Glowing colors painted the inside of Astel's eyelids as he slowly came back to consciousness. He groaned, opening his eyes with a rumbling headache. He immediately closed them again, holding his forehead with his hand.
Something squirmed just beneath the surface of his palm.
The sensation made him jump back in surprise. Instinctively, he started digging into his palm with his other hand. The weird feeling went away, but he still continued scratching — like something was telling him not to stop. Soon he dug beneath the skin and into flesh, drawing blood. The pain snapped him back to reality, making him stop.
'What the hell.'
He moved his hurt arm for a bit, like he'd been burned and was trying to cool it down. When he looked at his hand again, he saw that the wound was almost gone. But the sensation of something squirming just beneath the skin intensified. This time he held himself back from scratching it.
Then the sensation moved from his hand down his arm and up his shoulder toward his chest. Suddenly he coughed, his breathing heavy. The stones in front of him were splashed with fresh blood. Astel looked at it in disgust, his eyes dilated.
Then the memories came back.
He… Died?
The pain came rushing back all at once, making him scream out loud. His voice echoed through the cave, causing all the plants to shiver. When he calmed down, the plants returned to normal, watching him from afar with presumed interest.
His memories were hazy, but there was one thing he did without even thinking — his arms slid across his chest, down to his ribs. Feeling around where the vines had entered his body, he felt nothing but a faded scar. His skin was still bruised from where he had been held tightly, but even that was disappearing.
He coughed again, only this time he felt something climbing out of his throat. With a strong push, a ball of green-brown mucus was flung from his mouth, landing wetly on the ground and sticking to the stone.
'Ew, what the fuck.'
He turned around, not wishing to look at it — which only made him notice something strange. The plants weren't suddenly evading him. They were holding him up in a seated position. Now that he thought about it, he did feel himself being moved as soon as he woke up.
With a swing of his hand, the plants retreated. No longer holding him up, he fell back, his head hitting the rough stone. For some reason it hurt more than he expected. He once again felt something moving beneath his skin — this time it settled on the back of his head. When it stopped moving, a feeling of lightheadedness washed over him, making him close his eyes again and fall asleep.
Whenever he awoke, he continued the cycle — regaining his memories, inspecting himself, falling unconscious — until one time he awoke hung a meter above the ground. His arms and legs were wrapped tightly by the glowing vines, making him unable to move.
This time, when his memories came back, he didn't freak out. The intense sense of déjà vu prevented him. He took a few deep breaths and calmly inspected his surroundings. He was far away from the graveyard of bones, which made it seem like he was either a lucky survivor or a feast left to marinate. Either way, only one thing was for sure — he was held captive.
'How long has it been?'
Suddenly, the surrounding plants moved to form 58 uneven, wobbly lines, constantly swaying. Counting them took Astel almost an hour, but when he was done, he was left even more confused.
'58, is it?'
The plants stopped, dissolving back into their normal shapes.
"58 what. What does it mean."
The plants moved again, this time forming a dividing line. On one side was a yellow circle, and on the other, a blue one. Astel stared at them in confusion.
'Do these plants… Understand me? What the fuck is happening? I'm not high, am I?'
His thoughts once again made the plants move in a back-and-forth motion, almost like they were saying yes.
"Is that a yes?" he asked, not expecting the plants to actually answer him.
They nodded again.
"Great. I'm stuck in a hole talking to evil plants."
The plants moved further away, hiding in the cracks in the walls and leaving the cave much darker than before. Astel's thoughts were still too cloudy, making him think he had hallucinated the whole thing. Then he felt the hold of the plants loosen.
"Wait!" he tried saying out loud — but it was too late. He already fell.
His knees absorbed the impact. A thud echoed through the cave.
He didn't fall to the ground. His bones didn't crack.
He was standing.
It felt so normal, but he knew it wasn't. The weird things simply never stopped. Then the squirming returned, this time all throughout his legs. The itching was so intense he wanted to rip them off — but so far nothing bad had come from it, so he held himself back. After a moment, the sensation disappeared.
He took calm, measured steps, still getting used to walking again. He was careful not to step on anything that could trip him up. Now that he was down here, calmly walking around, he could see the cave for what it truly was. Above him was nothing but darkness — the light from outside didn't seem to reach here — but the plants were so vibrant that the absence of the sun wasn't a problem.
