Day 643

When they burnt the forest to make way for new houses they found all the trees were metal.
For months they tried to figure out when and why this happened, reaching no set conclusion.
The forest air had always had that tin-scent to it, presumed to be the heavy iron deposits underground.
The trees looked far too convincing to be old but too old to be recent.

From photos taken back in the early 1900s and over the century right to the day before the fire we could clearly see that the forest had grown over the years.
So somebody had been either planting new trees or there was someone underground making them grow.
By local vote it was decided to dig up the forest and see how far down those metal roots went.

That was almost twelve years ago.
Now they've dug almost thirty feet down, construction has slowed.
The metal roots have begun to form a tangled labyrinth and we're relying now on volunteers.
The end isn't in sight just yet, we haven't reached the base.

From time to time we see words carved into the roots.
Words like ameliorate and forthright for no apparent reason.
All the syllables so far are even, there isn;t a single odd syllabled word yet but we're keeping watch.
The roots are gradually getting thicker, becoming tinged with red too.

At first we thought it was rust but one particularly early digger says he saw it fresh, running dark red upwards.
We're getting it tested but several of the other volunteers are convinced that the trees are bleeding.
It's more likely to be rust or some oxidised reaction the newly dug out roots are showing.
After all, how could a metal forest bleed?