Growing Lilies

Star was a boy. He had lifted his little leg and peed all over the floor in front of Lily’s magic studies. At least now she knew one additional thing. She grumbled to herself about it as she went to find cleaning supplies. When she got back, she noticed something odd.

It was notably colder in this room close to where she had been studying. Like ten degrees cooler at least. She shivered slightly. That was weird. Her mind went to ghosts first, but then she got a grip and realized it must be her magic practice. One of these glyphs must be lowering the temperature somehow.

Well, that made sense. She had assumed that the spell was creating fire without heat, but if the spell was creating fire then cooling it down that could also be the case right? Wait, did that mean magical air conditioning was simple and easy? That’s kind of great!

She approached her splayed out single glyph circles and looked over them for a sec. She couldn’t tell which it was by appearance, so she got down and started cleaning up after Star. He was reading the vibe of the room and being meek, but she was still a little mad.

“Okay, you’re a puppy. I get it. We’re going to have to work on this. I don’t know why I assumed you were already potty trained. This garbage isn’t gonna fly okay?”

Star whined. She’d have to do some research later about how to potty train a dog. Hell, how to train a dog in general. Although she wasn’t planning on keeping him long term, she could teach him how to behave around her at least.

She finished cleaning up and came back to her circles. Now to find out which one of these was creating the cold. Lily poked her still growing mana sphere over Glyph #5, but that didn’t seem to be it. That meant one of these other glyphs was doing something. Lily was hesitant to just try running her hand over each one, but she wasn’t really having any other ideas.

So, she reached out and put her hand over glyph #1, then #2, and so on. The instant she put her hand over glyph #4, she yelped and pulled it back. It was COLD right there. The skin on her hand nearly instantly turned red as all of the heat drained from it, and it hurt. It brought back memories of yesterday morning on the boat.

The glyph was the one with a little flame and three stars coming out of it. Meanwhile, the one steadily gathering mana above it was five of the same stars in a pattern. None of the other glyphs seemed to be doing anything. So, was this one generating mana too. From heat maybe? Okay, but how did she turn it off?

Lily stared at it, puzzled. Wait, it generates mana? She was prepared for a cold spell to be using mana up. But, when she thought about it, it did make a sort of sense. Heat was just another form of energy right? So it’s a converter. With the side effect of being an air conditioner. That was pretty cool. But how cold would it get exactly…? It already hurt. Yes, she should turn it off until she figured out how to limit or contain it. She looked around for a tool she could use without her hand getting too close.

She wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a big chef knife that was in the knife block on the counter, and went back to the circle. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself, and swung down careful not to get her hand close to it. The circle broke.

WHUMPH

A blast of… not air exactly exploded from the broken circle and filled the room. It was ice cold. Lily shivered. The temperature in the room had just dropped to near freezing in an instant. Star shook off and toddled over to lie down next to Lily. Presumably for warmth. Lily was a bit shaken.

“Huh. I did that. That was a big effect for something I did. I better be more careful…”

Okay then, she was getting somewhere now! The little stars were mana. She crossed off Glyph #4 and Glyph #5 in her notes and replaced them with ‘Gather Ambient Mana’ and ‘Heat to Mana’. Then she looked at her notes about the everburning flame.

“Hmm. Why would those two be together towards the end of the spell?”

That part still didn’t make sense to her. Shouldn’t they be at the start? Gather mana, make fire, drain heat from fire. That had to be the basic loop right? If she was designing this spell, that’s what she would make it do. But wait, she found this spell. So that meant it was… naturally occurring somehow?

She thought about learning about evolution in school. It was important to remember that evolution didn’t choose to create what was optimal for the animal. It created what was optimal for passing genes down. Whatever natural process created this spell might not have created an optimal spell. It had created what it created through its own processes. So, she shouldn’t expect it to work the best way it can, or how she would design it.

With that decided, she turned her attention back to the diagram.

“What else do we have here then?”

Mana and a little half circle. Mana inside a structure. A spiral arrow. Fire with lines, and mana inside and outside of that same little half circle. Plus some unsolved mysteries, like why was this spell on a piece of wood instead of just creating flames on nothing anyways?

