Henry and Debbie were speechless after the strange man pushed past them, and for a moment they did nothing.

The clattering of Cinnabun’s cage snapped the spell.

They paced after the stranger into the living room.

“Oh, Gina!” the stranger proclaimed excitedly, knelt by the cage with their rabbit in his arms.

“How… how dare you! You put Cinnabun back right this instant or I’ll call the police!” Debbie screeched.

Henry was fiddling with his hands indecisively, not sure whether it was better to stop his wife and earn her ire, or to go along with trying to antagonize a man who had just pushed him aside as if he was just a toddler.

“Recount and remember, Gina,” the stranger whispered sadly.

“Are you listening to me! I have my phone out right now! I’ll call the police, I swear!”

However, something wasn’t right.

The room was feeling heavy. And Henry’s eyes widened as he saw the house plants all droop at once.

“D-Debbie… settle down dear.”

“Me? Settle down?” Debbie wheeled on her husband. “You are the man of this house, you are supposed to be supporting me, Henry!” she hissed.

“That man… he’s not normal,” he whispered back.

“Oh? So what, we shouldn’t do anything?”

“We should…”

Whatever Henry was going to say caught in his throat and Debbie gasped as the house plants in the room started moving. And growing.

They stretched and creaked and cracked. The orchids expanded, and yet the flowers closed like mouths, mouths that were growing very sharp teeth. The vines in the corners spread like snakes along the walls, thickening and wrapping around the room. The violet bush grew over ten times in size, its leaves growing shiny and sharp.

Henry and Debbie shrunk back as their house plants surrounded them.

“Heal.”

The stranger, after having spoken, glowed a brilliant, blinding green.

Henry and Debbie felt waves of something wash over them, and it was… cool. Soothing. Relaxing.

Henry felt the ache in his back recede and the old tendonitis in his shoulder seemed to quiet down.

Debbie felt more well rested than she had in an age, and the throbbing of the cavity in her mouth receded.

Hundreds of tiny, unnoticeable kinks unwound in the couple’s bodies, and they felt a surge of wonder and relief.

Yet the green glow did not last. It dimmed and once again, it was just the strange man hugging Cinnabun.

All the physical relief the couple felt evaporated, all their normal pain slamming back into them with a vengeance. They groaned and shrunk in on themselves.

“Forgive me, Gina. I’m back now. I’m home,” the stranger whispered.

The plants in the room seemed to be dancing in delight, thorns retracting, and giving some breathing room to Henry and Debbie.

While he was suddenly very aware of every single source of pain and discomfort in his body, Henry didn’t dare to say a word.

“What the hell is going on!” Debbie squawked.

Henry gazed at his wife in horror.

All the plants stilled.

The stranger turned his gentle, warm gaze away from the rabbit, and once his eyes laid on Henry and Debbie, it soured into something venomous.

“What’s happening is that I am saving Gina from your neglect.”

The plants stretched and towered over the couple.

“N-neglect! W-we always feed her and take good care of her! Y-you…”

“Lies!”

A veritable amount of thorns grew from all the plants at once, all within a foot of the couple.

“You left Gina to rot in this cage for three years! Three years, stuck inside that cage, to play as your little trophy! Three years to let her waste away, her joints in pain, her nails overgrown, and a fucking tumor eating away inside of her! And you have the gall to tell me you took good care of her?”

The stranger stood at full height, little Cinnabun shrunk into a little ball in his arms. The thorns grew closer and closer and began to poke at Henry’s and Debbie’s clothes.

“W-w-we’re sorry!” Henry mumbled. “W-w-we didn’t know! We swear!”

“You would have if you didn’t treat Gina like a toy. You would have if you had paid attention and listened to her!”

The ground trembled beneath the couple’s feet.

“Please! Don’t do this!” Henry cried, Debbie embraced in his arms.

The stranger’s gaze shot toward the kitchen and froze. The plants stilled. But the trembling didn’t stop. It grew worse. Objects rattled all around the house, from pictures on the living room walls, to dishes in the kitchen.

