text: Torn at the Seams &#x200B; It has been 90 days since the discovery. When I published the article, I never thought it would get much attention, but now I think it may have brought on World War 3. The seam was odd, but I thought it must have just been some sort of evolutionary footprint. I mean, who could have imagined alternate dimensions hidden within every tree, and sowed away by some unknown entity? The initial reaction to my article was disapproval, but as others started looking for the seam, they all found it. One scientist in California even got a grant to have every tree in the Redwoods examined. The scientific community started to erupt with speculation. I'm not sure why it took two weeks for someone to try to actually break open the seam, but it did. The stitching was made with a material we'd never seen before. It was nearly as strong as titanium. It couldn't be cut through. Each threading had to be bent and twisted loose with heavy machinery which was extremely difficult because the pieces were so small; nearly microscopic. As each stitch was pulled, a bright pea-sized beam of light would shoot out from the tree. It was thirty days before the first tree was completely open. We were lucky that the Swedish got one open first. Other countries may have hid their discoveries. Pictures of a tree split down the middle with a portal floating above it flooded the internet. The portal glowed with a bright blue swirling with pink light. The two colors seemed to dance around each other, but never touch. Message boards ran rampant with speculation of photoshop or some other trickery. Isak Larsson was the first scientist to enter the portal. His trip was underwhelming. When he returned, Larsson said he'd been transported to an island floating distantly among stars. He said it was physically impossible what he'd seen. The Island had looked like it was from earth, but the sand was all green, and it looked like the island had been carved right out of the crust and just thrown into space. It was encased in a glass sphere and passed through a part of space undiscovered. He said there were stars floating in orbit only what appeared to be a few kilometers from each other. There were stars the size of your hand just constantly passing by the island. The world waited for more discoveries, but none came. However, every single country started either tearing apart every single tree, or selling off their trees to countries that had the wealth to rip them open. All lumber production came to a quick halt. People were uprooting their trees and selling them to the government. If a tree was cut down, the portal would be lost. The economy boomed with this new found commodity that nearly everyone had. Everyone had wealth, and for a moment it seemed like trees could be a cure all solution for the world's problems. As ridiculous as it sounds, wars even ended in order for the negotiation of trees. Not long after, though, China announced that they had started drilling in a few of there portals. Unfortunately for everyone, they found uranium. Negotiations were no longer peaceful. Countries like the U.S. believed they needed to obtain as many trees as possible in order to protect themselves. Forests became wastelands overnight. Private tree ownership was outlawed, and if you owned one you would be tried for treason. The thing is, not every portal had uranium. It seemed to be extraordinarily rare. So it was impossible to know which countries actually had uranium, and which one's didn't. The long standing superpowers all went into debt while poorer countries continued to flourish. It became an arms race for trees. Then we caught wind that North Korea had mined found an abundance of uranium in one of their portals. And now I sit here in my office in Denver. I can hear sirens and see the panic on the streets. Women running with their children. Looters raiding storefronts. It's all meaningless really. Some of us don't believe there ever was anything of use within those portals. That the rumors of mining were all false, but that doesn't matter either way because there are nuclear bombs being launched on almost every country in the world. These are bombs that have existed long before I ever noticed the seams. I suppose everyone just needed a reason to use them.