Okay, well, one step at a time. How could she figure out what any of the other glyphs did? It seemed likely that the reason they weren’t functioning was because they weren’t being fed the mana. So, all she needed to do was create a circle with a mana generating glyph connected to the ones that used it right?

Well… That was easier said than done. It was still quite cold, and Lily was feeling cautious. She could really hurt herself if she wasn’t careful. It was time to rethink doing this in her living room with no protection.

“Hey Star, why don’t we take a trip while I think this over?”

She looked down at the puppy, and ran a hand through his fur. He really was quite soft. Star gave a yawn, and looked up at her curiously.

“Lets raid a pet store, huh?”

---

 

Twenty minutes later she was pulling into a Petsmart and pulling the same trick she had to get into Target. Back the car up against the door, and then slowly hit the gas until the glass shatters. Star got a little spooked at the noise of the breaking glass, but Lily was able to calm him down.

The store’s power was out, but Lily had been expecting that. Power was out across more and more of the city as it was. For now though, Lily wanted to get Star some stuff. It was only fair. She’d gotten to loot a couple stores already, so her companion ought to have the same privilege.

She had to carry Star through the door to protect him from stepping on any broken glass, but once they were inside he happily tramped on in, sniffing around. Lily took a look around.

“Okay, first things first, let’s get you some puppy chow huh? Come on little guy.”

Heading into the store proper with her cell phone light on, the girl made sure the puppy was following her. Satisfied, she found the aisle with dog food and started looking through them. They all looked the same to her, so she decided to go with the taste test. She had to jab a hole in each of the bags with her keys, but soon she had four different little piles of kibble. So, she called Star over and let him sniff around. The little dog wasn’t really responding to his name yet, but if she used an excited tone of voice he’d usually start heading over her way. He sniffed them, but started eating the one labeled something like ‘scientifically formulated diet’ first.

“Oh, you’re a science dog huh? Smart little boy, huh?”

She scratched behind his ears while he devoured the pile. Then, Lily rose and grabbed a cart. She put a few large bags of the stuff in it, and tried to get Star to follow her to go look at treats.

After the dog had finished eating all three other small piles of kibble, she finally got him to follow her. She really would need to teach this dog some tricks. It couldn’t be too hard right? Just the basics. His name, come when called, sit, lay down, stay. That’s not a lot, right?

She found her way into the treat aisle, and started looking around for things she thought Star might like. She’d just let him sniff around, but he could only reach the bottom shelf. So, she started pulling things down to let him sniff at them.

“You know, I really have made a lot of progress in a couple days. The day everything happened I tried to go into a store and had a straight up panic attack just from walking in. Now it feels like I own the place.”

Star got particularly excited when she waved a dried duck foot in front of his face, so she grabbed the whole bin to put in the cart and went back to showing him treats. The dog was very quickly developing a taste for shopping.

“I won’t lie, I’m still a little nervous. I don’t feel like places like this were made for me. I don’t feel allowed in them. Sometimes, I feel like I’m something pretending to be human. It feels like everyone can tell.”

The cart was admittedly filling up, but she had a lot of storage at home, so she kept going. Star temporarily became more interested in sniffing around than anything she was doing, but she continued talking as if he could understand her.

“But now there is no ‘everyone’. They’re all gone. In a way, I’ve been let off the hook you know? People have always been my biggest fear, and now they’re all gone. It feels wrong to be happy about that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m scared of the future too. Of what I’ll do to survive being here all alone. But, a part of me is glad. I never had to confront my fear. That fear anyway. Is it wrong to be relieved? I feel like it’s wrong.”

Star toddled over and licked her hand a few times. The empathetic little thing seemed to be able to tell her mood was turning. So, Lily sat down on the floor and pulled him into her lap.

“Now that I’m not fighting so hard just to survive, I’m a little scared that I don’t feel all that bad about it. I didn’t interact with people anyways, you know? But shouldn’t I feel… I don’t know, something? I can feel sad when a character I like dies on TV. Tell me a person lost their battle with cancer, and I can feel empathy even if I didn’t know them. But, tell me 8 billion people suddenly vanished and I don’t know how to feel. I can’t wrap my mind around that number. It’s too big. Is it tragic? Did it hurt? Where did they go?”

