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A high-pitched sound filled the shed, something I wasn’t sure I even heard rather than felt.
The man turned toward his plant, rising to his full height. The plantmoved,shivering, and more of that sound came again. Leaves curled in on themselves, like a bug sprayed with poison.
“What did you do to it?” the man roared.
“Nothing,” I swore, again trying the chains.
The plant continued, and from outside the shed, a similar sound echoed up, as if the rest of the crops felt the pain of that one.
The sound died down just as the plant wilted, collapsing on itself, until crumbled, dried pieces were caught on a breeze from outside and blown into the air like crushed leaves.
Which was probably not something the man was going to be happy about.
He turned toward me, his face not even remotely human anymore. His lips curled up showing that all his teeth were sharp, not just the two fangs. “You killed it! What are you?”
He gave me no chance to answer—not that I had an answer—before he charged.
Fear like I’d never felt before went through me, consumed me. I was going to die. Sure, he was going to kill me before, it had been a necessity in the man’s eyes. Now?
Now it would be painful—now he would make sure it lasted.
His huge, claw tipped hand swung for me, but instead of making contact…
A coldness went through me that sank right to my bones, something terrifying and familiar and instinctual.
It consumed me, and the man’s hand wentthroughmy body.
His eyes widened, and I look down to find the manacle had fallen free, that my hands were almost invisible.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to seethroughmy own body.
When he reached again, his hand again passed through me, like I wasn’t there.
It was the sort of thing that probably deserved some study. Going incorporeal wasn’tnormal.However, since it meant I wasn’t being torn apart by this psychotic resident of hell who wanted to use me as some sort of plant fertilizer, well, I wasn’t going to question it.
Instead, I took off, out through the doorway, through the plants. As I ran through the field, I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet or the plants exactly. A small current skirted over my skin, like touching the surface of water, but I could pass through without issue.
Plants moved around me, telling me I wasn’t the only thing running through the field. Sure enough, one of those creatures sailed through my body, snapping its teeth but unable to actually get hold of me.
The edge of the fence line was ahead. The man could follow me—he’d been on the road the first time—but I didn’t think the beasts could.
A flickering sensation in my hand—like when an arm falls asleep and it starts to wake up—came a moment before it spread through me.
Which, I had to assume, was not a good thing.
My foot caught a root and I pitched forward, into the dirt, into the red mist. I dug my fingers into the ground to shove myself to my feet, but they encountered something warm.
When I shifted, it moved dirt from the base of a plant and down there—the roots the man had said—was a hand… It shifted, the fingers twitching as if still alive, the plant growing right from its palm.
Sickness swamped me, but I relegated that for later. I could find a good therapist when I got back home, could spend years pouring this all out to her and unpack it then.
For now, escaping was all that mattered. I didn’t want to become another root in that farm.
“You ruined everything,” spat the voice of the man.
I rolled to my back, finding him towering above me, the machete in his hand and murder in his gaze.
A flash of something too quick for me to track slammed into him.
