This is The Zelkova Incident of 1868 in Gujo, Japan by Sascha Schmidt, a mythical creature horror story for sleep. In the first year of the Meiji era, a physician arrives at a converted poorhouse on the edge of an old battlefield to find indigent residents dying with pale, bloodless bodies and strange circular wounds. The massive zelkova tree shading the building is not a landmark—it is a biological predator extending hydraulic branch-tubes through the floorboards to feed on sleeping humans, and the administrator has known for decades.

Recovered field notes and a hidden temple compact reveal that the tree propagates through root suckers in blood-soaked soil, that salt and iron can disrupt its seeking mechanism, and that the organism has been feeding on the vulnerable placed in its shadow by design. The physician documents living plant tissue growing inside a patient’s healing wound, attempts to sever a feeding tube, and watches the tree adapt faster than science can explain. When a government inspector arrives to disinter bodies and publish his findings, the compact invokes an older law—one that requires fire, silence, and a sacrifice the official record will never admit.

Written by Sascha Schmidt, based on the lore of Beasts of the Ancient World, and narrated by the synthetic voice of Henry Atkinson.