You leave the clearing

You leave the clearing.

The rain fades behind you, its hiss swallowed by a silence stranger than before. The air shifts—warm again, sweet with an undercurrent of rot—and the ground under your feet softens from black earth into a springy carpet of roots and blooms.

The forest thins, and the world opens like a wound.

Before you stretches a field, vast as any cathedral. Flowers crowd it from edge to edge, a riot of colors so thick they blur together: crimson, violet, pale green, yolk yellow, black that shines like oil. They sway in a wind you cannot feel. Their stems stand tall, some as high as your shoulders, others bowing with the weight of their blossoms.

They are not ordinary flowers.

Petals curl like tongues, wet at the edges, glistening as if slicked with saliva. Stamens twitch like feelers. Some blossoms gape wide enough to show pale throats lined with fine, hairlike barbs. Their scents are heavy and conflicting: honey so thick it clogs your nose, musk that turns your stomach, and underneath it all a copper tang that calls to the wounds carved across your body.

You pause at the threshold. The flowers pause too.

It is impossible, but you feel it—the whole field leaning toward you, as though every bloom shares one mind, or one hunger. Their colors sharpen, their petals angle, their stamens tremble like eager fingers.

A narrow path winds into the flowers. It is the only way forward.

You step onto it.

The stems crowd close, brushing against your arms, your hips, your legs. Some are soft as velvet, some slick as raw meat. A red blossom the size of a human skull tilts its throat toward you as you pass, and a drop of nectar spills down its lip—thick, dark, reeking of iron. You do not stop.

The flowers are alive in more ways than one.

A cluster of violet blooms to your left turn their faces as you move. Their petals snap faintly, like lips smacking. Their long stamens coil, reaching. One brushes your cheek, sticky, leaving a thin filament across your skin. You tear it free with a wet sound. The blossom shudders, as though in disappointment.

Ahead, pale flowers hang from thick stems like lanterns. Each has a translucent skin, and inside each, a shadow moves—small forms twitching, fetal shapes, half-flower, half-insect. The bulbs sway as you pass, their interiors pressing closer to the membrane, eager.

You quicken your pace.

The path narrows. The flowers lean across it, their blossoms nearly closing overhead, and the air becomes close, hot. Each step stirs up a storm of scent—perfume so sharp it makes your eyes water, so sweet it curdles in your stomach.

Some flowers are less patient.

A white bloom with teeth hidden in its throat snaps shut inches from your hand, catching only air. Another extends a thin green tongue that licks the ridge of your ribs. You flinch. It tastes of vinegar.

But you do not slow.

You no longer care. The brood has already taken everything. The forest has already written its language into your body. What are a few hungry flowers, compared to what lives under your skin?

Your chest aches at the thought. The empty lattice of your ribs hums faintly, an echo of a hive that is no longer there. You wonder if the flowers can hear it.

The path rises gently. The field grows denser. Some blossoms pulse as you pass, a steady throb like a heartbeat. Others gape wider, revealing interiors slick with mucous threads. Petals twitch when your sleeve brushes them, not recoiling but seeking more.

You push through. The stems leave streaks of green along your skin, staining the pale ridges of your chest. Your hooked nails catch on them, tearing small rents that ooze sap the color of blood. The smell of it clings to you.

At the crest of the rise, the field changes.

The flowers bow outward in a ring, leaving a small clearing, perfectly circular. In its center sits a table—plain wood, scarred, as if stolen from some forgotten tavern. Two chairs stand at either side. A bottle of amber liquid glints between them, flanked by two small glasses.

And at the far chair sits the creature.

It regards you calmly, one moss-woven hand wrapped around a glass of whiskey. Its skin is not skin at all but a living carpet of green and brown, moist and uneven, sprouting faint tendrils that writhe when it shifts. Its face is almost human, but where eyes should be are two enormous domes, glossy and pink, bulging too large for the skull. They shine like the surface of pearls, veined faintly with white threads.

Those eyes lock onto you.

Your steps falter. The flowers at the edge of the clearing sway together, as if nodding, as if ushering you forward.

The creature lifts its free hand and gestures—palm up, inviting.

Its voice, when it comes, is soft, damp. “Join me.”

It tips its head toward the empty chair, pink eyes reflecting your broken shape.

For a moment you only stare. The moss shifts along its cheeks, releasing the faint smell of rain. Its lips part, and you glimpse a mouth lined not with teeth but with small, pale roots curling inward. It sips from its glass and sets it down with careful grace.

You have not tasted anything but blood and rot in what feels like years. The scent of whiskey, sharp and clean, cuts through the perfume of the flowers.

The creature extends its hand again. Mossy fingers spread wide, trembling faintly. The pink eyes do not blink—they cannot blink—but they seem to widen, soften, as though trying to express kindness.

You stand at the edge of the circle. The flowers behind you crowd close, their stalks pressing at your back. Their petals brush your arms, their stamens stroke your skin. They are eager, hungry. Yet none cross into the clearing.

The table waits. The bottle gleams.

The moss-skinned thing tilts its head and says again, “Sit. Drink. Talk.”

Its pink eyes glisten, huge and wet, swallowing your reflection whole.

You cannot tell if you are being welcomed or trapped.

And perhaps it does not matter.