"Uprooted" by Adam Melbrooke

Hi there. I'm gonna have to apologise straight up here for being "too informal", but if you'd lived my life I'm pretty sure you could get away with it. To put it bluntly, I lived in a swamp for most of my life.

It's all because of what people here keep calling "my ability", but I call it a curse. I was born with moss and vines all over me, and my mom died giving birth to me. My pa thought it was some sort of curse, so late at night he took me into the swamp and left me there.

I only know all of this because of Mr Pendergast. He was the one who tracked me down and sent people to bring me from the heart of a Louisiana swamp to The Academy so I could do some good for the world. He found out about my family and why I ended up in the swamp, and he gave me my name. It's my mom's pa's name, Mr Pendergast looked through all the census records to find it, and he even went back to see my pay and get me a picture of my parents. I owe him so much.

But right now I think it's time to tell you my story. The story of my life in the swamp, up until I was found by the people from The Academy.

I don't remember how I survived in that swamp, I was way too young to be able to recall any of it. All I know is that as I got older more "abilities" developed. I had vines all over my body and my skin started to harden like bark. My feet slowly changed to look like the roots of a mangrove tree and I could force them into the ground so I wouldn't move, despite any wind, rain or floods. I could go days without eating, and I now know that's because if the plants all over me, and I could even breath underwater for a long time. My vines acted as longer arms, helping to catch birds to eat, and any threat was easily taken care of by the pods on my arms that had some sort of sleeping gas.

I lived there for years in peace. The biggest threats were gators (although I occasionally fought off a python or a wolf) that I could knock out with my pods, and my thick bark-like skin was tough for them to bite through, or people that might spot me. I could blend in with the surroundings or even hide underwater when I heard the rafts coming though; the noisy fans always gave them away.

Still, I found out at The Academy that enough people saw me in the swamp for me to become a part of local folklore. There were a couple of videos taken by people out fishing for crawfish or hunting hogs of me moving about through the swamp, so I guess a lot of people might have been there to try and see me. There was some local legend about a wolf-thing called a rougarou, and maybe the moss and leaves that covered me looked like fur on camera.

Even with all the trouble, the bayou was my home, the only home I've ever known, and I loved it. You got used to the smell eventually. But one day something threatened my home, and I had to do something to protect it.

Looking back on it, I could have been more prepared, but I couldn't speak English so I never knew what all the visitors were talking about. I now know they wanted to start "fracking" in the area (but I don't really know what that means), to get the oil that was deep underneath the swamp. They were going to kill everything to do it and use all the feathers and skin and any other bits of animal they could find to make souvenirs for tourists. I would have become some sort of circus attraction for them. But I never knew until all of the men came.

They came with guns and chainsaws. If it moved they shot it and if it didn't they cut it down. The floating logs were towed away by the rafts that the men came in, and they slung the animals they killed over their shoulders to carry them away. first day I hid, too scared to day anything and just hoping that they wouldn't come back. Hunters, fishermen and loggers were always there, but never this many.

They came back on the second day, killing even more things. They had big machines they could sit in that moved through the river on right enormous legs. They had saws for cutting and a giant claw for carrying away legs. I've only ever seen a claw that came close to that on Mantis, but that's too far ahead for now.

By the third day I'd had enough, but I couldn't attack them in the daylight, they would all see me and shoot me. I had to follow them, but with my bark-like skin I moved too slowly too walk behind them. So I did what the pis sons in the swamp did when they heard the noise of the rafts - played dead. I climbed onto a bunch of floating logs and laid face down to blend in.

I knew I was back at their camp when I heard shouting. There were a lot more voices than there were downriver so I guessed we'd arrived and rolled off into the water to hide until it was night. To them I must have just looked like some driftwood, but they didn't seem to care about me down there.

Night came and the sounds of machines and men shouting stopped. Only the rustle of wind through the leaves of the few trees left and the rippling of the water could be heard when I climbed onto the riverbank. So it was what I saw and not heard that filled me with fear.

