Only after most of the trees had been slaughtered did the woodcutters realize their mistake: squirrels are small and adaptable. The squirrels, armed with wood splinters and rusty nails, invaded the houses of the woodcutters. In one night, known as the Night of the Bushy Tails, over a hundred woodcutters and their families were killed in their beds. People found them weeks later (because woodcutters don’t get out much,) with their skulls full of nuts and elaborate claw markings on their bodies spelling out vulgar messages to humanity.

The trees were sympathetic to humans, despite the fact that the primates had preyed upon them for millennia, but they watched the bloodshed in silence, only occasionally whispering to each other.