They traced mournful, desperate arcs through the air,
as if performing a belated, sorrowful farewell.
As they fell, the branches were instantly and relentlessly devoured by the surging golden flames,
vanishing in the blink of an eye. All that remained were ghostly wisps of smoke curling upward,
before slowly dissipating into the deathly-still night sky.
The hanged figures,
their already illusory forms, faded within the sea of golden fire,
like old photographs relentlessly worn away by time.
Their colors and outlines bled away until they became nothing more than faint wisps of smoke, dissolving into thin air.
Their existence,
had perhaps been nothing more than a brief, dark interlude in the great tree's long life.
Now, with the tree's demise, they were scattered like dust, returning to the eternal void,
leaving behind only a chorus of shrill echoes.
The cries lingered in the night sky like the wails of vengeful spirits, chilling all who heard them to the bone.