Another green pulse suddenly spread from the stranger, and the forest of plants in the living room snaked into action, retracting their thorns and bracing against the walls, floors, and ceiling, spreading throughout the entire house and securing all the rattling objects. Only a few spiked vines remained trained on Henry and Debbie, though at least they weren’t coming any closer.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

A long minute passed until the trembling finally subsided.

The stranger knelt down to the floor and placed his hand on a vine. He closed his eyes and another pulse of green spread out from him. He then remained still and silent.

Henry sighed as quietly as he could and made sure to keep Debbie’s sobbing face smooshed into his chest.

~

Michael borrowed the senses of all the plants in and just outside the house. They confirmed what he had felt during the initial trembling.

Mana. Foreign mana.

Someone had caused that earthquake. And it had come from the direction of Chicago.

He pulsed his own mana once more, this time stronger, stretching his senses even further through the surroundings, until he happened upon a hawk on a branch.

“Fly high. Gaze over the city. Return.”

The hawk flew up and off the branch, quickly gaining altitude. Through the eyes of a squirrel, he watched it climb perhaps a hundred feet, becoming nothing more than a speck in the sky.

After a minute of circling up there, it dove down and landed back on its perch.

“Recount. Remember.”

What the hawk saw poured into his mind, and Michael clenched his teeth.

A very large dust cloud was spreading in the city and enormous flashes of fire raged around the various skyscrapers. One building was collapsing when the hawk dove away.

Time was short.

“Bring me a phone.”

The plants throughout the house searched the surroundings.

But none of them found one.

Michael’s brows scrunched. He turned his gaze back on the couple.

The man visibly flinched. The woman was still trembling in his arms.

Michael sighed.

“Where are all the phones?”

“Ph-phones?” the man asked.

“The house phones. Where are they?”

“W-we don’t have house phones.”

“What do you mean you don’t have house phones?”

“I-I swear! We just use our cellphones! Y-you can use mine. If you want!”

Michael hummed.

“Alright, give it to me.”

The man pulled out his phone but shrunk away from giving it to him. Or rather, he shrunk away from the thorns which Michael still had trained on him.

“Oh, right.”

“Retract.”

The thorns retracted, and the man shakily extended the phone forward.

The nearest vine moved to grab it, and he flinched away in a panic, dropping the phone.

But the vine caught it with ease and brought it over to Michael. He opened it up but was locked out.

“What’s your passcode?”

“H-h… I… it’s four zeroes.”

Michael typed it in and unlocked the phone. The interface was strange yet familiar after so many years, but the calling icon was unmistakable. He pressed it and dialed his mom’s cell phone number.

He sighed.

Even after all these years, he still remembered it.

The phone rang and rang and rang.

Michael felt his throat go dry, feeling budding anticipation.

The voicemail dashed it.

“Hi, the person you tried to reach, Vera, is unavailable. Please leave a message after…”

The sound of his mom’s voice, saying her own name…

He hung up and quickly redialed.

The phone rang and rang and rang.

“Hi, the person…”

Again.

The phone rang and rang and rang.

“Hi, the…”

Again.

He willed for an answer.

The phone rang and rang and rang.

“Hi, the person you tried to reach, Vera, is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone. When you are finished recording, you may hang up, or press one for more options. Beep!”

Michael almost couldn’t speak.

“M-ma? Mama? It’s me, Michael. I… I’m back. Where are you? I need to find you. Please call me back. Please…”

Michael felt like it was so wrong to end the message… and yet he did so.

He dialed his dad’s number next.

The phone rang…

“Come on Papa…”

…and rang…

“Pick up!”

…and rang.

“Hello, you’ve reached Peter Varinski, from Varinski Construction...”

“Papa!”

“…Please leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

Michael’s shoulders drooped.

“Please leave a message after the tone. When you are finished recording, you may hang up, or press one for more options. Beep!”

“Papa, it’s me, Michael! Where are you? Where is Ma? And Mila? I’m finally home… I’m home but none of you are here. Please call me back as soon as possible! Okay… please…”

Michael hung up.

There was one more number he could try.

