455. A haunted house, 8

(Rose)

I kept exploring the city while awaiting Blume’s return. Her pod of flesh grew very slowly during that tume, but her shape inside was getting more defined and humanoid.

I continued feeding her what I couldn’t eat myself that she might.

Along the exterior side to the city, as I ventured through the streets covered with earth and dirt, I ended up finding footprints.

Human shoes. One pair. And a four-legged animal walking alongside. Probably a dog.

Someone else was around, not too long ago. I went after them, curious by all means.

Following their trail lead me to an unusual building. A forest, between dislocated walls, on the suburbs of the city. A very densely packed forest on an industrial site, neatly separated from its surroundings like a giant bush. The walls of the building that had been overflowing were swallowed by the trees growing one against another.

The entrance was an arch between a few trees. It was dark inside. The density of the forest made it a sealed building of a new kind.

What had once been a modern building had been swallowed by a swarm of plants covering and destroying, but also replacing, every inch of wall, roof and ceiling, floor and columns.

It now was as if an architect had used trees and ivies and other growing plants to build that very uneven and odd building.

It also reminded me of the organic red forest where everything growing was a part of a giant organism. But the plants back then looked fleshy, while here they look normal by all means.

Although the feeling I get from this place is just as unsettling. I was expecting to see moving ivy, grabbing animals like tentacles, and dragging them into the ground to eat them.

One of such odd plants I was basically caring for currently, so I would not have been that shocked to see a wilder one around this place as well.

It could have been a territory, a nest and trap for an odd plant and animal hybrid. It had all the signs.

I heard a faint weeping. Maybe a beast was indeed eating the guests I had followed. It wouldn’t surprise me.

I’m not feeling comfortable around that spooky jungle, but I’d like to know more.

My sword is too long for use in narrow corridors. I take my knife in hand instead, and step inside the room of the nest.

~

Unlike in usual forests or jungle, here you can see the overall architecture of walls, hallways and even windows shrinking.

You can’t really notice them from the outside, but the windows opened by the space between some tree trunks, branches and other vines are regularly set.

As I walk over a carpet of roots entangled, I have to watch my steps.

I follow the corridors with warm autumn smell; deeper into the maze. The trail I followed is long lost, but I can hear something is there a little deeper.

I notice shelves inside the walls of plants. Along with an endless variety of colours and shapes covering the walls.

There’s no real regularity in the species building this place. Only in the resulting overall building they melt together as one kind.

Some trees even bear some fruits. Some I recognise, some I don’t. Some still growing, some seemingly ripe. Some rotting and dissolving along the roots and moss.

This place is its own little world. And a floral curiosity.

I finally find the inner sanctum.

The main room had become a camp. There’s a stove, a sleeping bag set, and some equipment gathered.

Even some books. I look around, feeling weird and uneasy.

Two animals are lying there in the penumbra, but they didn’t react to my presence.

There’s an odd thread at my feet. I think it could be a trap.

One of the lumps weeps in agony. I step back and cut the thread from afar with the tip of my sword.

Something falls from the ceiling I can hear, but I can’t really figure out what that was.

I want to look at the books, but first I’m checking the dying inhabitants.

The one in pain is a dying dog with long fur. Its flesh is already rotting so much, the organs inside the chest are exposed to my eyes. It moans weakly with all the energy left inside of it. It tries to move, fruitlessly. It’s decomposing as if it were dead already.

After a time of thoughts, I pierce its skull with my sword. Some unsettling noises later, it becomes all quiet.

Things are growing leaves inside the muscles and the skin already.

I should not stay too long in here.

I look at the other one. A dead man. His head still looks mostly like it hasn’t decomposed. Maybe he’s still alive I thought for a second. But the heart is gone. His chest melted and turned into mud feeding this place. He’s already mostly hollowed out and dry.

There’s a bag nearby I grab. I throw the books inside. There’s also a hatchet I take. And before I’m about to leave, I think of something odd.

I’m a little unsettled by my own thought.

I realised there’s possibly something there that may be of use to Blume. A gift for her...

Well. It’s a little unsettling for me still, but I think it’s a good idea nonetheless.

He won’t need it anymore...

I take the hatchet out and return closer to the dead bodies.

I decapitate them and bag the heads. Then I leave the place to rest in its dim darkness.

~

The books are in a language using Cyrillic alphabet. I can’t read them.

The heads bleeding a little are smudging the bag with a nasty smell.

I think it’s my first time carrying a human head like a trophy like that. And as a gift no less.

Because Blume could learn things from dead people’s brains.

These heads about to decay would be like books to her.

They would have been lost as mere flesh in there. Blume could salvage some of their knowledge inside. She could learn a little about who they were and what they knew, beyond their own time on Earth.

Someday, when I die... (for good)

Not that there would be anything new for her to read inside.

Well... One thing at a time.

Once I got home, I buried the bag in a separate place; an isolated empty flowerbed.

When Blume wakes up, it will be hers to look safely at what’s inside. It’s not something I could do.

Me, I need a bath and to wash my clothes thoroughly. Too many smells are sticking to me currently.

~