Lily hugged Star a little tighter.

“Are they all still living in a normal world without me? Did anyone even notice I was gone…?”

This is why introspection was dangerous. Lily could feel the tears rising in her eyes now. She couldn’t stop them, so she didn’t try. She just let herself cry, right there on aisle 4 of a dark Petsmart.

“It really doesn’t matter. If they hadn’t disappeared, I’d still be there now. I was never going to leave my apartment again. I’d probably have died, and they wouldn’t have noticed that either. So, why does it matter to me now? Why should it matter to me that they’re all gone?”

Star began to grow restless, as animals do. He couldn’t understand, but seemed to know Lily was upset. His tolerance for being held diminished, and Lily let him onto the floor. She fished out one of the duck feet, and held it out for him to gnaw on.

“This is stupid. You don’t even understand me. God, I have so much shit to work through that I’ve just been trying not to think about. Good thing I have plenty of time.”

Lily could hear the bitterness in her voice. Okay, that was enough of that. It was time to keep moving to keep her mind off this.

---

She found her way back home with a car absolutely stuffed with everything a dog might need. At least, as far as she knew. She was still new at this. At least Star seemed to enjoy himself. Lily was still in a somewhat sour mood.

Just having the wrong thoughts was still enough to send her into a spiral, and it was hard to pull out of that once it started. She hated being that way, but she didn’t know how to be any different. So, that’s just how it was.

At least she had a comfy home to return to. Of course, by that she meant her boat. Somehow the mansion still felt… not hers. But the boat already felt as comfortable as her apartment had. Admittedly, that wasn’t a high bar.

So, she spent some time unloading dog stuff into the main house. She poured Star a nice big bowl of kibble and another full of water. The poor dog must have been pretty thirsty because he absolutely downed the water.

“Okay, but try not to pee inside later alright?”

She knew he would anyway. Maybe she could keep him after all? It was a weird time to have that thought, but it had been nice not being totally alone today.

“And what if he gets sick or hurt? You’re not a vet Lily. You don’t even know how to take care of him.”

She chastised herself, and a voice even deeper, inside her added on. You ruin everything you touch. Don’t even try. It’s not worth the pain of failure. It will only hurt more when he’s dead or gone and it’s all your fault.

She shook her head. No. She couldn’t let depressive thoughts go unchallenged. She was doing fine. Probably. But, the voice was right about one thing. She couldn’t take care of this dog. She couldn’t even take care of herself properly.

With a sigh, she turned to start gathering her things to return to the boat for the night. But, something caught her attention. The spell circles she had left on the coffee table had something going on. Lily approached cautiously.

The ‘Gather Ambient Mana’ spell was… well, doing its job. Really, really well. The sphere of mana floating above the page had gotten quite large. It was a little bigger than a basketball. It was also putting off a small amount of light, which was new.

“Is this just how the [Light] spell works? Gather enough mana and you can see it? That seems weirdly wasteful, but I guess it’s not doing anything.”

She got closer, and put her hand slowly into the sphere. It felt funny. The tickling sensation was a lot stronger than before. But, it didn’t hurt or anything.

Star noticed the effect and ran over to start barking at it. He was so loud!

“Ugh, I’m really not in the mood for this right now. Barking dog, crazy mana thing. I just want to go to sleep.”

Star started barking even louder. Lily grit her teeth.

“It’s just magic, Star. I’ve got it under control. It’s confined to the paper, see? It’s in the circle. God, shush! Let’s just go out to the boat so you don’t have to see it, okay?”

Lily reached for the dog, but he wriggled away and kept barking. He was barking more at her than at the spell. That was weird.

“Hey buddy, are you okay? It’s fine. The spell isn’t going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Bark, bark, bark.

“What, did you not like the food after all? What is this?”

Bark, bark, bark.

Lily was getting fed up. She walked over to the circle again. Then she noticed it was doing something new. When she got really close she could hear a low humming noise.

“Oh, is the noise bothering you? I know dog ears are better…”

Star bit her ankle. Not hard enough to draw blood, but it still hurt. Lily yelped and pulled back.

“What the heck has gotten into you? No, we’re not doing this. Bad dog! We’re going to the boat! The boa–wha!”

