(Blume)
The countryside. Greenery everywhere. Clouds being silently carried in the sky.
Deep blue sky.
Wind.
No other sounds but the wind of Spring into the leaves and onto the grass. A peaceful place.
Roses are growing rapidly around something in the middle of this scenery. White little roses grow onto an odd pile of mud. They cover it as they grow.
One of the roses grows larger than a cauliflower. It becomes as large as a cabbage. A giant all white and slightly fluorescent rose. It moves slightly around.
It can sense the air, the temperature and the light. It can't quite hear or see very accurately yet.
A body is drawn with all the roses and their stems, and roots. They act as muscles and nerves.
A roughly humanoid body stretches away from the grass and rips its remaining attaches from the ground.
The flowery human silhouette stands there, the giant flower acting as its head.
It cannot quite see or fully feel the ground below its feet, so it only stands there for now.
Over the following days, it stands there like a tree or a sculptured rose bush. It's crafting eyes for itself. Some flower buds mutate and transform into bulbs filled with water while a primitive nervous system expands over it all. The soil around it dies as it eats all the nutrients around. The grass dies around it and gets eaten from the roots.
After a few days, a few dozens of simplistic eyes begin to open between the flowers. Little white orbs, with collars of petals, and a black dot over the central orb.
And I began to see, really. Then I began to move, walking slowly.
I somewhat recognise the landscape. Not many days might have passed since it happened.
I came back roughly around where she died.
I walked very slowly and carefully, toward the only direction I knew was right.
A little further into the field, I see Rose's backpack lying in the grass. I very slowly pick it up, and equip it on what acts as my back.
I keep walking then in the general direction Rose had been following.
~
My eyes are weak and it's as if day only lasted a few hours. When I can't see anymore, I crawl, slowly, eating what I can find on the ground on my way, like a giant flowery slug. There's no animal digestive system in the body I carry. But its moves roughly like a human would, with articulated limbs that can't move in every direction.
I end up finding to my surprise why my movements are so limited. My eyes turning to look at myself, I saw the remains of a decomposing body beneath the growing flowers.
I had regrown over her corpse, eating what was left of her flesh, and wrapping my roots around her bones.
I had returned to the same body, instead of a hypothetical new one...
Blume is sad.
I keep eating what's left of the otherwise pointless dead flesh, and cleaning the bones.
I keep carrying those remnants within my lush body as if it was my own skeleton.
Inside the empty ribcage, I begin to create new organs, aimed at gathering more energy. A kind of reactor.
Something where I begin to accumulate energy for a later use.
I crawl slowly at night through the woods, still carrying the heavy backpack and some remnants of clothing.
On mornings, I can rise slowly and then walk when light is sufficient.
One thing at a time. My current body is hard to move. But I'm not too far away from the place we had chosen for Rose to regrow if she were to die. In a few weeks or months, I could manage to reach that place, despite this hapless body.
Silently, I slowly walked toward that place. Day after day, without a rest or second thought.
~
As I returned to her dead body, I realise that she died. She simply died.
I experience shock differently, furthermore as I was split apart and wounded already. But as I regrew, as I returned to this place I call home, returning to her... The reality of her death pained me deeply.
Had she been reborn, had our plan for a new life succeeded, I would have expected to wake up along her new self.
I did not. I was all alone. She was dead.
Either our plan didn't fully work, and while her seed was transmitted where it should grow again, mine wasn't.
Or else, it fully failed. I've lost the seed of her persona and it's the end of it. Because she's dead and it's simply over...
That seed I made should have worked... I hope.
If I simply lost that chance. Then I would have lost all. Lost her forever.
Humans can cope the death of their loved ones, with time, most of the time.
I'm not human. Not truly.
As a monster I won't care for the costs. I'll find another print of her persona. I'll find another body.
I did tell her I would go to hell and back for her to bring her back. Truly I wished I believed in hell in order to do that. If hell was real, I would.
It's not... So I'm lost.
I'm scared. Scared of having lost her...
My emotions aren't as colourful as hers surely. They're slower to evolve probably. Though they can delve for deeper, promptly.
I am sad. I miss her. I'm worried that I may have lost her forever. Resurrecting a human being is much harder than making a mushroom regrow.
As I crawl my way over there with a body that isn't fit to live more than that, I pray that she's alive. For herself and myself too, I pray that she's alive and safe.
I wish I could cry. I'm powerless right now. That's why we envy you too, the biological regulation of your emotions, the ability to process them, to express them, and to ease them.
That burning sadness in me can hardly be regulated by this current body. This fire will keep burning and keep hurting me, for days and days.
Until I find whether or not you will return from the deads as planned.
Then either my mind will turn that fire into joy and tears of joy. Or else that fire will turn my mind into something else, maybe darker with tears of pain. Though even then, I won't give up just yet.
I'm a flower like you Rose. I'm stubborn for whom I love. And I can be very patient.
~
The roughly humanoid figure of rosebushes kept walking very slowly and carefully. Each step takes long seconds.
At each step, the roots hungrily eat everything remotely organic around in order to fuel that absurd biological organism. It left a trail of dry scorched earth behind it. I ate everything at my feet as I walked or crawled.
I didn't take the best route ahead but I roughly recognise the area, as well as some of the flows in the ambient air. I'm close. My goal is.
I crossed path with a wolf. A gigantic wolf without teeth or true tongue. It observed my flowers very carefully. It even followed me for a night or two. I don't have energy to spare to attempt to communicate. What each other's smell is telling us is that the other is friendly, and that's about all there is.
The wolf nibbled on a flower lost on the way and I lost track of it over time.
I'm too obsessed to be intelligent in every action I do. I can't think much really. I've returned to a more primal state in a way. Like young trees only aim to grow high and quickly, even if it's not necessarily the wisest course of action, I only aim to reach Rose again, oblivious to almost all of my surroundings.
Everything is silent and calm. The strange amount of flowers I carry slowly moves. It might look like a peaceful being from outside. Deep down, I'm mostly sad. Not only, but mostly.
A spark of me is also mad, angry at the terrifying enemy we have made.
It's the first time I truly experience hatred and anger, somewhere deep and hidden, only a little.
In my thoughts occurred the birth of a new desire to destroy.
A desire that might have made me lean toward a monster side of things, possibly.
Rose herself was no angel all the time. This hatred was at least somehow against her ideal.
At least it didn't grow beyond reason. It never could become my primary obsession. At least not while some hope remains of seeing Rose alive again.
So I didn't dignify this spark of hatred either. Only Rose matters. It would always be.
Forever.
Well, at least for fifty more years or so?
Sharing a lifespan is my earnest and honest dream.
And seeing Rose again my only obsession.
What I feel meanwhile, on my way, it doesn't matter. It's not interesting to me.
I can almost only think of one word, one name.
I'm a flower obsessed enough to start walking toward my goal.
Death itself has no meaning for me.
It won't stop me. I will regrow.
And perhaps death isn't enough to stop Rose either.
~