Flowers, Corpse Flowers, or Oleanders?

Corpse flowers

Sometimes you talk to someone whose principles you disagree with on such a fundamental level that you speedrun a chapter of pre-gay stuff. And by speedrun I mean spend six days on.

I actually don't know how grades work, so I'm crossing my fingers I got everything right. If anything doesn't add up, yes it does and it is really clever. We stay winning.

Enjoy!

tw// body horror?

---

Her mental alarm wakes her fifteen minutes before midnight. Lily rises immediately, pulling on a pair of socks as she looks over at her roommate's bed.

It's empty. Noree must have gotten up earlier.

She takes her notebook from its spot and puts a pencil in her pocket, remembering what Carmel said. Whatever they are, they don't read.

Which is ironic considering their main base is a private school library.

Holding her notebook tightly under her arm, she slips out the dorm. Her brain is buzzing, so much that the air begins to grow icy and she has to force herself to take even steps.

Lily visits the library every single day and has gone wandering after hours two and a half times now. She knows what she's doing.

But that doesn't stop the jitters.

When she reaches the door, she finds Noree standing next to it. The darkness makes her face shadowy, lips pressed into a line and eyes hard.

Lily wonders if this is where she always disappears to, or if they're about to go there.

They stare at each other until the black-haired-girl turns and heads inside. Lily catches the door before it can shut and does the same, almost rooting in place at the swell of unease which rushes through her.

Going further makes every one of her survival instinct scream in protest, but she has a mystery to solve. And not much other choice.

Their footsteps are the only sound as they pass the front desk. She tries to stick close to Noree, speedwalking right behind her, weeks of practice helping keep them only a few steps apart.

A buzz starts to grow in the rapidly chilling space. Noree begins to walk faster, and they start to lose their even pace.

They zigzag through the shelves, passing her and Carmel's usual table. The buzz grows slightly louder, the air slightly colder, their footsteps slightly faster.

Lily's mind is working a mile a minute and her fingers are freezing. Her notebook is still under her arm. This is- something's wrong-

Her next thoughts go completely blank as ice crashes down over her senses and leeches deep into her lungs. Noree breaks out into a sprint.

She turns a corner and disappears.

Lily forgets everything Carmel told her and starts running.

The same creature that was in her dream stopped her, appearing from a nearby shelf. Blue flames trailed the books and flickered against the floorboards, but nothing burned.

On a faceless head are two shallow grooves. Eyes, more or less. She watches with her own pair as the thing comes closer, unable to look away.

But nothing happens to her. A finger presses against her notebook, briefly, then withdraws. It too is unharmed by the strange fire.

Lily stays rooted in place as the entity begins walking away. When she's turned back to, she slowly points to herself and mouths, "Me?"

There are a few more steps taken, then another turn, so Lily begins following. She still feels ice cold and deeply uneasy, but not in such an all-consuming way. She files that theory away for later.

Walking weightlessly and soundlessly ahead of her, the entity leads her up to the door. It opens like it would for a regular person. Lily steps outside.

Held in a fiery left hand, she finally notices, is a piece of paper. The crumpled A-6 gets passed to her, and a moment of stillness passes so intensely that she hurries to shove it into her jumper pocket.

She nods and smiles exaggeratedly after. I'm grateful. Very grateful, thank you. Really. Very, very grateful.

That makes the unnatural blank gazing cease. Back amongst the shelves the blue fire drifts, Lily not sticking around to watch.

...

One neve-wracking jaunt down the halls later finds her sitting in bed. Noree isn't doing the same, as usual, which gives her the privacy to read.

Due to recent events, she doesn't feel guilty for not being concerned for her.

Uncrunching the paper and squinting, the neat scribbles form into scattered problems. The problems are handwritten; mostly mathematic with the occasional formula written at a slant.

A heavily traced triangle for time, distance, and velocity marks the bottom left of the page. She flips it over to look at other side.

There's nothing. The pencil-penmanship doesn't offer any clues as to where the page came from either, eldritch being not included for obvious reasons.

Lily opens her notebook to a free space and begins the process of searching for hidden messages. Copying down everything in order, her next ten minutes are spent trying to find patterns.

Only thing she finds is that the problems are quadratic equations, which was obvious from first glance. Rubbing her tired eyes, she reminds herself, don't overcomplicated it. This is a 9th graders homework, not your obsession with codes.

She circles back to the triangle. It's scalene and the right point sticks out. So, science. Lily jots the word down.

Placing her finger on the right point, she trails it until she hits a formula. Then follows the slant of that formula until it hits another.

When she's followed the formulas to a dead end, Lily takes the final numbers and directions and writes them in order. It forms a set of directions.

The numbers don't have any scale, but her bet is on hallways and a one-one or one-three ratio. And the map's starting point has to be the science classroom.

It's also her final class, which means she can test the map more easily.

Lily tucks the original paper between the pages of her notebook and hides it away. She gets into bed again quickly, pulling the blankets to her chin.

Feeling marginally securer, she laces her fingers together and rests them on her stomach. Her eyes stare at the ceiling.

She doesn't think she can fall asleep. Minutes later the adrenaline fades and she's passed out hard, barely stirring when the door opens.

"How are- is this how it-" a loud voice stumbles.

The last thing she hears before dropping back to sleep is some kind of mumbled reassurance.