Leo came back to the pawn shop when the light started to change again. His legs felt heavy and his hands ached from holding the axe with a death grip all morning. He closed the damaged rear door as best he could and sat on the counter for a long time, just listening.
Maybe she had to do something important. Maybe she found other people who needed help more than he did. She would come back for him. She had to. He told himself that until the words stopped feeling like words and started feeling like a rule.
He waited through the afternoon. He waited while the stripes of light on the floor moved across the dusty carpet. He waited until the light turned the same soft gray it had been that morning. He ate half of what was left of the protein bars and drank carefully from one of the water bottles. He checked the front door twice and the rear door three times. Nothing.
When it finally got too dark to see clearly he dragged the sleeping bag closer to the counter and lay down with the axe within reach. He was tired in a way that made his bones feel heavier than they should. Searching and staying hidden all day had used him up.
He was almost asleep when the thought hit him.
Her backpack.
The pink My Little Pony one with the little blue pony on it. It was still sitting exactly where she had left it, half-tucked under the edge of the counter. She had not taken it.
Leo sat up.
She would not leave on some hero quest without her bag. She put everything important in it. Water. The extra snacks. The little first-aid stuff she had scavenged. She wouldn’t just walk out into the dark and leave it behind like it didn’t matter.
He stared at the backpack until his eyes burned.
That was when the vines came back into his head.
He had seen them during the day. Weird thick ones crawling out of cracks in the sidewalk and climbing the sides of buildings. He had told himself vegetation would take over once there were less people. Plants always did that in the movies. But it had only been a couple of days. It was too fast. Too organized. The way some of them seemed to be reaching toward the same direction.
The thought kept him awake. It sat in his chest like a stone and would not move. His gut kept telling him he was onto something even though he did not have the words for what it was.
Leo got up.
He used the bathroom because he had to, even though it still smelled terrible. He ate the last of a crushed granola bar and drank a few more swallows of water. Then he picked up the axe, pulled the sweatshirt tighter around himself, and went out the rear door again.
This time he was not checking buildings at random. He was looking for the vines.
He found the first one on the main street two blocks down. A thick green tendril was spreading slowly across the cracked asphalt, almost like it was deciding where to go next. Leo stood over it for a long time, watching. Then he started walking the direction it seemed to be growing.
More vines joined it as he went. Thin ones at first, then thicker. They came out of alleys and storm drains and the bottoms of fences, all angling toward the same path. The air started to smell different. Sweeter. Heavier. Like fruit that had been left out too long.
He followed them until the vines stopped being separate lines and became a carpet.
The alley was covered in flora. Glowing soft blues and violets mixed with deep green. Petals and leaves and thick wet-looking stems had taken over the ground and the lower walls. The smell was stronger here, almost thick enough to taste.
Leo stood at the mouth of the alley with the axe in both hands. His heart was beating so hard he could hear it in his ears. He thought about turning around. He thought about going back to the pawn shop and waiting one more night.
Then he looked at the trail of vines leading deeper in, toward the big building with the domed roof.
“I swear if melody is the cause of this and an artifact gave her flower powers, I’m just gonna call her poison Ivy the rest of my life.” He mumbled entering the door.
Leo stepped through the forced-open doors of the North Bronx Botanical Research Institute with the axe held tight in both hands. The air hit him first. Warm, wet, and sweet like overripe fruit left in the sun, thick enough that every breath coated the back of his throat. Soft blue and violet light pulsed from the vines that had claimed the lobby, painting the cracked tile floor in shifting colors. The carpet of plants under his sneakers made a quiet, wet sound with every step.
He froze just inside the threshold.
A woman knelt on a thick cushion of moss, head tilted back, while a thick, ridged vine slowly fucked her throat with deep, deliberate strokes. Clear plant fluid leaked from the corners of her stretched lips and ran down her chin in glossy threads. Behind her, another woman was bent over a low bench of living petals, both holes stretched wide around two separate tentacles that thrust in opposite rhythms, one deep and slow, the other short and hard, while a third thinner tendril circled her clit in tight, wet circles. Their moans overlapped, one muffled and gagged, the other sharp and open.
Leo’s face went white.
“What the hell are you doing?!” he screamed, voice cracking high and raw. “Stop it! Get away from them! What is wrong with you?!”
Neither woman reacted. The vine kept sliding in and out of the first woman’s throat. The second just moaned louder as the tentacles pounded her.
