I Am A Carnivorous Plant

=Wh- Lily! Why did you do that?!=

 

<I’m tired of watching you fuck around and make stupid decisions! Are you seriously going to just let those two Pack Members go?! After all the work you did to get here and kill them?! Did you forget why we came here? Did you forget that we're the last chance to save this forest?! Are you out of your fucking mind?!>

 

=...Well, I… You’re right… But I-=

 

<No. No, I’m not going to listen to your bullshit anymore, you useless plant! This is the last straw!>

 

I could feel a weird force radiating out of Lily and into me. Somehow, it was tugging at something inside of me. It was hard to tell, but I think… it felt like she was somehow grabbing onto my seed and carving around in it, even though she wasn’t even touching me. Or maybe it felt like a worm, wriggling its way in through my ear and wreaking havoc on my brain.

 

I couldn’t move. It’s a wonder that I could even talk, even if it was only barely.

 

=Wh… What… What are…=

 

<Just shut up already and let me take over.>

 

Lily stepped over the ashes where the vine plant used to be, slowly coming closer and closer to me. Even without us having eyes, I could feel the intensity of her gaze on me like it was boring right through my face.

 

<They always say if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I really should have just done this from the start… I’m an idiot for thinking you could finish things on your own.>

 

For the first time in what may be my entire life as a plant, I felt true, all encompassing fear. It was like the kind of sharp fear that would have absolutely drenched you in an ice cold sweat, and sent you hyperventilating. And when Lily -when mom- reached out to touch me, it was like everything was zooming off into the distance.

 

And then the whole world dissolved away.

 

~~~

 

Ooh…

Huh…

W-what… What happened?

…Where am I?

 

Everything was weirdly dark… No matter what, I couldn’t really see very much of anything. And I don’t think… that I could move at all, either, no matter how much I tried. It was like I was stuck to a chair in the middle of a pitch black room or something.

 

Did… Did she kill me…? Is this what being dead is like? Because if so, let me tell you, I really freaking don’t like it!

 

Well, since I guess I have the time to think about everything, since, ya know, I literally can’t do anything else, then let me start admitting a few things to myself. I'll be transparent here: From the moment she started talking, I knew that Lily was acting too strange for it to just be anything natural. I wanted to think that maybe she just had mom’s past-life memories like I did or something, but then she was completely different from anything that I could find in my memories, you know? Just too refined and not at all the same, and it can’t just be explained away by her supposedly being able to hear the Forest Spirit, unlike me. So yeah, that idea always felt a little weak to me. There was of course also the possibility that while I got the past-life memories, Lily somehow kept mom’s memories from her time here, which was the prevailing theory. I totally have to admit that I was leaning towards that idea for sure. And you know what? I was okay with that! I already remembered a bunch of things from one previous life, even if it’s not a perfect memory by any means, so I don’t think I have enough room in my head left for two lives on top of this plant one I’m living, you know? Just wayyy too much to have to deal with and unpack! Nah, I was just fine with the current arrangement, for sure.

 

But now, with me rethinking everything that just happened with Lily, and the things she said to me ever since she started talking… I have to accept the truth now.

 

I… I think Lily might actually be mom.

 

There’s no like, definitive proof, really, but it kinda just seems too real for me to not accept, you know? And hey, even if she’s not mom, and she’s just some kind of copy of her like me, it doesn’t really change anything, does it? Even if she’s just a remnant like me, it seems like she remembers mom’s -the woman that made a deal with the Forest Spirit and gave up her body to have me- life, thoughts, and wishes. She’s a much more recent representation of mom than I’ll ever be. And besides, she’s strong enough to stuff me away in here, wherever here is. I never would have thought in a million years that this kind of thing was possible! And if she did it to me so easily, with the intent of taking over my body… then doesn’t it prove that she should rightfully have it?

 

Maybe… Maybe I was just a placeholder.

I don’t really like that idea, though.

 

After finding out that my memories weren’t mine, but actually mom’s from her past life, I was a bit sad, you know? It felt like everything I’d believed about myself, my whole personality, like it was all just fake… And now, knowing that mom or Lily or whatever was inside of me all this time waiting to take over… It’s like, my memories weren’t mine, and now even my body isn’t?

 

Mom…

Maybe it’s all rightfully yours, but…

…But I really really don’t like this…

 

~~~

 

It took a little while, but eventually I started being able to see a few things, although it was only in quickly flashing pictures, really. They weren’t perfect pictures by any means, mind you, but hey, compared to all this darkness I’ve been sitting in, I’ll take what I can freaking get!

 

Well, I say that, but it’s not like I particularly liked the scenes that I was seeing.

 

By the time I was finally seeing the pictures, mom was already in the middle of rampaging through the little town of animal-people that was near the border where we’d been fighting before. I didn’t get to see everything (which was sort of a blessing in disguise, really), but I saw plenty enough of her killing and eating every person in sight. Men, women, children, the elderly… Mom was like a natural disaster; No one was safe from her. And no one was fast enough to get away.

 

If I’m being honest, it made me sick to see. These people were just living their lives. They probably hadn’t done a single thing wrong, at least not in my book. I thought that I’d been trying to live by mom’s morals on the whole killing front, but seeing her in action, it really doesn’t seem to be the case, now does it?

 

Well, it’s not like I have any room to judge, really; Didn’t I do this exact same thing to a colony of orcs a while back?

 

Sure, I was angry when I did it, but I bet mom’s angry now too, for her own reasons. Idunno, I was just so upset at the time that I didn’t really give a single damn who or what I was eating there. In my mind, they were all monsters, and it just really didn’t matter to me, you know? Seeing all this, I guess mom and I aren’t so different when it comes to things like this after all. Well, except maybe our standards might be.

 

Seeing everything from the outside… It really is a tragedy, isn’t it?

All of this senseless and unreasonable killing…

Mom truly looks worthy of being called a monster right now.

 

I’m guessing she already tracked down and killed those two Pack members, huh? Yeah, I’m pretty sure she must have, since even in this weird blank space that I’m in, I can feel the super big influx of nutrients inside of my system. I’m glad I didn’t have to watch it at least, but the idea of her eating those two just makes me sad. I wanted to let them get away. I wanted them to get to be happy together.

 

It really makes me wonder though, you know? I think about what I want all the time, but what is it that mom wants? I mean, it’s clearly not to live in harmony with everyone, if this is what she’s doing…

 

But hey, what do I know?

Maybe she’s right. Maybe all of this really is necessary, like she said.

She knows this world much better than I do, after all.

 

If this kind of unwarranted looking massacre is what it’s going to take to protect the forest, then at least I know for sure that mom was right about one thing: I certainly couldn’t have done this on my own. I feel bad just looking at this stuff, so there’s no way that I could actually raise my tentacles, plant my roots, and do it myself. If mom’s capable of this, if it’s really what has to happen to fix things… Then fine.

 

Go ahead mom.

You’ve won.

You can go be the monster that I couldn’t be.

____

AN: I have a patreon! It's at patreon.com/user?u=63286737

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I also have no news on when the new pic will be ready, but hopefully by the next post!