The singular proposition of treesDownload PDF FUTURES19 November 2025Staying in sync.ByWendy Nikel0Wendy NikelWendy Nikel is a speculative-fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips and a terrible habit of forgetting where she’s left her cup of tea. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.View author publicationsSearch author on: PubMed Google ScholarIllustration: JaceyThere’s a gravity here that our instruments can’t measure — a force that draws us to the trees.We feel it from the moment we land, but as harried and discordant as we are from the squabbles of our journey and stresses of close-quarter living, it takes days for the four of us to share enough to realize we’re each experiencing, differently, the same thing.For me, it is a presence. A nudge. A gentle hand slowly turning my chin towards the windows, where their white trunks reach skywards and their golden leaves glow in the three-sun dawn. I find myself pressing my fingers to the tempered glass when I’m supposed to be conducting experiments or tidying up the mess hall. My feet work their way into the airlock without conscious reason.Flynn dreams of papery bark unrolling like scrolls of wisdom. He sleepwalks and wakes with a hunger our freeze-dried rations can’t satiate.Avery hears music — a rustle of branches in the generator’s hum, in the static of the comms, in her head.For Cooper, it manifests as phantom smells, carrying flashes of warm childhood memories. The richness of soil. The sharpness of leaves. “Like the woods by Grandpa’s old cabin.”Read more science fiction from Nature FuturesWe are sojourners in the unknown.Avery insists on documenting our symptoms, but Flynn won’t let her file an official report. It’s curious, yes, but no risk to the mission. And who wouldn’t be a bit jumbled by arriving on a shining new world? By this massive forest of honey-coloured leaves and bright white branches rising skywards, their arms spread out in every direction?We move up the date of our initial excursion. For the first time, consensus comes easily.Our feet are the first to mark the soft and silty soil. Tiny birdlike creatures flit among the trees, as curious about us as we are about them. As we wander, I gather a feather. A leaf. A handful of dirt. A curl of bark. A twig.Flynn photographs the forest. Cooper collects our data. Avery keeps an eye on our vitals from the safety of the habitat. I only notice we’re working in perfect rhythm — shutter click, hygrometer beep, gather, step and step — when I hear her voice humming along.Another tone harmonizes.“Is that your oxygen tank?”It is. Beeping.Hours have passed unnoticed, untroubled. We are deeper into the forest than intended. Farther from the habitat. Somehow, without argument, without discussion, without a single spoken word, we coordinate our movements to connect the extra tank to my suit. It’s a complex process, but I forget which hands are mine as they all work in synchronicity.At the airlock, we extract ourselves from the forest. Climbing inside, limb by limb, is like trying to untangle a length of vines without snapping any branches. We sit, gasping, trying to collect ourselves. Trying to understand this sudden sense of loss. Still breathing in rhythm with the wind.Inside, we go about our separate tasks, but the new-found cohesion prevails. Each role is essential, balanced, aligned, making our previous conflicts seem absurd, our previous views so narrow.The samples whirl in the sequencer like a maple’s samara fruit. One after another, results blink onto the screen, the hive of coordinated pixels displaying the answer I somehow already knew. I must tell the others.And then they’re here.“Every single sample —”“— has exactly the same DNA. It’s as though they’re all —”“— the same thing somehow. Some massive, complex, universal —”“— organism. But wait, I thought I was —”“— speaking. How did you know what I’d —”“— say?”doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03759-1 Digging foxholes in the dark by Wendy Nikel I’ll burn this bridge when you get here by Wendy Nikel Welcome to your post-apocalyptic bunker rental! by Wendy Nikel Would you still love me if I was a wormhole? by Wendy Nikel Calculating the speed of heartbreak by Wendy Nikel Goodnight, Moon by Wendy Nikel A thousand words, unspoken by Wendy Nikel My dreams have been weird since the magpies arrived by Wendy Nikel An intersection of parallel lives by Wendy Nikel An examination of the trash recovered at Armstrong Lunar Park by Wendy Nikel When we were infinite by Wendy Nikel Twenty-six seconds on Tetonia-3 by Wendy Nikel Cerise sky memories by Wendy Nikel Lava cake for the Apocalypse by Wendy Nikel Let me sleep when I die by Wendy Nikel The Memory Ward by Wendy NikelSubjectsArtsCultureLatest on:ArtsCultureJobs Lab Manager & NHP Research AssistantWe are seeking a highly motivated Research Assistant to join our dynamic team at i-BRAIN.Weiguang Campus, Guangming District, Shenzhen, ChinaInstitute for Brain Research Advanced Interfaces and NeurotechnologiesGlobal Recruitment for Faculty, Postdocs, and Specialists at Hangzhou Institute of Medicine, CASSeeking exceptional Senior/Junior PIs, Postdocs, and Core Specialists globally year-roundHangzhou, ChinaHangzhou Institute of Medicine Chinese Academy of Sciences (HIMCAS)