It started when small twigs started growing from Eva’s ears and made their way towards the back of her head. There, they dipped into her hair, wrapping around the strands.

“No, no, no…”

Emika loosened the hug, now grasping Eva’s head between her hands.

Slowly, small shoots pierced out from the skin on her cheek, eventually turning into a sea of tiny orange flowers on her face. A few seconds later, a few tiny grey mushrooms with black, upturned edges sprouted amidst the blossoms.

Frantically, Emika tried plucking them all out, but they grew back faster and faster. Soon, the ground beside them was full of orange petals.

With a rocking movement echoing through Eva’s body, her legs stretched out as they became alder roots digging into the earth. With the direction of her clavicle bones, branches grew out of her lungs, forming a shape resembling the antlers of a deer. The leg roots lifted her torso up, but by now it had too much weight from the large number of plants growing out of it, so with a loud crack, her spine snapped.

“Fuck, no! No…”

As Emika desperately tried to hold Eva’s pieces of flesh together, she was pushed further and further away from the body parts by the plant mass coming out from it. When she pulled out branches or leaves, she often accidentally took small scraps of skin and flesh out with them. It was all to no avail.

At last, Emika kneeled down before the dead, barely recognizable body that had once belonged to Eva, which had just like that become part of the forest. Her heart was beating too fast, her hands shaking too much. What had she done?

It was deep at night when Emika finally entered through the gateway of her home estate. Stepping through the garden with heavy steps, she slowly passed by its largest sycamore tree. She found Catrine’s overgrown remains at its base.

At this point, it wasn’t a surprise, but it still felt like a punch in her gut.

Within a few hours, she had scrapped up most of the cat's body, and cremated her in her largest fire bowl. She carefully poured the ashes into a small urn from the old shed and then placed it on a shelf in the living room close to the urns of her parents.

She paid respects to all of them. When she got up, she noticed her legs were quivering, and she’d brought mud into the room, so she decided to at least take a bath before falling asleep. As she left the tub, the water was red and dark from blood and dirt. Her head was completely empty. She couldn’t form a clear thought.

As if not a single second had passed, she woke up again in her bed the middle of the next day. The first thing she caught sight of when she opened her eyes was her growth that had further protruded from her arm. It wasn’t just deadwood any more; mostly so, but parts of it now had healthy bark that transported nutrients to the tips that now featured lush, needle-like leaves. It had increased in size again, one branch going up her forearm and wrapping protectively around her, while the other grew in finger-like shapes over the back of her hand.

Despite feeling dizzy from hunger, the thought of eating made Emika nauseous, so she skipped the meal. Instead, she just stared at one of her bonsai trees.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Whatever was she to do now?

Was there even a point to notifying any authorities? What happened didn’t make sense in the first place. Speaking from a realistic point of view, as inappropriate as that might be, Emika couldn’t have any fault in it, because all of this was impossible in the first place.

So, this really was magic, then.

That said, even if it was some kind of magic, she felt it hard not to blame herself, and in that vein, who knew how other people would react? Would they just think she was a monster?

But… even if she wanted to tell anyone about all that happened, weren’t they just going to die, too? Mina had mentioned some kind of Cursebreaker, but Emika didn’t have any contact info on him. In addition, her phone was broken, and she didn’t actually have any other devices she could use to access the internet or even call anyone. That said, even with a working phone, she wouldn’t have known what to do.

As she was racking her brain about all this, she wandered around the estate and took care of all the plants and bonsai trees she had.

If all my friends and my cat are dead, I should at least take care of you all properly, she thought bitterly. She just hoped she wouldn’t somehow mess them up, too.

Sam had been so close to finishing her degree. The entire last day, Mina had tried to convince Taara to start a band together. Of course, Taara had been too coy, but who knows what could have come off it? Emika heard Reiko’s laugh echo through her mind, a sound that now felt colourless.

Afterwards, as she sat on her couch and looked through the window into the garden, which was bordered by two hanging ferns, she felt the terrible urge to return to her friends. Right now, Eva was just hanging out there, decomposing in a small patch of woods somewhere in the outskirts. Emika’s stomach turned.

It couldn’t stay that way.

So, she gathered a few items, including the last empty urn her parents had taken with them when they’d moved to this country. When this was all over, she could send the urn to Eva’s family.

Then, she took out a jerry can filled with gasoline from the shed. Once she was prepared, she left through the gate.

Eva’s body was about a twenty-minute walk away. Carrying the large container through the summer heat quickly exhausted Emika, adding to the fact that she was still extremely hungry. Two times, she had to take breaks, sitting down at the side of the path in the shade of a small tree and later a bus stop.

A small part of her didn’t want to arrive at her destination at all. Sitting at the stop, looking down the street, an uneasy feeling sunk to her stomach at the thought of what she was about to do. She absent-mindedly gazed down the asphalt flickering from summer heat.

Suddenly, there was an odd movement there.

… What had that been?

Emika looked closer. Some kind of critter?

No, something bigger. In the direction Emika had come from, something had disappeared between two hedges. But now there was nothing. Only the rustle of the wind, the glitter of the tarred road, the oppressive heat.

Emika didn’t like this at all. Paranoia on her way to… essentially destroy evidence of a corpse she produced. In her mind, there was no nicer way of putting this. She got up again quickly and kept walking, now much more alert. For the rest of the way, she made herself aware of every little sound, and every twitch anywhere around her.

After getting to the forest, it didn’t take her very long to find Eva.

Once her feet, a large trunk cascaded down, featuring steps of various plant species that extended from her backwards-bent spine. At the very bottom, gently resting on the ground, almost two metres away from the legs, was her blossom-covered face.

Emika began pouring out the gasoline right there, then slowly dumped it uphill over the rest of the structure. Swinging the canister took almost all the energy she had left, and a good portion of the gasoline’s vapour made it deep into her lungs.

Finally, she was done.

Time to say goodbye, Emika thought with a dry throat, her heart throbbing painfully. Then, she took two steps back and lit a match.