the top finally hit the ground, the trimmers were flung up, and I grabbed them out of the air like a superhero posing in a panel. 

“Excellent showmanship!” My grandpa said. He was clapping with a beaming smile.

“I survived the Hawk-thorn!” 

“It’s Hawthorn, Jazzy boy.” 

I looked back at the tree. With so many branches gone, it wasn’t so scary anymore. “Sure, it’s a hawthorn.” 

Grandpa walked to me, and his smile left him. The sorrow on his face made him look old, older than a grandpa should. “I owe you an apology, jazzy boy. That day when you fell, I was suspicious of that gal’s father. Those gangsters seldom reform, and I was so worried about him harming you that I didn’t try to help you. I didn’t pay enough attention. This time, things were different.” He smiled again, looking back to the house, where curtains covered all but the window next to his favorite chair.  

“Had to make sure your parents didn’t see you overcoming your fear. They would stop you before you could overcome it. This time, I was watching, watching you succeed.” He waved me to the house. “And now that your brave, I can finally cut down that tree. And when are you gonna give me great-grandkids?” 

“Grandpa!” I managed to say. 

 

Later, my mom was upset that I got my jacket and hat filled with a sticky mess, but I told her I had overcome my fear of tree climbing. My parents were so happy they hugged me while covered in tree zombie guts. They had a hard time pulling away for a few reasons. I used carving knives to cut out the bark and sanded it to be smooth to the touch yet knobbly looking. I texted Hana, “I have a surprise for you.” 

 

That Monday during study hall, I went into the shop class and began to use the knives. My shop teacher stared at me slackjawed. I cut my smooth planks to link them together like puzzle pieces. Thankfully, my school schedule on Monday was study hall. Then, shop, so by the time Hana came to class, I had our project ready. 

Hana asked, “What’s the surprise? Wait, you holding-”

“Not anymore. I just put the first coat on our project, a human figurine stand. Now you can costume anything, take pictures, and look like a life-sized action figure or doll.” 

“How-” 

“With the wonder of hand saw and the wide chisels, I managed to link all the pieces together so that we did not have to use screws or nails, in true Sashamono style.” I twirled the chisel in my fingers, her eyes staring at the edge. 

“But-”

“With the coat on, it should be perfect. I got you this.” I handed her the perfect branch in all its knobbly perfection. “Perfect wand for a Woopa Mage, right?” 

“Yes, b-” 

“I also managed to beat Wowzer over the weekend perfectly. I saw the perfect branch up a tree, and I decided to climb the same hawthorn tree I fell from!” 

“What!” She shouted. 

“Yeah, it wasn’t fun, the first half anyway. I had trimmed hundreds of thorns, and the tree leaked zombie blood, but I managed to get that. Then the tree top broke, and I managed to swing the trunk under me, so I was fine. I had to stop climbing several times, so I beat the game. We can play co-op, and you can have Lulu’s alternative cos-”

I was interrupted. She grabbed me in one of her hugs. I could feel her well-toned body smother me. Hana was crying, I hope, tears of joy. 

“Glad you like the gift. Happy early birthday.” I returned her hug. 

Truman came to class late as ever and stared at the two of us in confusion. He asked, “Today it is due, right? Are we getting above D?  

The shop teacher said, “The project is getting an A, and I wouldn’t give Jazer a hard time anymore, Truman.” The teacher pointed at my hand, still holding a chisel.

Truman noticed the chisel and said, “So the striped scaredy cat finally got a bit of bravery. Good. The lying dork has always been a kitten in a tiger costume. Finally, the inside is starting to match the outside, which means I’m passing the class.”

“Actually, with all your tardies and today’s lateness, you will need summer school to graduate on time.”

“NO!” He screamed out. 

Hana and I could only laugh at his misfortune while she held the perfect branch, and I kept holding onto the chisel.