Page 7 of The Guy Sure Looks Like Plant Food To Me
The plant bares her sharp teeth at me, something like a snarl showing itself if any way possible. It only goes away when I touch her again.
“Aren’t you the plant specialist?” The witch asks me.
I scratch the back of my head awkwardly, “This isn’t really a plant.”
Chewie growls, the sound making Runa cackle, the joy utterly contagious as it bounces against the walls. “Better not tellherthat. She’s quite unaware.”
Runa wipes the remnants of tears from her face with the back of her arm, but the dried blood just rehydrates and smears over her face. It makes her look adorable, though slightly disgusting.
I take a closer peek at the flytrap, examining to see if anything out of the norm makes itself known to me. “Can I look?”
I’m asking Runa, but it’s like the plant can understand me, and she comes open for me willingly.
“Good girl.” The witch’s voice takes a sultry tone, the words shooting down directly into my core, a reaction that compels every hair on my body to come to a stand.
She’s talking to the plant, not you!
I think I might need to sit down, but then I realize I already am. My brain generates the most basic question it can to try to cover up the major glitch in my programming she just caused. “How many times has she fed?”
She shrugs, “More than a dozen, for sure.”
“And this is the same … mouth as always?”
Runa tilts her head in confusion. “I don’t understand the question.”
I smile. “I’ll take that as a yes. The traps die after a certain amount of feedings, for normal sized plants usually after the fifth or sixth. The traps will turn dark and wilt and they get replaced. For a plant this size …” I trail off, expecting her to understand where I’m going here.
“So, Chewie’s probably just getting ready to replace her trap—mouth—thing?” She grimaces, stumbling through the words trying to get each one but only drawing another growl from the plant.
“Something like that, I think. The throwing up is concerning, if anything she should be refusing meals outright. How do you offer her food?” We’re both playing this weird game where we keep inching closer to each other because Chewie won’t let us take our hands off for more than a second without snarling.
Runa awkwardly looks around the room and gives me an unsure shrug, “I don’t really ever offer, she just kind of lets me know she wants it when it’s around.”
That makes no sense.
I realize I’ve said the words out loud instead of just thinking them.
“It’s hard to explain, her food preferences are … strange.” She gives me another nervous grimace, “At best.”
The trap tilts itself up toward the ceiling, opening up slowly. It makes a wheezing-type of sound, and then the air is suddenly filled with pollen-like powder.
It’s hard to breathe, hard to see, we’re both coughing, swatting to clear the green fog, but it’s everywhere. The entire store is engulfed in the plant’s spores.
My eyelids feel heavy, “What is that?” I say, but Runa is already on the ground, her lashes fluttering as she struggles to maintain consciousness.
I fall on top of her, muscles sluggish and numb to feeling.
And everything goes black.
5
RUNA
Time is hazy.
It feels slower than normal, though no part of my body seems to notice, my heart still drumming faster than ever inside. My muscles are heavy, slow to move and impossible to lift. My lungs struggle, each breath harder to take than the last. It feels as if my chest is being crushed.
I’m slow to open my eyes, each lid almost sticking together, staying shut longer than I want. Cotton candy pink tufts of hair obscure my vision, I can’t make out anything except the feel of a body on me.
