I Am A Carnivorous Plant

=Alright kid, I hope you’re ready to go on home.=

 

After fixing myself up enough to not be extra horrifying, I went and fetched the little guy that I’d left up in the tree all this time. Well, I say all this time, but I’m sure he wasn’t even up there for half an hour, maybe only 15 minutes tops. Idunno, time moves weirdly when you’re busy fighting something, but yeah, totally not that long! So then why does the kid look so freakin’ aggrieved right now?

 

Oh, yeah, maybe he just doesn’t like that I left him so high up…

I’m sorry, small child, I completely forgot that you may have a fear of heights!

Well, at least it’s what kept you nice and safe, so you can’t be too mad at me~!

 

I untied the child just to make sure I wouldn’t get any extra hatred points, and started carrying him towards the town that I’d once seen. I’m proud to say that I learned from my time with Til, and I didn’t go so fast that it might hurt the kid! Sure, maybe he was screaming a bit from the sudden increase in speed, but I’m sure he’d get over it. Wouldn’t he want to get home as fast as possible? Right? So I’m sure he’ll be just fine once he realizes why I’m doing it.

 

“Please, stop! I don’t wanna go back! Don’t take me back there, please!!!”

 

Oh… Or maybe not?

 

I stopped in place and set the sick-looking kid down so I could get a good look at him, and as soon as his feet touched the ground he practically collapsed down while hyperventilating.

 

=Um… Do you not want to go back…?=

 

If that’s the case, then what am I supposed to do with this kid? There’s no way I could keep him safe out here like I did with Til, seeing as how there’s no way I could just leave this kid alone for even a second. And it would sting my conscience if I just abandoned him here, knowing he’d totally get eaten and die…

 

The boy shook his little head, his messy hair flying everywhere as he did so.

 

“I… I hate it there. That’s why I left. Please… Don’t make me go back.”

 

Ohhhh. So this kid didn’t get lost, he was running away. Guess he ran away in the wrong direction, though, judging by how he almost got eaten by that bush-dog. There’s no way the town didn’t know such a dangerous thing was out here, right? So then why did the kid risk his life like that just to get away?

 

=Alright…=

 

I did my best to kneel down and get a little bit closer to the kid’s level, which let me tell you, was not easy to do on these root-legs of mine without looking exceptionally wonky.

 

=Can you… Do you mind telling me why?=

 

The small boy crumpled the hem of his tattered shirt in his fists and looked down, either because I was truly too horrifying to look at, or because talking about whatever it was was just way too painful to do.

 

“...There are bad people who come and watch us every day, and sometimes they take us away. Mom told me to run, so that they wouldn’t take me too. But then, since I wasn’t there, they took both my mom and my big sis instead.”

 

Oh. Uh oh… I see. So you’re telling me I was about to send this kid back to a fate worse than death or something like that? Mmm, I really don’t like that at all! And hey, if that place isn’t safe, then where the hell am I gonna drop off this kid?!

 

Wait, maybe I can just make the place safe for him?

I am hungry from all that fighting, after all…

 

=...Do you know where they took your mom?=

 

The kid shook his head with tears threatening to drip from his eyes.

 

“No, nobody ever told me.”

 

Yeah okay, I guess that makes sense. It’s probably a ‘better not to even know’ sort of affair. Yeesh, and I’m gonna have to dig into that, huh? Sounds like it’s something that could haunt me or whatever later. Or maybe not, considering it doesn’t seem like I feel some of those kinds of emotions the same way as humans do.

 

What would Til do if he were here?

Would he not care because they aren’t a part of the forest, or would he ‘do the right thing’ and save those people, regardless of race?

 

Ah well, I guess that’s a pretty moot point if you consider the whole picture, since Til probably never would have gotten in a corpse plant’s way to stop it from killing a human in the first place. Seems like those Elders were even very expectant of my kind to kill humans, actually. ...But I’d like to believe that Til’s sense of justice would have won out, you know? I’d like to think that he would have run out heroically with this kid, consequences be damned, and would have saved everyone as soon as he found out what injustices were happening. I literally have zero basis to back those hopes up, I know, but I guess when you like someone you hope for the best from them, right?

