"I'd LIKE to be a tree," Fluttershy said. She clutched herself against the cavern's cold. As she shivered, the brassy feathers on her wings clattered against each other.
"I don't think I like this game," Sunset grumbled. "Although I think it's kind of cool you get to have wings."
Fluttershy unfolded her wings. "But don't you know what I'm expected to do?"
"No idea. This so-called educational program is really nuts."
"In this VR, the wings mean that I'm part of the staff." She clattered her feathers softly. "If I remember the book right, I'm probably a harpy."
"Isn't a harpy some kind of monster?"
Fluttershy held out her hands. "Look. Claws instead of fingers. And my feet changed, too. I'm definitely a harpy. Which means I have a pretty terrible job."
"What job is that?"
Fluttershy reached up to put her hands over her ears. "I get it!" she said to someone who wasn't there. "Got to go to work." She started walking along a stony path.
Sunset followed her. "What's your job?"
"Oh...I hate to even think about it. But I suppose I haven't any choice." Fluttershy stepped off the path, onto a flat expanse of sand where trees grew, knotted and gnarled into weird shapes. "Don't follow me!" she warned. "You don't want to see."
"I can't abandon a friend." Sunset stepped onto the sand as well.
Fluttershy shook her head. "Didn't you pay attention in class at all? When Dante visits the Inferno, he doesn't only see that the sins being punished there are bad. He learns to harden his heart against the suffering of the sinners there. He thinks they deserve to be there. The teacher doesn't like to say it, but what really happens is...Dante loses some of his compassion."
Sunset clenched her fists. "That's terrible. And this is supposed to teach Dante to be a good person? If you ask me, he just learns to be worse."
Fluttershy took a deep breath. "Ouch!" she said, her hands gripping her head. "I hate this part. But maybe...if I try to do it gently....maybe it won't be as bad as it COULD be."
She led the way deeper into the forest. The trees' reddish hued leaves filtered the light, making the forest look even creepier.
"Maybe what won't be as bad?" Sunset asked.
Fluttershy approached a short tree with a green-tinged trunk. "I'm so sorry," she said. She reached out, ripping a twig off the tree.
The tree spoke. "Ow! I guess someone finally noticed me."
"Wallflower?" Sunset cried out. She ran forward and embraced the tree. "Wallflower, is that you?"
"Yes, it's me."
"How did you get here?"
The tree blew a raspberry. "Because this game sucks. In the entry screen, it gave me a list of lots of different things a person could do wrong in life. Did you know astrology is a sin?"
"Um...no. So it's a sin to read the newspaper? Because that's the only place I've seen astrology."
"I don't know either! But I asked the entry screen, what happens to someone who...kills herself. And the next moment, I was here. I'm a tree in a place they call the Wood of Suicides. Canto Thirteen."
Fluttershy groaned with pain. "I'm sorry, Wallflower. The game is making me do this. It's not my choice." Her arm trembled as she reached out and ripped another twig off the Wallflower tree.
The tree said, "It's ok. I don't think that was as bad as the last one. You must be getting better at making it hurt less."
"It's nice of you to say so," Fluttershy said softly. "Even though I'm afraid you might be lying."
Sunset clenched her fists. "I don't know which of you is being tortured worse. Wallflower is getting pieces of herself ripped off. Literally torn limb from limb. If you'll pardon the expression."
"It's ok," the tree said. "They're only very tiny limbs. And after a little while, they grow back."
Sunset grimaced. "But Fluttershy...I think other people's suffering hurts her a lot. Making her torture someone might be the worst thing anyone could do to her. How could she be given a job like this? How can any virtual reality program like this even be allowed? It should be illegal!"
"You know..." Fluttershy said, "I'm sure you're right. It shouldn't be a school requirement, at least. But rules are rules."
"I think I know why it's required," Sunset said. "I think I understand why the Moral Education Laws exist. I think it's because the people who write those rules are evil devil worshippers. I think they WANT to see people suffer. They say bad people, who do bad things, will be punished in hell. But they also force anyone who goes to high school to be tortured like this. Isn't torturing people bad? So why do they do it?"
The Wallflower tree said, "The national curriculum board says it's educational. That suffering will teach us to be better people."
"Wally...outside this game, in the real world, I've seen the scars on your arms, when your sleeves get kind of bunched and ride up a bit."
"Oh," Wallflower said. "I try to keep them covered."
"Well, I saw them. But did the pain of cutting yourself make you a better person?"
After a little while, Wallflower said, "Probably not. I don't think it did."
"So how is it supposed to make you a better person when something like that happens to you here?"
"I don't know," Wallflower replied. "I never said it made any sense. It's just something you have to do, to be allowed to keep going to school."
"What are they trying to teach us? To be horrible people?"
Fluttershy took a deep breath. "Maybe," she said. She clutched her head against an ache inside her skull. "No!" she said. "I don't want to do it! It's mean! I don't care what you say will happen to me if I don't obey! I don't care if I DO die of it!"
She writhed and slowly crumpled to the ground, convulsing on the sand.
"Isn't there anything I can do to help her?" Sunset shouted. "Someone help her, please! I think she's really sick. Maybe she's dying!"
Sunset knelt over Fluttershy, holding her hand. Wondering if there was anything she could do that might help even a little.
Fluttershy's convulsions weakened as she slowly went limp. Her body melted, and gathered into a dark, gnarled clump.
"Oh," Sunset said.
The clump thrust branches upwards, growing into a new tree.
"Talk to me!" Sunset said. "Tell me you're ok. Tell me you didn't have a real life heart attack or something!"
Wallflower's leaves rustled. "The only way she can talk, you know, is if you tear off at least a twig from her body, to give her a hole to speak through."
Sunset shook her head. "This place is insane." She pulled at one of Fluttershy's smaller twigs, tearing it loose.
"Hi, Sunset!" the new tree said. "Losing a twig hurts, but I don't hate it as much as when I was being given those terrible headaches, to try to force me to do my job as a harpy."
"So...it's better now?" Sunset asked.
"Yes." Fluttershy seemed to sigh. "I think if I have to choose...until the game timer finally expires at the end of the night and lets us escape...I'd rather be a tree."
