Apple Monster stood at the base of the tree and looked up. Black lines crawled across the lowest branches now, thick as his thumb. Three weeks of waiting had brought him here — to the moment when hoping stopped working. The ants owned the trunk. They owned the roots. Now they owned the air. He had brought the red can this time. It sat on the stone bench where he'd spent every evening for three weeks, watching the darkness spread. The bench had been his grandfather's favorite place to rest after harvesting apples. Now it held poison instead of peace. Apple Monster picked up the can. His hand shook as he read the label. The tree's bark was so thick with ants he couldn't see wood anymore. Just movement. Just hunger. The spray would kill them. It might kill the tree too. He pressed the nozzle. White mist shot out and covered the lowest branch. Ants fell like rain. He kept spraying until the can sputtered empty, until his eyes burned, until he couldn't tell if he was saving the tree or watching it die. The choice was made. There was no more waiting.

The ants came back the next morning. Apple Monster saw them before he finished his coffee — fresh black lines crawling up from the roots where yesterday's spray had left them dead. He dropped the mug and ran to the tree. A woman stood waiting near the stone bench. She wore dirt-stained gloves and carried a clipboard. Behind her, past the fence line, a small wooden building sat at the edge of the field. She pointed to a thin black ribbon on the ground between them — ants, hundreds of them, marching in perfect formation toward his tree. "They're coming from that mound," she said. "About forty yards west. I've been tracking them since dawn. The spray you used yesterday killed the scouts, but the colony just sent more. They'll keep coming until you deal with the source." Apple Monster followed the trail with his eyes. It disappeared into the grass, a living highway he'd never noticed before. The mound sat visible now that she'd pointed it out — a dome of packed earth taller than his knee, riddled with holes, covered in movement. He felt something crack inside his chest. Killing ants on the tree wasn't enough. It had never been enough. He'd been fighting symptoms while the disease lived and breathed just forty yards away. The woman was still talking, explaining colonies and queens and underground tunnels, but he wasn't listening anymore. He was looking at the mound and understanding that saving the tree meant destroying something else entirely — something alive, something that wouldn't go quietly. He asked her what it would take to remove the mound. She didn't sugarcoat it. Poison that would seep into the soil. Digging that might damage the tree's root system if he miscalculated the distance. A fight that could take weeks and might still fail. Or he could do nothing and watch the ants strip the bark clean by summer's end. Apple Monster looked back at his grandfather's tree, then at the mound, then at the woman with her clipboard and her terrible honesty. For three weeks he'd done nothing. Yesterday he'd sprayed poison and felt like a hero. Today he learned he'd accomplished exactly nothing that mattered. He thanked her and walked toward the mound alone, his shadow stretching long across the ant trail, finally understanding what saving something actually cost.