Catwoman's eyes widened as she saw the multitude of vines suddenly sprouting from the small, battered flower, its crushed fibers and juices spilling.
She covered her mouth, stifling a scream. The vines spread across the floor quickly. A woman, who had knocked over a flower pot, began screaming in terror, stumbling backward and falling to the ground.
The vines wrapped around her arms and legs, as if pulling her into an endless abyss. Little Pamela stood there dumbfounded, seeing a small flower blossom on the vine by the window.
The flower seemed to smile at her, whispering in her ear: "You heard our cries and wanted to save us. You're a good girl. It's your destiny... Come on... Come on... Don't mind those evil people who scorn the plants..."
The vines enveloped the fallen woman, appearing to digest her. Catwoman, from her bedroom, gripped the doorknob, debating whether to save the woman. After all, she had no gun, and her whip and daggers were likely useless against these vines.
At that moment, the flower continued murmuring to Little Pamela:
"You no longer need to wear your least favorite color every day, or do the things you dislike. You will become the guardian of plants, embracing the greenery of the cosmos..."
Little Pamela's expression became somewhat dazed, she began reaching out to the flower. The flower disappearing in the sunlight through the window, her hand extended, the light shone on her innocent face, making it appear as if she was embracing the light. The flower continued to whisper:
"Yes... Touch me... Come on... Come on..."
"He's here!"
Accompanied by a cold, male voice, a "shattering" sound of broken window glass followed, then a sharp "swish", green blood splattered onto Little Pamela's face.
Shiller pulled the flower from his Umbrella Knife, smirking while listening to the unknown spirit's scream: "Gotcha!"
Then, he clenched his hand, causing green liquid to burst, the room suddenly shattered into fragments. To Catwoman's surprise, she was in a chamber made of the tangled vines.
Little Pamela was gone. Catwoman turned to Shiller, "What's going on? Are we inside Pamela's memory?"
"That's correct." Shiller nodded, brushing off the flower petal remnants, he added, "You saw it too, someone used a kind of curse, infiltrating Gotham. Now, we're going to find the puppet master."
Catwoman furrowed her brow, she quickly connected the dots and asked, "Is Pamela the target?"
"Earlier in the room, I saw that Pamela's childhood was unhappy. Her mother seemed to keep forcing her to do things she didn't like. But did it really end the way we saw it? Her mother was killed and eaten by the vines?"
Shiller shook his head. "Don't be naive. In the memory space, this is a common form of deception. In a nutshell, it dredges up memory fragments, exploiting vulnerabilities in their memories to trick them into making deals."
"If Little Pamela had touched the flower just now, it would mean the Pamela we know would have made a pact with that mysterious entity, becoming its agent."
Catwoman took a deep, nervous breath: "Isn't that hard to resist?"
"So, you should be wary of such traps. Someone might visit your childhood memories, impersonating your mother and offering an embrace. Once you hug them, you become their slave."
Catwoman frowned sternly, "If I were dreaming and seeing my mother want to hug me, I would punch her, figuring she was being controlled. She always hugged cats, never me."
Then, Catwoman sighed somewhat resignedly, "Okay, that's how adults are. They always have a point. When children pose fanciful questions, they think the children are insane."
"But Little Pamela is correct. Not eating meat protects animals. Doesn't it mean that plants also need protection? Don't plants feel pain?"
"You're still naive. How do you know this scenario isn't constructed by that mysterious entity?" Shiller turned to Catwoman, "Just to make you question, just to make you sympathize with the plants, then genuinely want to become what he calls a protector of plants?"
Catwoman paused for a moment and then gasped in horror, "Really? Are they that cunning?"
"I don't know whether they're deceitful or not, but I certainly am." Shiller walked down the corridor of the green chamber, as he continued, "Maybe everything you saw wasn't real. Pamela's childhood wasn't like this at all. Even the feelings of wrong, anger and fear Pamela experienced may have all been fabricated."
"The script is this, Pamela's mother always forced her to do things she disliked, decorated the room in colors she didn't like, forbade her to talk about plants and mud, creating an evil image in her mind and then using the dinner table conversation to expose injustice and hypocrisy, leading Little Pamela to firmly believe, sympathizing with the plants..."