The seeds awaken

Marcy sobbed as she hunched over the broken pottery and ruined plants. Her stomach ached and nasty bruises and welts were forming where Annabelle slapped her.

By now, the sun was low in the sky and it was getting hard to see. For nearly half an hour since the girls had left, Marcy had tried to put the greenhouse back together again.

Unfortunately, the sheer amount of damage the girl managed in such a short time period overwhelmed Marcy. It was too much and she felt completely exhausted.

Through vision blurred with tears, the woman reached out and closed her fingers around a piece of pottery only to find that it was razor sharp. She cried out as a sharp pain radiated from her palm. Drops of hot blood fell into the soil below.

“Goddamnit!” Marcy screamed. “Fuck her! I hate her. God-fucking-damnit!”

Her yelling devolved into sorrowful whimpers as the searing pain in her hand died down to a bearable ache.

Marcy sat down on the dirt and cradled her head. She had no idea what to do about this. Mr. Hauser liked her just fine, but he would take his daughter’s word over her own any day of the week. That Becca wouldn’t be in tomorrow only made everything seem even bleaker.

Suddenly, Marcy heard a scuffling sound behind her. Thinking it was the girls returning for round two, she jumped to her feet and looked around frantically for the culprit.

Below her, something shifted under the soil before popping out several seconds later.

Marcy could not believe her eyes. What emerged from the soil was the green stalk of a freshly budding plant. It was thick around as a small tree sapping with a fat bulb on the end that pulsed with a reddish-purple light.

Before she knew it, several similar stalks emerged from the soil. Each one swayed in the air as if in anticipation of something. When it was all said and done, there were six of these strange lifeforms.

Marcy was speechless. Were these from the mystery seeds? How was that even possible?

All of sudden, the first and biggest stalk opened its bulb, revealing a mass of tendrils. The tendrils shot out and snagged bits and pieces of ruined vegetable matter lying around the small greenhouse. Marcy had to step back to avoid the lashing tentacles and watched in mixed horror and fascination as each bulb opened and repeated this process.

The creatures yanked the plant matter down into their bulbs where it seemed to assimilate with their flesh. As this happened, the stalks began to grow in size and develop more appendages and pieces.

Marcy wasn’t sure if she was about to die or make a grand new discovery for science. Either way, she could not bring herself to move.

With each passing second, these strange quasi-plants grew in size and complexity.

Finally, most of the stray plant matter he disappeared. There was a moment of utter stillness in the greenhouse. All Marcy could hear was her own heavy breathing.

The silence broke as a tentacle from the center bulb shot straight for Marcy. She screamed only to be silenced as the tentacle jammed itself down her throat.