Leo’s panic snapped into something sharper. He lunged forward, raised the axe, and brought it down hard on the thickest vine choking the kneeling woman’s mouth. The blade bit deep. The plant jerked violently, recoiling with a wet, rubbery sound exactly like the one Melody had described when she cut Tasha free. The vine ripped free of the woman’s throat in a spray of clear fluid and whipped backward into the denser growth, vanishing.
The woman on her knees sucked in a huge, ragged breath. Then she screamed.
Her eyes snapped open bright, glowing pink. The second woman, still bent over, sucked in the same deep breath the moment her vines also retreated from the shock. Her eyes flashed the same unnatural pink. Both of them turned on Leo in the same instant, faces twisted with pure, mindless hunger, and tackled him.
He went down hard under the sudden weight of two naked, slick bodies, the axe skittering across the mossy floor. For half a second pure surprise locked him up. Then something else kicked in, something that felt bigger than his thirteen-year-old body had any right to be. He shoved upward with both arms. The women flew off him like they weighed nothing, slamming into the vine-covered wall hard enough that the impact knocked them both out cold. They crumpled to the floor in a heap of bare limbs and plant fluid, pink glow fading from their eyes as they went limp.
Leo scrambled up, chest heaving, staring at the two unconscious women.
“Creepy mind-controlled sex freaks…” he whispered, voice shaking. He snatched the axe back up. “This has to be the place. Right? This is where all the vines were going. Melody came here. She must’ve heard people. She—”
His mind started racing so fast the thoughts tripped over each other.
What if she’s already like them?
What if the plant got her the second she walked in?
What if she’s somewhere in here with pink eyes and no idea who I am?
What if I find her and she tries to kill me too?
What if she’s already too far gone and I can’t save her?
He swallowed hard and forced his feet to keep moving. The building was full of open doorways, and every single one of them made his stomach twist in a way he had never felt before. He was just a kid. He had never even kissed anyone. The most he had ever seen was a blurry magazine page one of the older boys at school had passed around, and that had made him feel weird and guilty for days. This was nothing like that. This was loud and wet and real and everywhere.
He glanced into the first side room and immediately wished he hadn’t. A man was on his back on a bed of soft petals while a thick upright bloom the size of his torso slowly rose and fell between his spread legs, stretching him open with wet, heavy thrusts. Two thinner vines held his wrists pinned above his head. Another woman sat on his face, grinding down while a separate tendril worked in and out of her from behind. The wet sounds and the man’s muffled groans made Leo’s ears burn. He yanked the door shut so hard it bounced.
The next room was worse. Three people were tangled together on the floor. A woman on her hands and knees took a thick vine deep in her pussy while another woman lay underneath her, mouth locked around the first woman’s clit, licking in messy circles. A man knelt behind the second woman, cock sliding in and out of her ass in the same rhythm as the plant. Clear fluid and saliva mixed on the petals beneath them. Leo felt his face go hot. He slammed that door too, heart hammering, and kept walking with his eyes fixed straight ahead.
Upstairs the hallway was lined with more open rooms. He forced himself to check them one by one, hoping against hope he would find Melody still normal. Every door he opened showed the same kind of mindless, hungry fucking. In one, a woman rode a thick vertical stalk like a living chair, bouncing hard while thinner vines squeezed her breasts and tugged her nipples. In another, two men stood facing each other, cocks pressed together while a single thick vine wrapped around both and stroked them in long, slick pulls. A third room held a woman on her back with her legs forced wide by two strong tendrils while a cluster of thinner ones took turns thrusting into her mouth, making her gag and drool between moans. Leo’s stomach flipped every time. He felt dirty just looking. His hands shook as he pulled each door closed as fast as he could, the wet sounds and broken cries still leaking through the wood.
By the time he reached the stairwell choked with glowing roots he was breathing too fast and his ears felt hot. He followed the thickest growth downward. The air grew cooler but still sticky-sweet. The basement opened up around him.
A single enormous flower dominated the space. Its massive central bulb had split open, petals folded back like a wet, living throne.
Melody was there.
