Rest Your Weary Bones

When news broke out that the biotech lab had been shut down and quarantined, everyone in the nearby suburbs had to quietly and collectively agree- that everyone they knew, be it close friends, family, and acquaintances, that were working there were a lost cause. It wasn’t necessarily a sudden development, it took a full week of radio silence from the workers who had left home before anyone suspected something went wrong there, but given the announcement in the local news, it was simply a fact that they had to accept. No one’s allowed within a 50-yard radius of the building. Those who had gone missing are to be considered deceased. A horrific fact, to be sure, but a fact they had to accept. And everyone did.

Except Sloane.

Sloane was always a stubborn type of gal. She never hesitates to stand up for the things she believed in- and the things she doesn’t want to believe. And there was no way she could accept that her fiancé was dead- she simply couldn’t. There was no way in hell that he was dead- that Simon, the man who had come out of a major car accident with little more than a cracked wrist and a black eye, who had managed to outrun a mountain lion during their last camping trip, and had survived the single worst case of food poisoning from her brother’s terrible cooking just last month, was dead and gone. Not to mention the stench of conspiracy surrounding the whole thing- what has to have happened that was so bad that the local governments not only couldn’t recover any of the biotech lab employees, but that everything had to be shut down like this? No answers? No questions, more like. Something stinks here, and Sloane was going to get to the bottom of it. And find Simon- even if she has to confront the idea that he may really be gone.

She found her opportunity sooner than she expected- with winter well and truly having arrived, the guards around the lab’s perimeter were more concerned with not freezing to death than actually keeping a close eye on everything else. Sloane just waited for one of them to retreat to the station building for some time by the space heater, and slunk under a small divot in the fence. While she didn’t know exactly what to expect once she made it inside, she at least knew to grab the bare essentials: a flashlight, a camera, some lockpicks (there’s a good reason she knows how to B&E), and a taser juuust in case. Once she was sure she was far enough away from the perimeter, she clicked on her light, brushed back her dark curls, and started sleuthing.

It was thankfully easy to get inside once she reached the main entrance- thank god for automatic sliding doors, even if they aren’t exactly automized this time- but now came the tricky part: figuring out where to start looking. Sloane quickly ruled out anything on this floor and the floors above- it was just a bunch of office spaces and cubicle hell on the topside of the lab, though the cafeteria wasn’t so bad here on the occasions she’d come to share lunch with Simon- she knew where the more interesting stuff happens, and that’s on the lower levels. She also ruled out using the elevators- no lights, no power, no lift. It was easier to bust the lock on the stairwell door than to try and find a breaker anywhere. The moment she stepped through and started descending the stairs, however, she couldn’t help but feel as if the very air in here was… different.

*Why are you hesitating now, Sloane? You’ve been here a million times already, you’ve been down these steps before, so what’s different this time?*

“… it’s too fucking quiet. I hate this kind of quiet. It’s the quiet you get when you know something truly horrible’s happened.”

*….. He’s probably gone, you know.*

“… not until I confirm it myself.”

Shaking her head, Sloane finally reached the first door. Thankfully no lock to bust on this side, but the moment she opens the door, her eyes and nose are burned by a horrid stench. She managed to choke back her gag reflex, and shined her flashlight inside-

Oh.

That’s a pair of legs…. And just a pair of legs.

Carefully stepping into the room past this first body, the scene was pretty clear- about a dozen or so more bodies, strewn about over the floor and walls, that seemed to have been either torn apart or blown out from the inside, all of which have some manner of growth protruding from within. Upon further inspection, the growths were… plants. Several different types and species, it seemed, though the only consistency between them were that they’re all some kind of food-bearing plant- some had long grapevines coming from their open mouths and eye sockets, others had small orange and peach saplings that had ripped them in twain, one poor guy had what looked like carrots sprouting from his scalp and arms like the world’s worst ingrown hairs. The sight was one thing, but the smell was far worse- a wretched cocktail of blood, earth, and some sickly sweet aroma almost like nectar, though from what fruit was impossible to tell. One thing was for certain, Sloane couldn’t stay here much longer before actually throwing up. While the bodies here were mostly unrecognizable, she at least made one conclusion: none of them were Simon, and that was more than enough to book out of the room as quickly as possible (taking some quick candids on the way out), and slamming the door behind her.