There was metal everywhere, platforms and building made of it, stacks ready to be used to make more man-made islands like this. There were huge pillars reaching into the night sky, a burst of fire coming from one of them every now and then. Giant letters on one of the buildings spelled out NEO. Now I know what I was getting involved in, but back then I didn't even understand what the letters meant.

And then there were the machines, at least ten like the one I'd seen downriver, and the same amount of a different kind. They all had huge tracks like a tank, but the cabin was raised as high as it was on the crab-like ones with legs. At the back if them there were two sets of claws to carry logs, and the front had two strange tubes on arms that I guessed would be able to move. Metal tanks were stuck to the sides with pipes connecting them to the tubes.

There were no men around, they were all in the buildings resting up so they had enough energy to destroy my home some more. Something had to be done, and I was the one that had to do it.

Full of rage, I made a plan. I used my vines to wrap up the legs of the metal crabs and then let them loose. Something I'd learnt from fighting with gators was that I could let my vines go and they'd grow back almost instantly, so I left them tied around the machines' legs. The ones on the tracks looked a lot less dangerous, but I left some of my arm pods in the cabins of some of them just to be sure.

Next I had to bring the men out of the buildings, and I knew exactly what to do. I went back into the river so I could hide when they all rushed all and I planted my feet into the ground for support. My vines had grown back by now, so I wrapped them around one of the huge pillars. Jon always talks about "refraction" and how I've "adapted to counteract it" when I tell him how I caught birds from underwater. He might be right about the adapting thing, I could never catch them when I was younger but I could when I got older.

Anyway, I pulled and pulled my vines until I felt it give. The pillar fell onto the metal platform with a huge crash. The platform was held up by more pillars under the water and I saw them bend when I heard the crash. I grabbed two of those as well and pulled them from the platform. One was in the middle so it didn't have any effect, but the other made a corner slide into the water under its weight.

Some of the men fell into the river. They must have ran over when they heard the noise and slipped when the floor fell away from under them. By this time it had started raining, as you could never guess how the weather could change, so that made it even harder for them to grip the floor. I heard the same rumbling noise as I did earlier when the crab came to the swamp, just much louder. Then there was another crash, and I guessed that all of them had fallen over because of my vines.

I climbed back onto the riverbank to see the chaos I'd caused. All of the crabs were on fire and there were men all around on the floor. I saw men falling from the tank-like machines surrounded by the green gas from my arm pods. Other men ran towards me but I could deal with them by using my vines as whips or by throwing an arm pod at them.

Nobody must have expected this was an attack since nobody had guns or any other weapon, which was good. With my hard skin I would have moved too slowly to escape them and a bullet would shatter and splinter my body.

I made my way through the fire and men to the largest building; the one with NEO on the side. But on the way one of my mistakes caught up with me. I thought the tank-things were harmless so I must have forgotten to put an arm pod in one of the cabins. One of them rolled right in front of me and turned on the spot so it faced me. I saw the man in the cabin smile as he flicked a switch. Fire burst out of the tubes and I screamed in pain. I was like a tree and I was going to burn to ashes right there.

But then something amazing happened. I was suddenly underwater again, and so was the fire-maker. It took me a couple of seconds to realise what had happened; the pillar I pulled out was supposed to be under where we were, but with no support the weight of the machine made that platform fall into the water, saving my life.

I pulled myself back up using my vines and carried on towards the NEO building, picking off more of the men on the way. There weren't many more outside, so I took them out easily.

Once I reached the door I planted my foot into it so I could yank it off. Inside were more men, so I decided to show them the door. Literally. I hadn't removed my foot from it yet so I launched it at them and some of them fell to the ground. I looked around and saw a table, so I grabbed that with my vines and launched that at them too. There weren't many left now, but they charged at me and pinned me to the ground. All of my arm pods burst out of instinct and I stood up, surrounded by unconscious men.

Only one man was left standing at the other side of the room. He was huge, his muscles almost bursting out of his tight shirt. His messy brown hair matched his brown eyes, and his face looked full and reddish. In his right hand was an axe, which I thought was a bit weird since everyone else had chainsaws to cut down trees. Just over where his heart was on his shirt were the same letters I saw on the side of the building, so I launched a vine at it.