It almost seemed too peaceful.
Just as he thought that, he felt his blood start to thin out. Out of nowhere, the fog returned to his mind, causing him to miss a step and fall to his knees. Thankfully they didn't snap, but on the way down he cut his hip on a sharp rock.
'Ow.'
Suddenly his blood thinned out even more, his veins shrinking visibly. His lips curled under the weird sensation. He desperately wished it would stop — and eventually it did, but not before leaving Astel in a daze.
Simply moving around was too much for him. Each waking moment felt like he was fighting an internal battle, plugging imaginary holes in his veins, trying to stop his blood from escaping. At the same time, his mind was under constant pressure. At first, he thought it was because he was surrounded by what he presumed were monsters — since they were usually the ones to cause such a feeling. But after a while, he came to the conclusion that something was living in him.
He turned the thought over slowly, the way you might handle something sharp you'd found unexpectedly. Something was living in him. Not on him, not around him. In him. In his blood, in his bones, in the thing behind his eyes that he'd always assumed was entirely his own.
He waited for the feeling of revulsion to come.
It didn't. That bothered him more than anything else.
Maybe the parasite was the reason why the plants were watching him. Why he survived.
What would happen to him if he climbed out of the ravine? Would he even survive until then?
He shook his head. So far, he hadn't been in much danger — the only immediate danger was allowing him to walk freely. He placed his hand on a nearby rock, helping himself back to his feet. He suspected that the reason why he was still himself had to do with his Control Fragment. It was the only reason he could think of, anyway, with his limited brain power. For the first time, he felt truly grateful for this otherwise useless fragment.
'Two months, huh.' He looked above. 'That's only if the plants were telling the truth.' He shook his head. 'They could've meant 58 hours.' Then his eyes widened. 'What if they meant 58 months, or even 58 years?'
He looked back down and around himself.
'No. I would be a pile of bones if it were that. I'm still here. I'm still me… For now.'
He approached a nearby wall and, grabbing onto it, began climbing. The plants followed close behind him, seemingly ready to support him if he fell. Oddly enough, it made him feel a certain warmth — like he was part of them.
'Part of them? Never. I'm not going to be some glowing green vegetable at the bottom of a cliff for the rest of my life.'
Something squirmed inside his head in protest.
Suddenly, a flower appeared from inside the stone wall. Opening its petals, it revealed a small sack pointed directly at Astel's face. It puffed the same miasma that permeated the air straight into him. Instantly, he could feel it taking effect — his mood calmed, the rocks around him morphed into rounded shapes, the feeling of constant falling replayed in his mind.
But Astel held on.
Step by step, he grabbed another stone, placing one hand above the other, slowly climbing up. The flowers started getting more aggressive as well. They stopped being scared of his every move and approached closer. With a swat of his hand, Astel ripped a few vines apart from their thicker roots. They were incredibly brittle, even though their hold had left him motionless before.
He kept climbing higher and higher, and as he did, the resistance increased. The plants tugged at his legs, only to be torn apart by his bare feet. They sprayed more hallucinogenic miasma in his face with little to no effect.
He simply kept climbing.
After a while, even the vines inside his body began protesting. Wrapped around his bones, around his veins, around his nerves, they disrupted Astel's control over his own body, almost making him fall. The organism in his brain thrashed around, hoping that something it did would make Astel change his mind and stay.
But nothing worked.
The boy was simply too determined. At some point he even stopped breathing — his eyes closed, his limbs operating on pure instinct while his mind fell into unconsciousness.
*
Above ground, there was quiet.
Nothing dared to approach the deadly ravine, because those who did never came back.
Until a hand reached out, tightly gripping the edge of the rough stone.
From below, a young boy dragged himself out. After struggling to push himself over the edge, he collapsed right beside the ravine. He thought he was safe — but a handful of vines had followed him all the way up here. The sun burned away their color, the wind almost snapping them, but still they approached Astel, threatening to drag him back down.
Something rustled in a nearby bush.
Tiny footsteps clicked along the ground, rushing straight toward Astel. With a single swipe, the vines shattered, retreating back down without a second thought.
The creature stood above Astel's head, looking down at him — a mongoose with lustrous brown fur, large ears, and three tails — intently waiting on the young boy's awakening, casting a shadow over his face.