*… there is no way in hell-*

“Shut it. There’s a chance-“

*We don’t know what caused this, and we sure as hell don’t know if THAT’S survivable.*

“… to most people, no. But Simon’s built differently.”

Sucking in a deep breath of fresher air, Sloane continued her descent.

The next few floors were more of the same horror show- mutilated corpses, plants growing out of them, barely leaving rooms before the stench knocked her out, and finding no signs of Simon amongst the growing body count. With each floor cleared, her determination solidified more and more, but in turn, so did her dread. What little records she found that could possibly explain what went so wrong here were hard to decipher, but a picture was starting to form:

Seems a current project was on producing a fertilizer that could make edible plants not only produce more food, but expedite the rate of growth and increase longevity of the crop post-harvest. Sloane vaguely recalls something like that being brought up in dinner conversations with Simon, but he’d start talking so fast and so detailed that Sloane couldn’t help but zone out a bit, her focus was more on admiring his face that lit up in the best way whenever he started passionately talking about this kind of mundane work.

*Kinda hard to believe it’s mundane when something like this happens as a result.*

“You’ve got a point. But this is just the explaining part. Our main priority is-“

Sloane’s self-talk was suddenly interrupted by a loud groaning noise somewhere below her current floor. It wasn’t anything sounding remotely human- more like the groaning of a tree that was getting pushed by something- but it certainly felt off. Deciding to skip the door she was about to open and advancing down another flight to the bottom floor, she found herself in front of a slightly larger door with a sign next to it reading [GREENHOUSE] in bold letters. Trying to shake the newer sense of unease she was gaining, she slowly pushed open the door…

Oh. So this must be Ground Zero.

The scene before Sloane was… bizarre, to say the least. While the carnage on the upper floors weren’t anything to sneeze at, the greenhouse took it to another level of disturbing:

Rather than having bodies strewn about with plants sprouting from the inside, the ones here were either half-buried in plant beds or fused with some very overgrown crops, their bodies seemingly morphed almost seamlessly into very bizarre combinations of plant and flesh. Some of these mutations had breached through the ceiling, and another that caught her attention was a mutant flower-and-mushroom thing that was growing into a water tank.

*Guess that explains what happened upstairs… kinda.*

“But where’s-“

GRRRRRRNNNNNNNNN….

Oh right. That noise.

Thinking it to be something bending or something along those lines, Sloane carefully approaches the direction the noise came from- between all the overgrown horrors and the darkness, it’s hard to tell where exactly she was heading, so relying on her flashlight was really the only option she had left. Squeezing past some thick brush and planters, she shone her light and-

Eyes. Open eyes. Open eyes looking directly at her.

Trying to process exactly what she was looking at was… difficult, but not in the same way she’s been trying to process everything else throughout this hellish evening. Standing before her a good 20 ft away was a hulking figure, more than twice her height, made up of an amalgamation of human form and twisting vine, stem, and bark. Its legs were built like thick tree trunks, weeping a thick, sap-like, blood-colored substance from where the bark looked most cracked. Flowers of several fruit-bearing tree species, ranging from cherry to orange to plum and more, decorated its shoulders and chest, sprouting from vines that both spring from and wrap around its arm and torso, though the vines seem to favor its right over its left, resulting in a large, bulky vine arm and a much skinnier, mostly humanoid arm. Its chest was broad, looking as if someone’s human pectorals were stretched and pulled until they almost ripped apart, weeping that same substance on its legs, and sprouting more flowers- and eyes- from it. All of that was one thing, but the worst part of this thing was its face, or what could be called one- a large growth of knots, flowers, leaves, branches and fruits on the right side of its head and neck forced it to tilt at an awkward angle, and what little remained of a human face was distorted, stretched, twisted, and molded into more plant-like forms and structures, with visible seams splitting it like petals. But what humanity was there was exactly what Sloane couldn’t grasp- those gentle grey eyes, dull and lightless now, glasses hanging askew from a branch where an ear should be, and what little remains of that slightly crooked nose, broken since his teenage years- it was Simon.