With a shaky sigh, he dialed Mila.

It went straight to voicemail.

“Hi, you’ve reached Mila…”

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

The plants in the room writhed and contorted as Michael swore under his breath. The couple screamed in the background.

“Michael, what’s wrong?”

Michael snapped out of it and gazed down at Gina, who was still nestled in his arm. She gazed back, her eyes filled with concern.

“Sorry. Peace. All will be well,” he reassured.

With a deep breath, the plants in the room stilled once more and he refocused on the phone.

“…when you are finished recording, you may hang up, or press one for more options. Beep!”

“Mila, it’s me, Michael. I’m back. Where is everyone? Are you with Mama and Papa? Where are you? Tell me and I’ll come find you. Please hurry up.”

He hung up and gazed at the phone.

The ground trembled once more. This time, it carried an even greater concentration of mana, and Michael felt the increased strength of the earthquake through the tightening tension in the plants.

After a minute, it subsided once more.

Time was very short.

He turned back to the couple.

“Do you know where my parents are?”

“Wh-who?” the man asked.

“My parents. They used to live here. Peter and Vera Varinski. And my sister Mila. Where are they?”

“I-I don’t know. I didn’t really talk to them much.”

The plants began to writhe once more.

“I swear I don’t know!”

“Vera…” the woman sniffled.

The plants stilled.

“Vera said that Peter was moving to Downtown Chicago,” she finished.

“The city?” Michael paled.

“Yeah. Somewhere around there. And Vera… she said she was moving to someplace in Oregon, she wasn’t sure yet.”

“W-wait, Oregon? Why?”

“She… she said it was for work.”

“No… but… why didn’t my dad go with her?”

The woman gave him a weird look.

“You don’t know?”

“What? What don’t I know?”

The woman pressed her lips thin.

All the plants subtly moved towards her. Her eyes widened.

“Speak,” Michael demanded.

“Th-th-they got a divorce!”

The plants froze.

“W-what?”

Another wave of mana struck the house.

“Steward!”

Several of the plants screamed, snapping under the new pressure.

“Regrow, strengthen!” Michael pulsed.

The plants all around the house grew more vibrant, thick, and robust, the ones that snapped doing so most of all, restitching themselves into far more powerful connections than before.

“Damn it, I don’t… I don’t have time for this! What about my sister? Mila? Where is she?”

“Vera said she was studying abroad.”

“Where?”

“In Rome I think.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

The whole house groaned as vines and branches clenched against the walls.

“Michael…”

Once more, Gina’s concern soothed Michael’s ire, the plants slightly relaxing.

“Alright… alright… sorry Gina… one step at a time. I… I need to go. I need to find my dad. But…”

Michael felt the connection to the plants in and around his old home one more time. He could feel all the rooms, from the kitchen he used to watch his mom bake in, to the office he used to watch his dad work in, to the playroom he had shared with his sister, to the tv room where his family had watched movies all together. So many rooms… so many memories…

He refocused on all the plants in and near the house.

“Protect the house to the death.”

The pulse he sent was blinding this time. And the roar of hundreds of plants answered.

“Yes, Steward!”

In an unstoppable wave, new, reinforced growth swallowed every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling. Six inches of bark and wood stronger than steel covered all surfaces. Monstrous branches with spikes sharper than knives extended out from the walls.

The plants had become a veritable fortress of vegetation, beautiful, ominous, and impenetrable.

Michael withdrew his connection from it. He panted, beads of sweat upon his brow, his limbs shaking slightly.

Yet even disconnected from him, the fortress did not lose its heavy atmosphere. Michael could feel every inch of it watching, waiting, and listening, ready to shield and strike at the slightest hint of provocation.

No one would harm his home now.

Where once, hundreds of voices answered his call, now, one, unified will of vegetation spoke.

“Ready, Steward!”

Michael nodded and turned his gaze towards the back of the fortress.

“Now for dad. Open.”

Michael moved to leave, the fortress opening up an entry to the back door at his command.

“He’s taking Cinnabun!”

“Shhhh!”

Michael froze.