The Astralaceaes

Chapter 1: Seeding Day

The dream happened again last night. Haledon was standing at the edge of a forest, looking out across a large lake. No matter how hard he stared, he couldn't see the other side.

A branch snapped somewhere in the trees behind him, as a host of sparrows erupted into the air.

He swivelled to stare at the oppressive darkness behind him. Nothing but the breathing of the woods met him. Cool, damp breaths caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand.

Returning his gaze to the lake, he stared at a pink moon as it began to creep over the horizon. It reflected against the waters, its image a series of rosy waves lapping against the shore's reeds.

He could feel something close in, breathing down his neck as he admired the view. The dark forest reached towards him. Closing his eyes, he breathed in and out. He felt safe.

Haledon awoke to the four walls of his room. The thick foliage began to give way as flowers started to bloom. The bioluminescent stigma and stamen transitioned from a cool blue to a warm orange and, eventually, a soft white glow that bathed the space.

As he sat up, Haledon pulled his feet from the bed of leaves and sat them to the rooted floor. There he sat for a moment, running a hand through his long brown hair.

Reaching his arm out, a vine reached back and, with a gentle tug, was freed from the wall. Haledon used this cord to tie back his hair as he stood and walked to an adjacent wall.

Turning his back to the foliage, he extended his arms and allowed the vines to crawl over him. They wrapped around his limbs and core, and as they gripped tighter, the space between them filled with smaller vines and amber sap. Moss formed inside, cushioning his body, while a dense bramble of bark hardened along his exterior.

With a quick tap against his chest, Haledon heard the hollow thud of a completed suit.

Facing the opposite wall, he wiped his arm to the side, and the thicket pulled away. It revealed a dense barrier of translucent sap that made up the epidermal window. Beyond that, an eternal sea of stars spun against the oppressive darkness.

He walked up and stared at the abyss with the dream still fresh in his mind. Rubbing the back of his sweat-drenched neck, Haledon stared out at the void as the stars gently disappeared from the rotating pod.

A new image appeared as a dozen seed vessels came into view. Long strings of brown pearls strung together, drifting through the sea of space. Beyond them, an orange-yellow star cast arcing jets of plasma.

Leaning in, Haledon eyed the front of each Astralaceae ship. Single stems had already begun to reach out from the foremost seedpod, and the tri-cotyledon plumules atop them had begun absorbing ambient solar radiation.

"Forswyn!" He cursed as he waved a hand over his head.

Vines crawled up to his neck and along his scalp, and they latched into place, keeping his face exposed as he rushed through a threshold of tall grasses.

Emerging on the other side, he became caught up in the middle of a crew switch. Various earthen individuals walked the corridor with purpose as Haledon swam through the crowd like salmon moving upstream.

"Um, s'cuse me." He muttered as he ducked between people, his eyes following the slowly pulsing line of glowing green stigmas ahead of him.

The taproot that ran the length of the pod became less busy as Haledon exited the habitation section. Most of the ship-work was down red corridors towards the core of the Astralaceae. Meanwhile, the older habitation seeds were down blue paths toward the ship's rear. But Haledon was following the green pulse, heading to the beating heart of the Astralaceae, the Hypogeal Nexus.