Sloane’s legs couldn’t move. She didn’t know what she was expecting- maybe that he had managed to hide himself away somewhere when everything went down, or at worst, that he’d have been killed by the aftermath on an upper floor- but this? This looked like it was worse than death. However, now wasn’t the time to process any grief. Because this thing that once was Simon is looking directly at her, and it’s starting to move toward her- wait, scratch that. It took one step and then started BOOKING towards her.

“SHIT!”

Scrambling to turn and run, Sloane was only able to get about 10 feet away when a mass of viney tendrils slammed down a few inches from her side, rapidly growing and spreading across the floor, attempting to wrap around her feet. Trying to not lose footing, she leaped a few times and managed to pull ahead, turning a corner and seeing the door ahead of her. She pulled out her taser and fired it behind her, hoping to at least slow the thing down enough to cease its onslaught and get to the door. As the probes find purchase in its chest, it lets out a horrific roar, stopping it in its tracks. She makes a beeline for the door, reaching for the handle to escape-

But a cluster of those tendrils have already beat her to the punch, slamming the door shut and wrapping themselves across it. At the same time, Sloane’s foot catches something, causing her to fall headfirst onto the floor, dropping her flashlight and taser. Rubbing her head (that’s gonna leave a bruise), she tries to pull herself back up, only for those tendrils to start rapidly wrapping themselves around her waist , pinning her arms to her sides, and lifting her up and spinning her around, until she is face-to-face with the monster wearing Simon’s likeness.

Sloane tries fruitlessly to wriggle and writhe her way from its grasp, but the vines are holding her quite firmly, though not enough to squeeze any breath out of her. The creature’s eyes are very focused on her for a while, as she stubbornly struggles for what feels like an eternity before exhaustion starts taking hold. She locks eyes with this thing for but a moment when the unthinkable happens- its face starts opening up, revealing a wide, fleshy interior with rather sharp teeth, undulating tendrils likened to pistils and stamens, and a large tongue, twitching in anticipation as Sloane’s face is brought towards it-

“Oh, FUCK NO!”

Sloane thrashes relentlessly, but it proves useless as the beast’s tongue drags across the side of her face (*is this thing TASTING ME?!*) before she manages to pull back a bit. There’s a moment of what seems like consideration (???) from the creature before it fully lifts Sloane above its maw, as she desperately thrashes and kicks as her head is engulfed by the flower-like structure. With her arms pinned, there’s really nothing that can be done to stop what’s about to happen, except to wince her eyes shut and wait for those serrated teeth to come down on her neck…

Oh if only it were that simple.

The tongue kicked into action, licking at and wrapping itself around her face, with Sloane sputtering and trying to get her face away from the relentless muscle to no avail. It finally managed to tuck itself behind her head, and with a resounding GLLK! Sloane’s head and shoulders were quickly pulled down and into the beast’s esophagus, while the woman herself was left stunned and a bit winded from the sudden squeeze.

“……FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK-!”

Her panic was short-lived as more of her body started following after her, each with a powerful swallow. With every wave of peristalsis, reality hit more and more.

*You just couldn’t let it go, could you?*

GLLRK

*You just HAD to know, huh?*

GLK

*You should have listened to everyone.*

GLK

*You should have given up when you saw those first corpses.*

glk

*Cuz now you’re gonna be just as de-*

There was a final and triumphant GLRRRK that interrupted Sloane’s though train, completely sealing her within this thing’s body. Traveling downward, she could only hear powerful but stuttering lungs filling and releasing air, an audible but somewhat weak heartbeat, and soon enough, the low gurgles of an awaiting stomach, eager to greet her. After a final squeeze, she was forced to curl up in a snug, warm, wet chamber that almost seemed perfectly sized for her specifically. As her adrenaline finally wore off, Sloane could only slump in defeat into the fleshy walls of her former lover, curling further inward into her regrets, and await the burning of stomach acids.

