MidReal Story
Ethereal Leaves: A Moral Dilemma
Scenario: Need a story about a 40 year old man named Jermaine Jackson who finds a tree that the leafs gives you strength, speed and focus , Now he has to fight the urge to use the powers for his own personal use and to use it for good , but the temptations is hard
Create my version of this story
I was hiking in the woods when I found the tree.
It was a big tree, with a thick trunk and branches that reached up to the sky.
The leaves were a bright green, and they rustled in the wind.
I sat down on a rock and looked up at it, and I felt like it was calling to me.
I reached out and plucked one of the leaves from a branch, then I held it up to my nose and sniffed it.
It smelled sweet, like honey.
I put the leaf in my mouth and chewed it.
It tasted even better than it smelled, and I swallowed it down.
I sat there for a few minutes, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did.
I sighed and got up from the rock.
I turned around to leave, but then I heard a voice in my head.
The voice said, “You have been chosen.”
I looked around, but there was no one there.
The voice said, “You have consumed the leaf of the tree of life.You now possess great power.”
I laughed out loud.
I was a little bit hungry, and my imagination must have been playing tricks on me.
I started walking back down the trail, but then I stopped.
The voice had said that I had great power now, right?
Well, if that was true, then I should be able to do something I had never been able to do before.
I walked over to a big boulder that was sitting next to the trail.
I had tried to move it before, but it was too heavy for me.
I put my hands on either side of the rock and pushed up.
To my amazement, it rose up off the ground with ease.
I lifted it up over my head and then threw it into the woods behind me.
It landed with a loud crash, and I heard a bunch of birds take off from the trees.
I jumped up and down and did a little victory dance.
I don’t know what was happening, but I was so excited!
I felt like I could do anything now.
I looked around the clearing and then I turned and ran back down the trail.
There was something strange about the way that I was running, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
I kept running, and then I realized what it was.
I wasn’t tired!
I had been running for a few minutes and normally by now I would be panting and wheezing.
My legs would be burning and my back would be hurting.
But, as I ran down the trail, I felt like I could run forever.
I felt strong and powerful, like nothing could stop me.
I ran faster and faster until I was practically flying over the ground.
The wind whipped through my hair, and I grinned as I ran faster than I ever had before in my life.
I skidded around a sharp turn in the trail, and then I kept running straight ahead.
There was another boulder sitting in the middle of the path, but this one was even bigger than the last one I had thrown!
I didn’t slow down at all as I ran straight towards it.
When I got closer, I jumped up into the air and put my hands down on top of it.
Then I pushed down hard, and the rock went flying into the trees on either side of the trail.
It landed with an even louder crash than the first one!
The birds went crazy in the trees all around me, but I didn’t care.
I skidded to a stop at the end of the trail, and then I turned around and looked at the two boulders that were now lying in pieces off to either side of the path.
They were huge and heavy, but they were nothing compared to my new strength!
I leaned back on my heels and threw my arms out wide, then I shouted at the top of my lungs.
I know that there was no one else around to hear me, but that didn’t matter.
I couldn’t help it—I shouted again at the top of my lungs.
Then I laughed and started walking back towards home.
There was a limit to how massive of a load my body could lift, no matter how crazy strong it had become.
That much was obvious to me when I tested the limits of my superhuman strength in the forest.
In my excitement, I had lifted a giant boulder, but it was a struggle.
And when the tree’s powers kicked in to help me, it still felt heavy.
Not as heavy as it should have been, but still heavy.
The smaller rocks and trees were a different story.
They were light as air, and so easy to lift, that I could barely feel them.
And even though they were only about half the size of the boulder, I could throw them twice as far.
This was so much fun!
I laughed and ran into the middle of the forest.
There was no one around to see me, and no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.
I was free to do whatever I wanted, however I wanted, and nobody could stop me.
The wind rustled the leaves, and the birds sang from the trees.
It was a beautiful day, and for once, it wasn’t too hot or too cold.
It was just right.
The sun was shining, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
I took a deep breath and let my eyes come open wide.
I wanted to see how fast I could run, and so I took off into the forest at a sprint.
The trees flew past in a blur of green as I ran faster and faster, leaping over logs and dodging around trees as I went.
The ground crunched under my feet as I ran, and I kicked up a cloud of dust behind me as I did.
