The botanist’s expression grew incredibly grim as he revealed the true danger of the situation. “You poked this just in time,” he told Clara and Leo, gazing back at the heavily geared hazmat crew. “The internal pressure inside that mutation had built up to such an extreme, volatile point that the tree was essentially a ticking time bomb.
It was on the absolute verge of a catastrophic, explosive rupture.” If the bark had cracked open on its own, it would have blasted deadly wooden shrapnel across both yards, easily killing or maiming anyone standing nearby. Furthermore, the explosion would have flooded the local ecosystem with hundreds of gallons of a highly concentrated, lethal dose of alcohol, creating a fatal, toxic trap for the local wildlife population.
As the emergency crews began the delicate, hours-long process of safely draining and clearing out the ancient tree, Clara looked out at the now-quiet woods, finally breathing a deep, well-deserved sigh of relief.