The Flower Called Nowhere (II)

It all happened in the fraction of a second.

"Utchi, watch out!!"

The anthers shot out and grabbed onto whatever part of her they could get hold of. A hundred hands were pulling Uatchita in a hundred different directions until finally settling on up. While she desperately struggled to free herself, the tendrils lifted her into the air and reeled her in. The petals curled up and the bud closed shut over her head.

A wet darkness enveloped her and burned itself into her skin. Magnified a thousandfold, the flower's pulse boomed down at her from invisible walls and made its way through her body, every heartbeat an extended gutpunch. Her own heart was hammering against her ribs as if trying to break through. She thrashed around in blind panic, flexed every muscle to its highest capacity, screamed as loud as she could- the tendrils wouldn't budge. The plant's pulse entered and left her in a slow and steady rhythm, beating the drums of a toneless march of attrition: Just a matter of time.

Suddenly, there was another force coming up from the flower's depths. It was cold and uneven and initially seemed hesitant, but it wouldn't let up; it kept pushing against her, growing stronger all the while. Uatchita could feel the plant's grip on her loosening. One after another, the tendrils snapped. The flower's pulse sped up. The walls contracted a constant tremor. A tiny gap appeared in the peak of the airtight petals, allowing for a dot of light to enter Uatchita's dark world. 

That light... Uatchita pushed herself one last time.

It felt like her body exploded. The tendrils that had been restricting her arms and holding her down were torn to pieces and spinning in the air beside her. Now she was floating upright with her hand stretched towards the light, the wind pushing from behind and ruffling the hairs on her head. A single tendril still clung to her leg. She reached for her sword. One clean cut and the unwillingly unfurling bud spat her out like the shell of a sunflower seed.

While haplessly hurtling through the air, Uatchita found Miriyam. She was still standing on the shore, wearing a strained expression. Her arms were stretched out. Her irises were swirling wildly. As they locked eyes, the girl's lips started moving, but her voice was swallowed by the wind. What could she be trying to tell her? Suddenly, Uatchita remembered.

Wings.

Uatchita started flapping her wings and, with the help of Miriyam's wind guiding her, managed to pull herself upright. She came to a halt in the middle of the air. For a moment, there was peace. Miriyam smiled at her from the shore, relief and exhaustion writ large on her slightly blueish face. It seemed that all this wind magic had knocked the air out of her. She reached into her backpack and pulled out her bellows while Uatchita slowly let herself glide landward. 

Suddenly, Miriyam screamed.

Something had come out of the water and grabbed onto her. The rocks Uatchita had climbed over rose and revealed themselves to be the humps of a submerged tentacle, which stretched itself out to its full length as it lifted Miriyam off the ground and towards the flower.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!! Help! Heeeelp-"

The wind died down. Uatchita drew her sword. She needed to be quick.

Using her wings, she angled herself diagonally towards the shore. She tensed her body, making herself as flat and narrow as possible. Her fall was rapidly accelerating. Just before she zipped past the tentacle, she held out her sword with both hands and braced herself for impact. The blade cut cleanly about halfway through before getting stuck in the flesh. It felt like her arms were being ripped from their sockets, but Uatchita's grip on the hilt remained steadfast.

Gravity won out. The sword exited the tentacle at an angle, leaving the top part of it attached by a thin strain, but the weight of the body it was holding quickly made it topple over. Still, its end wouldn't reach far enough for Miriyam to land on the shore. Uatchita began flapping her wings as hard as she could, fighting against the pull of the speed she had accumulated to try and catch her friend, but it seemed unavoidable that Miriyam would fall into the water.

Just then, she saw Miriyam weakly raise her hand and try to summon a wind to push herself back to land. For a moment, it seemed to work. She managed to adjust her trajectory by a few meters, until her arms went limp once again and her eyes snapped shut. It hadn't been enough. She was still tumbling almost straight down towards the lake. Desperately, Uatchita reached out her hand, stretched toward her light...

"Yeowch!"

...And managed to grab Miriyam by the ponytail.

***

"This is truly fascinating... An aquatic monster that attracts bait with its mouth, which is fashioned after a flower... This phenotype hasn't been documented anywhere before!"

After landing on the shore, a barely conscious Miriyam had picked up the bellows she had dropped earlier, pumped some air back into her body and, without missing a beat, switched to scribbling in her notebook. Meanwhile, Uatchita had spent the last half hour stretched out in the dirt, watching the flower menacingly flail around the stubby remains of its tentacle and groggily answering her friend's questions about the monster's make.

"Maybe no one was dumb enough to get that close to it before..."

Miriyam didn't seem to notice the jab and just shook her head.

"No, I'm almost certain that it's a relatively recent phenomenon. My grandfather's journals don't even mention a flower in this lake."

Uatchita sighed. She had been doing that a lot lately.

"Uh-huh."

After a bit of scribbling, Miriyam asked her another question.

"Was there anything else that stuck out to you before you were pulled in?"

Uatchita thought about it for a moment.

"Hmm... The smell, I guess."

"What about it?"

Uatchita struggled to put it into words.

"It was... sweet? But, like, not in a good way. A bit like rotten fruit. But the weird thing is, I didn't find it off-putting at all. Or at least, only a small part of me did. The rest of me wanted to get closer..."

Miriyam muttered to herself.

"Maybe because of your head...?"

Uatchita pushed herself up on her elbows and swiveled around.

"What!?"

That came out a lot harsher than she had intended. Miriyam seemed surprised and reflexively held out her palms in front of her chest in defense. 

"O-oh, uhm, I was just thinking that... W-well... Since you have the head of a fly... You know, there are quite a few carnivorous plants that imitate smells like that to attract those kinds of insects, so maybe..." 

Uatchita let herself fall back to the ground with a loud thud and crossed her arms.

"So!? You don't think that big old thing could survive on insects, do you? And for your information, I have the head of a horsefly. I drink blood, Miri. Why would I be attracted to fruit smells? Doesn't make sense if you think about it for longer than two seconds, huh!?"

The scribbling had stopped. Uatchita immediately regretted her outburst. She knew Miriyam hadn't meant anything by it. Her friend was doing her best trying to understand her, and she took every little misstep personally. Miriyam piped up, her voice brittle.

"U-uh... I... I'm sorry... I didn't, uh, I don't... I just wanted... I really shouldn't be making assumptions like that. I'm so sorry..."

Uatchita sighed one last time.

"No, I'm sorry. That reaction was out of line. Seriously, don't worry about it. The whole thing with my head is just a sensitive topic for me, you know? Don't let it discourage you from asking questions."

"...Alright. If you're sure it's okay..."

They both fell silent again. Uatchita was relieved when the sound of the coal stylus scratching against paper returned. Now that the heat of the moment had passed, Uatchita felt supremely exhausted. A part of her knew that resting here was dangerous, but the much larger part was too tired to care. And somehow, despite being the one counting on her protection, Miriyam's presence made it feel safe for her to let her guard down. Even while looking away from her, Uatchita could feel her sitting a little ways above her head on the shore. Miriyam was a bundle of warm light, a crackling campfire keeping all the bad things far away... 

Uatchita let herself be lulled by the constant scratching and drifted off. 

Her dreams carried her back to her past.