Your petals open to reveal a familiar room. An empty classroom, disassembled desks scattered to the sides, random posters of books you don't recognize, a bookshelf full of rotted books, a single door, and a desk with various tools. The too small and too high windows are shattered, barely covered by torn cardboard. The sun bleached carpet is mostly clean, except that one odd stain everyone avoids.
You hear the faint rustle of keys, followed by a click. The door is slowly pushed open, getting stuck on a random nail in the carpet. In the doorway, you see two teenage boys with wide, enthusiastic smiles. One of them holds a radio wrapped in tape, while the other wears some sort of eyepatch.
"I can't believe they gave us an entire classroom! We should've sold that generator years ago! Would've saved us so much trouble."
"Stop acting like we could've known to do that. This shelter didn't even exist last year. And there's no beds in here!"
Walking in, you get a better look at the two. The one with an eyepatch walks with a limp and has a few fresh scars along his arms. The other carries a backpack, though it sways as if empty, and his left hand is covered in bandages.
"Yo, there's a desk!"
"No shit, now where and how will we be sleeping?"
"Just sleep on the carpet. It's not like the other rooms had beds."
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You blink. Time passes. Unfortunately, the only clock in the room has long since run out of battery, stuck at 11:14. Unlucky.
The room is empty and dark, as you can barely see the night sky through the windows. One of the boys is lying on the carpet, snoring. The other appears to be fumbling around with some sort of knife. You're unable to tell what exactly they're doing with the knife, but there is a faint smell of blood that wasn't there earlier.
Eventually, the boy lets out a pained sigh, before placing the knife onto the desk and taking out dirty bandages, wrapping it around his hand. He stands up and limps over to the bookshelf, picking out some of the more rotten books, and opens the door. He leaves, careful not to let the door close all the way behind him.
A few minutes pass. Eventually, the boy returns with no books. He lies down onto the carpet.
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You blink. It's day now. No one is in the room. Instead, you hear shouting outside. Not the panicked shouting of disaster or fighting, but the excited shouting of a discovery.
The insides of the room is a bit different. The disassembled desks are now sorted by material and size. On the desk, a piece of metal from the desks is partially sharpened, a file silvered by metal dust. The carpet is a lot dirtier, a bit of mud near the entrance and a new reddish stain by the desk.
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The bookshelf is now empty, all of the books replaced by a single random rusty nail. You note at the odd lack of smell, too used to the rot of old paper to have noticed before. The periodic wind through the windows brings in a flowery smell though.
You stop hearing the shouting.
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You blink. It's night again. You see only one person sitting in the room, one of the boys based on their height. There's an odd smell of wet fur. A pair of bloody tweezers sit on the ground next to them. Despite the darkness preventing any clear view, you can see the boy's slitted eye.
There's a flash of green light, and a cracking boom. Out the window, you just barely see a firework go off. Its light reveals the creature in the room.
Green leaf-like fur where skin should be, elongated digitigrade legs tangled by thick vines, branching wooden horns, flowers all over its head and one in its eye, and thin thorny arms. A cursed wolffern, though not fully transformed yet.
A second firework goes off, this one red. The carpet is stained, bloodied bandages strewn about, and a rusty nail embedded into their foot. Its eye stares at you now, a mix of fear, desperation, hunger, and hope.
And then white. But there's no bang. And the white light doesn't fade away. It's a flare. You hear shouting, the panicked kind. The kind when something attacks. And a faint glow in its hand.
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You blink. A brief moment where there wasn't any hope. The sounds of fighting, of metal on metal and periodic crack of gunpowder rings outside. The door opens, a boy with an eyepatch limping in. Slamming the door shut, he knocks over the bookshelf and drags it to block the door. Then, he turns to the wolffern.
"...Hey. I know you told me I didn't need to help anymore. I didn't know what to say at the time."
The beast crawls, the nail leaving a trail of blood, the vines scraping away carpet.
"I don't think it'll work. And even if it does, what point is there?"
It reaches out an arm. There, embedded as if a sixth finger, is a mana gem.
"Everyone else will either be dead of homeless by morning. The shelter is crumbling, the monsters are lurking, and the hornets are-"
The wolffern grabs onto the boy's shoulders, claws digging in. Ignoring it, the boy reaches down and pulls out the nail from its foot. He takes out a small pair of scissors and begins cutting the tangled vines.
"There was only ever two ways this was going to end. So, how about the one where we both live."
He reaches up and removes the eyepatch, before leaning in and hugging the wolffern. It begins to cry, as claws scrape against the boy's back, until both are in a bloodied embrace. The boy reaches out to the mana gem, and pushes it deeply into the wolffern's hand.
It howls in pain, as the flare goes out. In the darkness, you hear bones snapping and grass rustling. Outside, some whispered voices are heard, as the door handle is jostled. And then a bang as something hits it.
Your petals begin to close, though not for lack of hope. No, lilies of the apocalypse only bloom in human hope.
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You return to the classroom. In the center lie two old corpses of wolves. A young tree blooms from their embracing corpse, as a field of flowers covers the carpet. The desks have long become integrated into shrubbery, fruits growing between the bars. The bookshelf is broken and empty, and there's no sign of any old tools.
You crouch down to the dead boys, giving a respectful pat to their heads. Counting the rings on their skull, you estimate they died 80 years old. Digging around their legs, you find a fairly large mana gem. While the dead have no use for it, the tree is very much alive. At any rate, it will need it.
While thinking about what to do, you look out through the empty windows. A clear sky, the smell of spring, and the faint sweet taste of hope.