She was on her back in the center of the open bloom, completely naked, skin gleaming. Thick plant fluid coated her inner thighs and pooled beneath her. Two massive, ridged tentacles had her legs forced wide and held her hips tilted up. One was buried deep in her pussy, the other equally deep in her ass, both thrusting hard and steady in a relentless, overlapping rhythm that made wet, heavy sounds with every stroke. Thinner tendrils coiled around her breasts, squeezing and tugging her nipples in time with the fucking. Her eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, lost in a heavy haze. Saliva ran from the corner of her open mouth in a thin, shiny line. Soft, broken moans spilled out of her with every thrust, rising higher each time the vines slammed home.
A few meters away, half-hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines, Tasha was in the same state, on her knees, ass up, face pressed into a bed of soft petals, while two thick tentacles plowed her just as hard, one in each hole, the wet slap of plant against skin echoing under the larger flower’s rhythm.
Leo’s voice cracked. “Melody?!”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed glassy. Another hard dual thrust made her back arch and a louder, wetter moan tear out of her throat. Fresh saliva dripped from her lip.
He dropped the axe, stumbled forward, and grabbed her under the arms. Her skin was hot and slick. He pulled with everything he had.
She didn’t budge.
The vines didn’t even tighten. They simply kept thrusting, deep and relentless, while Melody’s body stayed locked in place. Leo yanked again, harder. Nothing. She only moaned louder, eyes rolling back, and then her whole body locked up. A long, shaking climax ripped through her. Her hips jerked against the tentacles, thighs trembled hard, and a broken, high cry spilled out of her open, salivating mouth as clear fluid gushed around the vines still pounding into her. The plant never slowed. It just kept plowing her through it while she shook and moaned and dripped.
Leo’s hands slipped off her slick shoulders. He staggered back, staring at the girl who was supposed to come back for him, now lost in a haze and coming on the plant that would not let her go.
Behind the vines, Tasha’s own broken cry rose as she hit the same peak.
Leo stood there in the dim blue light, chest heaving, mind still racing at the sight of his new friend gorgeously naked, and not responding.
Leo snatched the axe off the mossy floor and swung hard.
The blade sank into the thickest vine buried in Melody’s pussy. Clear fluid sprayed across his arms and the open petals. The plant convulsed. Both ridged tentacles ripped free of her body in a wet, sucking pull, the same rubbery recoil he’d felt upstairs, and whipped backward into the massive central bloom. The flower’s petals shuddered and folded slightly, drawing the vines deep inside itself like a mouth closing over a meal.
“So you’re the source,” Leo snarled at the bloom, chest heaving.
Melody’s eyes snapped open.
Bright, glowing pink.
She sucked in a huge, ragged breath the exact same way the women upstairs had, then her face twisted into pure, mindless hunger. Leo braced, feet planted, axe raised, ready for the tackle—
She moved faster than anything human.
One second she was still on her back in the bloom. The next she was on him.
Melody’s hand punched straight through the soft give of Leo’s abdomen with a wet, meaty crunch.
Skin split first, a sudden, circular tear that bloomed outward under the force. Muscle fibers ripped apart in thick, stringy layers, the way wet canvas tears when you drive a fist through it. Warm loops of intestine bulged and spilled around her wrist in glistening, pink-gray coils, some of them still twitching. Blood didn’t just spray; it erupted. A heavy, arterial pulse pumped straight out of the new hole, painting her forearm, her tits, the open petals beneath them in thick, dark ropes that hit the moss with soft, wet spat sounds.
The impact drove her knuckles out the exit wound in his lower back. Skin there stretched, then burst, and her blood-slick fingers opened like a flower on the other side, trailing shreds of torn muscle and a thin ribbon of mesenteric fat. Leo’s body jerked once, hard. A wet, choking gurgle forced its way up his throat as blood flooded his lungs and mouth at the same time. He coughed and a thick, dark mouthful splattered across Melody’s bare chest and collarbone, already mixing with the plant fluid still dripping from her mouth and thighs.
The hole in his stomach was a ragged, fist-sized tunnel. You could see straight through it, the torn edges of abdominal wall, the glistening wet shine of exposed organs, the way the blood kept welling and spilling in heavy pulses that matched the slowing thud of his heart. Every shallow breath made the wound move: a wet, sucking sound as air and blood shifted inside the cavity. His legs had already gone rubbery. The axe slipped from nerveless fingers and clattered onto the moss, the blade landing in the spreading pool of his own blood.
The last thought he had was one of disbelief as his body crumpled to the floor.
Melody just killed him.