It felt like I was running at the speed of light, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
It didn’t feel like I was going that fast, but that didn’t matter either.
All that mattered was that I was having fun, and I didn’t have to worry about anything.
I skidded to a stop at the end of a small clearing, and then I turned around and looked back over my shoulder at all of the trees that I had passed on the way there.
I saw a small tree that was standing next to the path, and then I got an idea in my head.
I walked over to it and put my hands on either side of its trunk, and then I pushed up as hard as I could.
The tree shuddered and shook as I pushed on it, and then it came loose from the ground with a loud rip.
I lifted it up over my head, and then I threw it into the air as hard as I could.
It went spinning up into the sky, and then it landed with an enormous crash in the middle of the clearing.
I laughed out loud and did a little dance as I hopped from one foot to another.
The tree had been so small that it didn’t even have any branches or leaves on it, and so it didn’t look like much of anything when it crashed down onto the ground.
But still, it had been fun to throw it!
I stopped dancing after a minute or two, and then I looked around the clearing again.
My eyes settled on another tree nearby, and then I walked over to it with a frown on my face.
I hesitated for a second, but then I put my hands on either side of its trunk just like before, and pushed up on it again.
The tree crashed down onto the ground, and then I knelt down next to it with my head in my hands.
I don’t know what I’ve done, I thought.
But I’ve done something wrong.
I know it.
My mind was awhirl with images of all the terrible things that I might have done, but I didn’t know what any of them were.
I wasn’t a particularly bad person, or at least I didn’t think that I was.
Sure, I’d done some things that I wasn’t proud of, but who hadn’t?
And the things that I was thinking of weren’t that bad. Or at least they weren’t that bad to me.
But there was no denying it.
I had done something terrible wrong, something terrible enough that this tree was punishing me for it.
The voice was gone now, but the guilt remained.
It washed over me in wave after wave as I knelt on the ground, and soon I was crying.
I was crying like a baby, and I couldn’t stop no matter how hard I tried.
The tree had left me alone, but the voice hadn’t.
“You have consumed the leaf of the tree of life.
You have been chosen, for you are worthy.But was I worthy?
Was anyone?
The voice seemed to be taunting me now, as if to say that it knew my deepest, darkest secrets.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t even know what they were!
The voice grew louder and louder as it spoke to me, and then I doubled over in pain as it did.
The words echoed in my head as I rolled around on the ground, and then they stopped just as suddenly as they had come.
The pain in my stomach lasted for a few seconds longer, and then it disappeared too.
And when it was gone, there was nothing left except for the guilt.
I stood up slowly, wiping tears from my cheeks as I did.
The tree stood before me with its branches outstretched like arms, and for some reason I felt like it was judging me for what I had done.
But how could a tree judge me?
And why would it bother?
If I’d done something wrong, then that was between me and God.
I stood up slowly, still feeling a little weak in the knees, but I was able to walk back over to where the tree was.
The guilt was still there, but it wasn’t as strong as before.
It was fading now, like a bad dream that you knew you had had, but couldn’t quite remember.
I had no idea what the voice had said to me, but it didn’t matter anymore.
I’d been upset about something, but I didn’t remember what it was.
And besides, it was gone now.
All of it was gone.
I stood before the tree once more, looking up at its smooth trunk and its spreading branches.
For some reason, it felt like I was seeing an old friend rather than a stranger.
I felt like I knew this tree, even though I’d never seen it before.
Or at least I thought that I hadn’t.
And then I realized that I had.
I knew this tree because I had chosen it.
Or maybe it was all in my head?
Maybe I’d dreamed the whole thing?
I’d been tired when I’d gone out for my hike, so maybe I’d fallen asleep without realizing it.
Maybe all of this was just one big dream, a nightmare caused by something that I’d eaten?
But if that was true, then why did I feel so terrible?
Dreams could be scary sometimes, but they couldn’t hurt you, could they?
And besides, if all of this was just a dream, then how could I have lifted that boulder?
And how could everything else have happened?
Had I really done all of those things?
Had I really run so fast, or thrown that rock so far?
And if so, then what did it mean?
What did any of it mean?
For some reason, my mind went back to my college days, when we’d studied chaos theory in one of my classes.
We’d spent weeks talking about how even the smallest things could have a huge impact on everything else.