Star jumped up onto the couch and threw himself at her bodily. He was at least thirty pounds, so he hit her hard in the chest and she went down, flailing. For a second, Lily thought she was under attack and might have to defend herself. Then–

WHOOOOOMPH

An ear shattering blast of sound and air came from above her. The spell popped like a balloon. The impact from the blast knocked the wind out of her. She couldn’t breathe for a second. She heard Star make a low whimpering sound.

She lay still waiting to see if there would be more, but nothing came. So, she sat up and looked for Star. Star was on the floor, but seemed to be breathing and gathering himself as well. He didn’t look hurt. Lily was instantly relieved. Thank goodness she didn’t just get this dog killed.

She reached out and gave him a pet. Red.

“Huh…?”

A trail of red was left on him where her hand at touched. She looked down. Her hand was bleeding. Badly. A steady river of blood was dripping from her right palm onto the floor.

“Huh?”

Then, the pain kicked in. Lily screamed. Darkness crept in from the edges of her vision. Her stomach was roiling. She thought she might throw up, or pass out, or both. But more than that, the pain. The pain!

Lily immediately rolled over on her back and put her legs up on the couch to counteract the feeling of faintness. Star seemed to have recovered, and walked over to her and started licking at her face.

“N-not right now. Thank you. Good boy. Good boy. You saved me. Good boy.”

She could hear the panic in her voice. She took a deep breath. She needed to get pressure and bandages on this right away. God, she still hadn’t gotten anything for first aid! How could she be so stupid! Lily cursed herself.

She had bandaids in her luggage, and some over the counter painkillers. This was… definitely too big for a band aid.

Lily gathered herself and sat up. She hazarded a look at her hand. Drip. Drip. Drip. The moment she held it up, it was dripping steadily onto the floor. There didn’t seem to be an object embedded in it or anything like that.

She glanced around the room. The couch behind where she had been standing had a huge horizontal gash in it, like someone had swung the world’s largest sword across this entire area. That could have cut her in half!

No. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. Stew in it when the emergency was over. She focused. Rinse the wound with water. Apply pressure. Get a bandage, even if it was improvised.

She removed her shirt and pressed it into her hand as hard as she could. Then she rose and moved. Star was anxiously on her heels. But she couldn’t think about that right now. He seemed okay, that was all that mattered. Now she had to be okay too.

She forced herself to walk into the master bedroom. There was a walk in closet there with clothes from the people who’d owned the house. She didn’t know if any of them fit her, and right now it didn’t matter. She grabbed a cotton t-shirt, and headed into the kitchen. On the way she stopped to grab the knife she’d used to break the heat to mana circle earlier, only to find it had been flung across the room and was embedded in the wall.

Lily opted to use a different knife. The pain was clouding her head, but she couldn’t stop now. She couldn’t think about it. She couldn’t let herself think about what was happening. She just had to do what she had to do.

She got to the sink and let go of her hand to turn on the water. As she turned to get a knife a groan of pain escaped her lips, and almost made her lose focus and fall into the abyss of panic. She bit her lip, hard. Focus!

She turned on the water and ran it over her hand. With some of the blood washed away, she could tell there was definitely nothing embedded in the wound. That was good. She hoped this would help prevent infection too. She was feeling a little dizzy. But she had to get this done. She had to. No passing out. If she passed out, she might be in real trouble. Deadly trouble.

She shook her head, then let herself slump to the floor. She reached up with her good hand and retrieved the T-shirt and her knife. There on the floor she did her best to hold the T-shirt with her feet and cut it with her good hand. When she’d gotten a strip (awkwardly cut, but a strip) she laid her hand down on it and wrapped it around, tying it as tightly as she could.

Then she pressed down on it as hard as she could with her good hand, and sat there.

“Please stop bleeding. Oh god that hurts so fucking bad. Please stop bleeding. Please?”

Star was sniffing her blood on the floor. Great. She couldn’t be mad though.

“Good boy. You’re so smart. You saved me. Good boy. Good dog. Good Star.”

Well, now she had to keep him. She let out a terrified nervous laugh, and then closed her eyes and tried to block out the pain. It didn’t work.