My vine was cut just before it made contact, and than he charged at me. I planted my feet to stand my ground and whipped him whenever I could, but he cut the vines as fast as they grew back. He'd seen what I could go with my arm pods so he ducked and jumped to avoid them.

When he reached me I punched him, right in his stomach, but he barely took any notice, so I hit him again and again. I tried to knock the axe out of his hand but he managed to counter. We traded blows over and over, but eventually I saw my chance. I grabbed him by the neck and my vine wrapped around it. I saw the life slowly leaving him, but in one last attempt he thrust the blade of the axe into my right forearm. I don't know if he suddenly got some superhuman strength because he was close to dying, but it went right through.

I screamed in pain, and he fell to the floor, the axe slipping out of his hand. He smiled when he tore the vines off of his neck, and I realised that this wasn't a man. This was a monster.

I stood on his chest to restrain him but before I knew it my foot was planted in him. I knew I had to kill him, he tried to kill me and the swamp and if I didn't he would kill more and more. I walked outside, the air filled with smoke and the sounds of the man yelling with agony. I slowly made my way to the water, more slowly than I needed, and when I got there I held him under until he stopped moving. It wasn't that deep, but it was deep enough.

The rain was as hard as I'd ever seen it by then, like nature was as angry with the men as I was. The water streaming down my face masked my tears at what I was doing.

A survivor saw me holding him under and ran, but I knew my trouble was over, so I tore away the other pillars holding up the metal island, left this monster for dead and started walking through the pouring rain back to my home.

Days passed and my hand regrew, but now it was made of vines. I couldn't make one grow out and use it as a vine any more, but this was better. I learned that I could plant my hand into the ground like my feet, but the vines would come out of the ground wherever I wanted them to. The monster might have tried to kill me, but he ended up making me even stronger.

I lived in peace again, but not for very long. It wasn't long before I was torn away from my home by someone I would never have expected, and it was only because I let one man get away.

He must have ran back to town after I destroyed the metal island and told someone about me because only one raft came down the river in days. But I am so glad that it did, just maybe not at first.

I'd grown confident with the lack of visitors, so when the raft came I didn't have time to get underwater. I kept watching the raft and I thought I recognised two people; the man that ran away and, somehow, the monster. I panicked. I was sure I'd killed him, but maybe I was wrong.

I tried to move backwards into some trees so I could get away, but the man who ran spotted me and pointed me out to the monster, who jumped into the water and swam after me. I stood my ground, waiting for him to attack, but he didn't. He just climbed onto the bank and walked over to me.

He said something to me, but I couldn't understand, so he gestured to me and I guessed he wanted me to follow him back to the raft. He didn't seem to want to hurt me and my still animalistic instincts told me it was okay to follow. So I did.

But what I didn't know at the time was where I was following him. He took me from the swamp back to town, hiding me under a cloak so people wouldn't stare. From there he took me to a truck and I rode in the back, still hiding under the cloak.

After a long drive we got to the coast and got on a boat. It was nothing like the swamp rafts, it had big white sails instead of a fan and it wasn't metal but wood. I saw the captain look at me then shrug and shake his head a little with a smile, like he'd seen plenty of things like me before. Then we set off.

The journey was long and the air got colder the closer we got, so by the time we arrived I'd grown a thin layer of moss and leaves to try and keep warm. The person I met when I got off the boat was the headmaster, and the closest thing to a real pa I've ever had. He led me down the path to The Academy and introduced me to Mr Pendergast. I was the first student there, I had years to learn to read and write and talk before anyone else arrived. My only company was the teachers and a young girl in a brown frock that I saw sometimes.

At The Academy I learnt about what happened at my home. Mr Hellstrom was the one that came to the swamp and brought me here, and he told me about NEO and how they were a huge company run by an evil mastermind. The monster I met was a clone of him created by the leader of NEO, and that was why I recognised the man who came for me.

And it was here that I met Jon (he hates it when we don't call him Jonathan), the man who thought it would be a good idea for me to write all of this down. So you can thank him for it, even though I'm the one it's based on.