The classic example was a butterfly flapping its wings in the rainforest and causing a hurricane on the other side of the world.
It was a crazy idea, but I’d always loved it.
It made me feel like I was part of something bigger than myself, like everything that I did really did matter.
And if that was true, then what did it mean for all of this?
My mind raced as I tried to think of some way to explain what was happening to me.
Maybe I was still in my apartment after all?
Maybe I was still asleep in bed right now, dreaming all of this?
Because if it was possible to lift boulders and run like the wind in real life, then it had to be possible in dreams too.
So maybe that was what had happened.
Maybe I was still asleep, and dreaming about all of this instead?
That would explain the guilt too, because you could feel guilty in dreams too.
It was a crazy idea, but it made sense in a way.
It explained everything that had happened so far: the tree, the voice, the guilt…everything.
The only thing that it didn’t explain was how I could have gotten here in the first place.
How could I have gone from my bed in my apartment to standing on a hill in front of a talking tree?
That part didn’t make sense at all.
Unless I had been sleepwalking maybe, or if someone had drugged me?
But if they had done that, then why would they have done it?
And how would they have gotten away with it too?
The more I thought about it, the less sense it made.
And besides, I wasn’t asleep anyway.
I knew that now for sure, because if I was, then pinching myself wouldn’t hurt.
It was speaking to me, inside my head, and it was telling me that I could have anything that I wanted.
A beautiful woman, a new car, a pile of money…anything.
Just say the word, and it was mine.
It was impossible, but the proof was right in front of me, and I could feel my mouth starting to water as I thought about all of the things that I could have.
But I had to admit that it made me feel a little uncomfortable too.
I mean, it was one thing to want something, but it was something else entirely to just take it.
That was stealing, and it was wrong.
Even if I was only stealing from a dream…
But then the voice told me that it wasn’t stealing, not really.
Because if I could have anything that I wanted, then that meant that I could do anything that I wanted too.
And if that was true, then that meant that I didn’t have to worry about being good or bad anymore either.
I could do whatever I wanted, and no one would ever judge me for it.
Because no one would ever know.
And that was when I realized just how much power I really had now.
Maybe even more than the gods themselves…
It was a terrifying thought, and it made my knees feel weak as I thought about all of the things that I could do with it.
But it made me feel guilty too.
Who was I to be able to do all of this?
What had I done to deserve it?
And what if someone else had gotten all of this power instead?
Someone like Marcus Flynn, for example?
The more time went by, the more that I was starting to think that he was a bad guy after all.
I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was starting to pile up.
And if he really was a bad guy after all, then what would he do with all of this power?
The more that I thought about it, the less comfortable that the idea made me feel.
But if he really was as powerful as he seemed to think that he was, then there probably wasn’t anything stopping him from getting it anyway.
So if that was true, then did that mean that he would try to stop me instead?
Or should I try to stop him first?
No, that was crazy.
I didn’t know anything about what was really happening here, and it was stupid of me to be jumping to conclusions like that.
Besides, if he really was as powerful as he seemed to think that he was, then there probably wasn’t much that I could do to stop him anyway.
So if that was true, then what should I do instead?
The voice told me that it was up to me.
That all that I had to do was say the word, and it would be done.
And it also told me that no one would ever judge me for it either.
But that part didn’t make any sense.
If it was really up to me, then that meant that it was my fault too if something went wrong.
But, at the same time, it was hard not to get caught up in the possibilities too.
Because the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that there were plenty of times in my life when a little bit of extra power could have come in handy.
Like when I’d missed out on my chance at a job at North Star Industries because of a hangover…
Or when my car had broken down on my way back from New Orleans…
Or when my wife had left me for another man…
Or when my family had kicked me out on the street…
If I had been more powerful back then, then maybe things could have gone differently.
Maybe if I had known how to control myself better, then none of that would have happened at all.
But it didn’t matter now anyway, because it was all over and done with now.
But what if it wasn’t?
If I could go back and change time itself, then maybe things could be different after all.
Maybe if I went back and fixed everything that had gone wrong, then everything would be okay again.
And maybe even better than okay too.
But if that was true, then why stop there?
Why not go back even further?
To my college days maybe?
To my very first drink?
What if I had never started drinking at all?