 

Well, I guess this is just me trying to convince myself that I think saving those people would be for the best.

…I promise I’m not just saying that because of the high chance to eat more humans.

And I promise my tentacles aren’t crossed right now!

 

I bent a little bit closer to the sniffling boy, turning my tentacles into a hand and gently patting his head.

 

=Alright kid, I guess I’ve decided to fix everything for you. How does taking back that town of yours sound?=

 

His eyes full of tears looked up at me like he was confused, but there’s no way I could miss how hopeful they looked.

 

“W-What…?”

 

I picked him up gently, resting him on my (wow they’ve actually gotten quite thick now, huh?) hip, as if I were carrying a little monkey, and headed off towards the town once again.

 

~~~

 

Yeah, okay, so I’ve been calling it a ‘town’ so far right? I figured it would have been, judging from how much smoke I’d been seeing coming out of it, but I never actually got close enough to really get a good look at it before. And now, now that I’m actually here? It’s just a village! A village with a lot of randomly burning buildings. Oh, and I guess there were also some really big primitive furnaces in the middle of the village too or whatever. Still, pretty sure the houses are what’s pumping out most of the smoke.

 

It’s just my luck that they like to set things on fire here…

Really, how did that bush-dog not get burned out like that one other corpse plant that Til told me about?

 

There were plenty of dead bodies stacked up in a corner of the place from what I could see. Surprisingly only a few of the bodies were charred. The others looked like they might have died of malnutrition, or idunno, getting stabbed by a sword or cut by an axe or something. Whatever it was, it was all pretty damn bad things to die from, although in retrospect I guess all of the normal ways to die would be considered bad, huh?

 

Oh, and the people were acting like they couldn’t even see the burning buildings or the pile of corpses, all with a grim and dead-inside look on their faces.

 

=Okay kid, tell me a bit about what’s going on here.=

 

The boy that had been holding onto my side for dear life as I made my way here looked down from the tree we were perched in for the first time. Seems like he’d been too scared to look around since I’d mostly been going from tree-top to tree-top to get here. I must have been right about his fear of heights earlier.

 

“...They’re burning the wood to give to the bad guys. If we don’t make enough then either they take some of us away and replace us, or that happens.”

 

The boy pointed to the burning houses (huts, really) and the pile of bodies with a shaky finger.

 

Ooookay, I see I see. So this is basically a slave camp or a work camp or something, right? They’re making these people make charcoal or something for them in the middle of the woods, and using some shady (well, much worse than shady, really) tactics to keep them scared and in line. They probably recoup any losses they might be getting by selling a few of them or something like that too, since that’s what happened to this kid. If that’s the case, then it might be a bit hard for me to get this kid’s family back like I planned… The best option would be to act as fast as possible, right? Otherwise tracking them down is only going to get harder and harder.

 

I scanned my sight across the village, looking for someone who looked out of place, and when I found who I thought it might be, I pointed a tentacle in the man’s direction.

 

=Is that one of those bad people you said was watching over you guys?=

 

The boy squinted his eyes and leaned forward to get a better view, but after a moment he bit his lip and vigorously nodded his head.

 

“Yeah, he should be one of them, but there should be more, I think. I’ve never seen them come alone before.”

 

Hmmm… If there’s more of them around then I’m gonna have to be sneaky so that the other bad guys don’t take notice and start threatening the villagers, huh? That’s fiiiine! I can be sneaky! I can totally be sneaky! Look, I’ll just wait for the right time and grab that one when no one is looking and make him tell me what I wanna know! How hard could that be?

 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

_____

AN: Aaaand we're back! Thanks for your patience! I'm gonna put a second chapter out with this one, just as a little thanks for reading to you guys!

And hey, I wanna say something, since I never really expressly told you guys before. I don't want anyone to misunderstand; I really like you guys commenting, and I look at every single one of 'em! But I stopped saying 'Thank you for commenting' like I did in the past because it was repetitive and tedious, so I decided to just upvote things instead. So don't think I abandoned you guys or anything! I'm still thankful for all your words! And if you want me to go back to the thank you's, then gosh darnit, I'll do it!