“fuck….. I’m so sorry, Simon…………..”

Then Sloane felt something caress her cheek.

Startled, her face shot up from her fetal position, glancing around on the off-chance she awoke from some kind of twisted nightmare. It took a moment to register what was right in front of her, but she quickly realized it was another one of those tendrils, sprouted from the flesh of the stomach wall. She instinctively tried to back away, but there’s not really anywhere to go in such a confined space, so she only sunk further into the stomach folds, and jumped a bit when another viney tendril started wrapping around her chest. While confined, at least Sloane had her arms free this time, and immediately started to attempt to pull it off of her before yet another tendril sprouted and grabbed her by the hand.

*Are these gonna strangle you before you get digested? Fucking fantastic, things just keep getting bett-*

All further thoughts were interrupted when something new sprung from the wall- a large, steely grey eye, rolling itself into place among the folds before focusing entirely on Sloane. It had a subtle glow to it, allowing some small modicum of light into the space, and Sloane couldn’t help but gasp a bit at its sudden appearance. She thought to try and kick at it, finally seeing something she could direct some of her current fear and frustration, but the feeling of yet another tendril wrapping itself around her ankle put a hard stop on that idea before she could even move.

There were several moments of this awkward eye contact, until Sloane finally sighed in resignation.

“What, you wanna watch me exhaust myself more before you kill me? Cuz I’d rather you just end it already instead of doing this stupid-“

She felt a firm but gentle squeeze on her captive hand. She stared at it for a second, confused. The eye kept staring, almost expectantly. Then the tendril squeezed again. And again. Sloane slowly made eye contact with the observer once more.

*……no*

The eye’s gaze, despite lacking any sort of visual way to express anything, seemed to… soften…

*no….*

…as the tendril wrapped around her chest gave a gentle squeeze, as if trying its best to comfort her…

“….. oh my god. It’s still you…? Simon?”

The eye lit up, both figuratively and literally, as the several tendrils excitedly wrapped themselves around Sloane, not in a threatening manner, but in a warm embrace, as the sound of that faint heartbeat rapidly picked up the pace, and the space around her squeezed inward in an all-encompassing hug. After what felt like an eternity, the space loosened, with Sloane having to catch her breath a moment as Simon’s eye remained trained on her, now looking less excited and more… embarrassed? Worried? It’s hard to tell when it’s the only thing you can even remotely emote with. Sloane, meanwhile, gave a similar pensive look to it, before it quickly turned to indignation.

“God, you scared the SHIT outta me, Simon! I thought I was gonna die! I thought YOU were DEAD! What the fuck happened to you?! And why, of all things, did you think it was a good idea to fucking EAT ME?!”

The eye shrunk back a bit into the walls, sheepishly, as a pair of tendrils tapped together nervously like fingers. The eye then looked back at her, as a tendril sprouted next to her, holding her camera and trying to scrub through its contents before landing on a picture of one of the corpses, and showing it to her. Dumbfounded, Sloane looked at the picture, then back at the eye, then the picture again, before it finally clicked.

“Wait, is that contagious or something?! Am I gonna have shit grow outta me?! I don’t think I spent too much time on those floors, but if I’m infected or something then I-“

A tendril squeezed at her shoulder reassuringly, the eye moving slightly side to side as if to say ‘No.’ Sloane let out a sigh of relief.

“Ho-kayyyy… not infected. But why eat meee- oh. Oh! You’re trying to… protect me?”

The eye lights up a bit, affirming her assumption, though it also rolls around a bit, conveying something like ‘Yeah, that was part of it.’

“…. you were excited to see me that much, huh? Missed me a lot, huh?”

A caressing tendril responds.

“….. i missed you too, love.”

Sloane really didn’t know what to expect tonight. Government conspiracy, maybe, dead bodies, kinda, but ending the night curled up in her plant-mutated fiancé’s stomach? Certainly not. But it’s not the worst thing in the world. He may be different now, but at his core, he’s still her Simon.