Donovan's Desire

Heartbeat Flowers

Odd visions of flowers plagued Addy's dreams, flitting here and there through acts of gardening, she found herself at the edge of the forest where a trail of peonies beckoned her to travel in. Flickering shadows passed like clouds in front of the moon, obscuring the way, only for her to realize that she was already in the woods, standing on more roses than there were stars in the sky. So many covered the ground in their thick bushels, that it was impossible not to stand on their fragrant petals which protected her bare feet from the thorns lurking below. 

All the roses were white, but within seconds would turn a lovely autumn orange before deepening into their classic crimson and back again; all in a rhythm like a heart beat pulsing through the ground itself, filling everything up with blood if only for a moment. 

Another dark moment pushed forward and she was desperately trying to round all the hens up that had broken free of their coop and were running around in the pelting rain of a midnight thunderstorm. She would get one in and realize there were still more missing, rushing through wet grass and puddles to corral the squawking and sodden ladies. 

Blackness. 

She was working at Cruiser's, making pizzas, but putting lipstick pieces on the pizzas instead of pepperoni like it was the most normal thing in the world. She closed up the box and rushed outside to find Charles waiting in his car to drive her home. 

Blackness. 

They pulled up to the house and Doggie was fighting a bear in the back yard in gruesome, bloody detail, but Addy could only focus on the chickens flapping and leaping around in alarm. They were out again! Damnit. Charles handed her a fistful of change, which she put in her pocket.

Blackness. 

She was standing back in the forest again, completely naked, with its pulsating floor of rose heads, except it had begun to rain small coins. Glinting silver nickels and dimes soundlessly fell from the canopy, along with flashing newer pennies, bouncing and rolling off of the willowy, grinning creature standing a stone's throw in front of her. 

Tall and shaped like a dying tree, it stood before her, hugely stretched out mouth splitting its head horizontally from one side to the other. It seemed to be made of a liquid, oily material, but in a way that one would not trust a bank of fog to reveal what it was hiding inside of it. It was not the way something living shaped itself. 

Reflective gold circles stared at her intensely while that sinister smile curved even further upwards at seeing her, sending fine wrinkles rising. Or were they ripples on its viscous surface? 

Doggie bolted out of the forest behind her, surprising her. "Wait!" Her voice seemed to echo, like the voice was on the other side of glass or underwater. She could see him taking two great bounds in slow motion, before launching his entire weight into the frame of the spirit. 

And then he disappeared inside of it without even a whisper, completely enveloped and gone instead of landing on the other side. It had...absorbed her guardian. 

Crippling, grieving anguish sliced through her abdomen. "No!" 

Slowly, the creature folded on itself, kneeling down into a position that mirrored the wolf it had just swallowed up behind its skin. It looked like it was going to spring forward and attack her, gold plates shining with lusty hunger and predatory anticipation. 

Its head cranked back with a "click, click, click" as though there was a series of metal cogs in the neck that cracked with each pull of a lever and echoed out through its smiling mouth. Something was moving inside its maw and Addy vaguely thought that it might be the tongue, forked or otherwise, come to taste the air in a reptilian fashion.