The Flowers Are Ugly

Yuki is forced to wake up every morning in a world of her mother Yumiko’s creation. This still paradise is where she will one day achieve happiness through a sacred union with one of the Maitake- a race of fungus men cultivated by Yumiko. But as this artificial world grows darker and darker, and the Maitake search for their fabled new king, the end of paradise grows near…

Made for the February 2023 Japanese Culture Writing Challenge. The idea was originally going to be used in a single chapter of my 2022 horror anthology, Brainrot Paradise, but was never developed past what is now the first chapter of this book.
This novel contains t...