Laminax Laboratories 🔬(REWRITTEN!!!)

(Rewrite) Chapter 9: Not What it Seems

I slowly wake up, inside of a small cave room, with neon crystals and rocks embedded into the ground. The ground seems to be made of grey bumpy rocks.

"I- hu-an aw-ke?" A voice asks out of nowhere, to my right. The voice seems motherly, almost. I turn my head lazily to the right, as I see a plantix gootraxian standing just feet away from me. "..wh..." I try talking, but am unable to due to my dizziness. My head spins, as I take notice of the plantix in front of me. I weakly back up against the wall, until the plantix puts their paws up in the air, showing me they mean no harm. "I-Is this a trick!" I blurt out.

"If o-ly h-man- cou-d un-ersta-d us.." The voice says again. "W-who is saying t-that!" I exclaim. The plantix tilts its head at me, then turning to a shade to their right. The shade stares at me, curiously, while I just sit there, with my head spinning, unable to process what has happened. "Human..c-n you un-erstand us..?" The voice asks again, becoming more clear with its words. "..wh..is that..are you talking to me?! Is that voice you!?" I exclaim. "Yeah!" The voice replies.

The shade to my left begins to talk. "I thought humans would never be able to talk to us...what's up with this dude?" The shade asks, motioning to me. "I don't know..." The plantix says. "..I- this can't be happening.." I mumble to myself. "Ya might've found one of them...crazy people." The shade says. "He's not crazy! He's..completely mentally well!" The plantix says.

"..I..somebody please tell me what is going on..my body feels like it's on fire.." I say. "..well...we thought you were dead! We heard a thud and we decided to check it out! That's when we saw you..passed out. We couldn't just leave you there!" The plantix says. "..I..passed out..mmkay.." I say. "You're not like the others..." The shade says.

I sit in silence. "Anyways! Moving on...I haven't done any proper introductions yet! My name is Flora, and this is Shade!" The plantix says, pointing to the shade. "What's your name?" Flora asks. "I...my name is Ja...Jake." I reply. "Nice to meet you, Jake!" Flora says, reaching a paw forward to hand shake. I look down at my normal, human hands, sighing in relief before taking my right hand out and shaking Flora's paw. Once we finish the hand shake, I set my hand back down to my side.

"..why..why did you take me here?" I ask. It's silence for a few seconds. "We couldn't just leave you there..so we picked you up and took you to our secret cave!" Flora replies, with a hint of sadness. "..but..why?" I ask. "Well, first off, your ears look like a manic's, and whenever Flora finds a gootraxian hurt or passed out, she tends to..have motherly affection towards them." Shade says. I cover my ears in embarrassment.

"..but..I'm not a gootraxian.." I say. "Yeah. Flora thinks of you as one of her own though." Shade says. I take my hands off of my ears, and put them back down to my sides. "Well it's good that I took him in, because if I didn't, then one of the guards would have found him, and made him a subject!" Flora says. "All you did was tell me to pick him up and bring him here." Shade says. "Because you're stronger than me! I can't lift 140 pounds of flesh!" Flora protests. "Whatever." Shade says, scoffing.

"..I..I need to get back to a friend of mine.." I say. "There are guards EVERYWHERE. You'd have a better chance of living if you jumped off of a mountain!" Shade says. "..yeah..those guards are going to catch you and lock you up!" Flora says. "..but..they won't." I say. "...how so?" Shade asks. "..well..they all think that the manic ears on my head are fake. They think someone pranked me, and super glued these things to my head." I reply. The whole cave is silent.

"They must be more stupid than I thought." Shade says. "..I..I feel uncomfortable..." I say. "How so?" Shade asks. I turn my head slowly to him. "..I..I don't feel comfortable around..gootraxians.." I say. "Oh great, another case of the racists!" Shade says. "Wh- I'm not- I'm not being racist!" I exclaim. "Well ya sure are acting like it." Shade replies. "..I- I'm not!" I exclaim. "Tell me why you don't feel comfortable around gootraxians then." Shade says.