Chapter 20: 'See You' Again
1488 Words
“HOLLAND!”
Hearing the sudden shrill erupting from the forest, Tristan and Rain stopped walking.
At their front, a peculiar cluster of huge and colorful plants, making another realm of different forest, was waiting for them.
“What was that?” Tristan asked Rain, as soon as he heard the sound of a screaming man echoing far from them.
“Probably another victim,” answered Rain.
The colorful forest of plants on their front was about a hundred square meters. It resembled the size of an arena where games and events were being held. Looking at it, Tristan could not help himself but to think that perhaps, it was made as big as an arena because it indeed resembled that. Only that, it is an arena filled with monstrous, peculiar plants that were waiting for them to enter.
“Do you think that colorful plants in our front was the reason?” asked Tristan to Rain, in connection to the man they have heard screaming.
“Highly.”
Having heard of Rain’s answer, Tristan tightly gripped the trenchant piece of thorn they had vigorously plucked from the specie of Crown of Thorn plant.
“Then this means we’re entering an arena of dangerous, carnivorous plants.” In the back of Tristan’s mind, he somehow felt the urgent desire to back out from their plans. But he knew he could not.
“The trace of the smell leads us here, so we had no choice but to enter inside,” Rain said.
“Let’s just wish we can get outside of that, alive.”
“And with complete body parts,” Rain added.
Tristan found Rain’s wish as somehow humoring. “Yeah, with complete body parts.”
Having decided to enter the forest of colorful, titanic plants, they started walking. The stench smell of the rotten meat had penetrated their nose once again.
They knew that upon entering the forest, they would be facing tragic experiences of facing monstrous plants. But what could they do, if the possibility of getting the plant the classroom adviser requires them to get, could be found inside?
Besides, they were already inside a frightening place. A classroom of death. What could they do?
They wished they could walk peacefully going towards the forest. But when they were in the middle of their walk, about to reach the entrance of the colorful forest, Tristan noticed something that was quickly moving. He quickly looked at his left part to check what was the thing that suddenly moves.
It was not a monstrous rose, unlike the thing that first attacked them, but a human. Their classmate.
Holding a rock, a woman with widely opened eyes was approaching. She has a sweaty forehead and nape, making her thin hair stick to her skin. She was running. Sprinting. About to massively exert force from the rock on her hand, and swing it towards Tristan’s head.
“ARRRGHH!” screaming, the woman swung his arms, and aimed at Tristan’s head. But knowing what the woman would do, Tristan had evaded the out-of-nowhere attack of the woman. He side-stepped, and made a slight effort of swaying his body to escape from the about death he might face from the woman.
He found his position advantageous. Noticing that the woman’s abdominal wall was exposed, he moved his knee, and gave her a fatal blow.
From the woman’s mouth, there was a restricted ‘blurgh!’ sound that escaped. He must have hit the woman too hard, making her fall on her knees, and writhed in pain.
“Dexter! Go now!” the woman shouted despite her writhing stomach.
Another formed shadow moved from the clusters of grasses not far from them. A man. Probably, that was who the woman is calling Dexter.
Rain attempted to run and chase him, but the woman who attacked them had clung to her feet. Rain was out-balanced. She fell and smacked on the ground.
“Rain!” From the scene, Tristan pulled the woman away from clinging to Rain’s feet.
Far from his expectations, Tristan released a loud scream of pain as the woman’s fist landed on his face, particularly at the bridges of his nose.
Blood escaped to his nostrils, and he was sure that there would be a searing pain that would come after that punch.
The woman started running off, away from them.
“Faster, Dexter! Faster!'' She laughed maniacally. “We’ll be the first to find the Titan arum!”
The man who first ran laughed as well. He jumped, and shouted. “Woohhooo!” as if he was having the best day of his life.
But when something stroke down to him, his irritating scream suddenly shifted into a horrible cry for help.
The woman following stopped and frigidly restricted her body to move. She looked up, towards where she saw her partner, Dexter.
Tristan’s eyes grew wide as well, same with Rain as they both saw the horrible creature who had snatched the body of that man. Above, Tristan could see the feet of the man struggling, kicking, jerking, forcing to escape—while his upper body was inside of a formidable creature of plant.
“Venus fly trap,” said Rain.
He could hear the muffled scream of the man inside the said specie of plant. It hadn’t reached any single minute then, when a splattering sound dropped to their ears.
Hearing the sound, Tristan saw the quick free-fall of the man’s half body. The gravity dragged him downward, but another Venus Fly Trap stroke its carnivorous mouth, and munched the remaining parts of the man’s body.
Instantly, the man who was just running, screaming in joy, were now gone. Dead.
“Dexter!” The woman who attacked Tristan and Rain foolishly ran towards the Venus fly trap who came from nowhere. It was in a quick minute when the woman also disappeared. Another two carnivorous plant came, stroked, and shared the meat of her body.
The natural instinct of Tristan and Rain should be to run and escape from the Venus Fly Traps. But Tristan firmly held Rain’s arms. He motioned for her to stay from sitting, stay on the ground and …
“Do not move,” he said.
“What are you doing Tristan?”
“Just… do not move. We’ll be safe if we do.”
Rain was facing her back to Tristan, that is why she could not see what Tristan was looking at on the ground.
His gazes were fixed on the floor—which earlier was a cluster of grass.
On the floor, pixelated letters were appearing. The first thing that he read on the appearing letters was a set of jumbled, incomprehensible letters that is familiar to him.
Uii WNT
Below the letters, is the actual decoding of the message, made possible by Morse’ Code:
‘See you.’
Another set of letters appeared which made Tristan hold Rain, and tell him not to move.
“Whatever I’m doing, don’t move.”
“Tristan… there were more Venus Fly Traps appearing.” On Rain’s voice, the tone of fear was observed.
Below the word ‘see you’ is a short message.
‘Venus = motion sensor.’
And another.
‘Venus = close, locked, jaw.’
“Close, locked, jaw?” Tristan whispered.
“What are you doing, Tristan?” Rain asked in terror.
‘Venus = no eyes’
‘Venus = locked jaw.’
‘Jaw = 5 minutes.’
What could be the pixelated texts are telling to Tristan? Jaw, locked, five minutes, motion sensor, no eyes. It seems hard to fit into one whole puzzle. But, when a piece of wood materialized besides the texts, he finally got what it was saying.
He took the risk. He grabbed the wood and then stood up. The Venus Fly traps became alert. Their hanging mouths faced through his direction. Seeing that they finally sensed his motion, he wildly threw the wood on his hand.
And then, he stopped moving again.
The wood he had thrown travelled above, towards the giant carnivorous botanical creature. As it passed through them, they attempted to bite it; catch it with their mouth. But the problem is that there were too many of them vying to snatch the moving object.
Until Tristan realized that the pixelated texts were telling the truth. The Venus flytrap’ jaw were locked when they closed it, and it would be for five minutes. These plants do not have eyes, but instead rely on their motion-sensing ability.
Looking back at the texts, Tristan saw that it was already erased. But, there was another message it was telling. An arrow.
Following the direction of the arrow, it was telling Tristan where they should go; where they could find the thing they were asked to find: in the forest of colorful plants.
“Rain, run!” he grabbed Rain, and together, they ran.
Towards the hue-tinged forest.
- Writer
