Hannah plucked a petal off the tip of her tongue. She must have been in such a hurry, some stray flower got stuck in her hair and pretended to be a trapeze artist until it lodged itself between her lips. She studied the purple petal, belonging to an overlooked hydrangea, and flicked it into the open toilet with disgust. After patting her flushed face with cold water and squeezing her skull back into the pink cat mascot head, she opened the door and strode cheerfully into the hotel room.
Hannah had to pat Jewel’s face a few times before her eyes fluttered open. She tried to fix the smudge Hannah made with her makeup, but that wasn’t possible with her wrists tied viciously tight to the armrests of the chair the rest of her body was likewise cruelly bound to. Hannah was taking no chances, smiling as she dragged another chair directly in front of her captive. Jewel smiled right back – not that she could see Hannah’s face behind that plushy cat grin.
“Hi,” Hannah ventured, testing the strength of Jewel’s consciousness.
“And who are you supposed to be,” ridiculed Jewel, “my biggest fan?”
“Not supposed to be. I am.”
“Then you should know you’re totally screwed by kidnapping me.”
“What? Think you’d be able to identify me to the cops?” Hannah teased, poking Jewel hard in the cheek. Jewel didn’t pull away, didn’t even flinch, but stared at Hannah with a toothy grin almost wider than the cat’s.
“The cops are the least of your concern.”
Hannah laughed. The modulator in the teeth of the mascot head made her voice sound like a cybernetic chipmunk.
“My biggest concern was just getting you here. Seriously, I’m not going to hurt you. Of course I had to drug you, though, how else could I get an audience with you?”
“I don’t know. Get a ticket like everyone else.”
“Oh, come on,” Hannah groaned. “Your convention tickets aren’t just expensive, they also sell out in, like, thirty seconds! Crazy as it sounds, dragging you here was much easier.”
“It does sound crazy.”
“You know,” frowned Hannah, “your tone is really getting on my nerves.”
“Oh, I’m sooooo sorry,” the long o’s were accompanied by a synchronized eye roll from Jewel, “You just threw my whole schedule off and ruined all my pre-show prep work. But, here, I’ll try and accommodate you. You’re asking me to be faker than I already am?”
Hannah shook her head in a panic. “I did not call you fake! I never would!”
“Well, I am. Wipe off my makeup. Go on! You’ll see just how fake I am.”
“Are you sure…?” Hannah hesitated. She would do anything for her idol, but she wasn’t sure that de-masking her was something she wanted to be personally responsible for.
“You wanted to know my secrets, right? This is your chance to see the real Jewel.”
Hannah looked up into that wide-eyed grinning face. It was all a taunt, but she was flattered just to be loathed so much by her own idol. It meant that she meant something to her, no matter how negative.
“All right. Give me a second.”
Hannah sprang up and returned to the bathroom. She took off the mascot head again, and, no sooner was her head free, but she coughed up four petals this time.
“What the Hell…where are these coming from?”
But there was no time for that, her idol was waiting to have her request fulfilled. The popular influencer whose videos had inspired Hannah for three transformative years, from her highs to her lows. She had invested so much in her merchandise, her subscriptions, her songs, and now she was going to find out what made her so popular. A dream come true!
Hannah wetted the paper towels and returned to Jewel, who hadn’t moved one inch. She delicately placed one against Jewel’s face-all they did was smudge the makeup. She rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, but nothing happened.
But there was no time for that, her idol was waiting to have her request fulfilled. The popular influencer whose videos had inspired Hannah for three transformative years, from her highs to her lows. She had invested so much time, money, and obsession into her merchandise, her subscriptions, her songs, and now she was going to find out what made her so popular. A dream come true!
Hannah wetted the paper towels and returned to Jewel, who hadn’t moved one inch. She delicately placed one against Jewel’s face, but all they did was smudge the makeup. She rubbed and rubbed and rubbed – nothing happened.
“C’mon,” mocked Jewel. “You have to want it more than that.”
Hannah did. She wanted it more than anything! If not to learn Jewel’s secrets, then at least to be reassured that no one was as perfect as she pretended to be. Scrubscrubscrubscritchscratchscratch until, finally, the makeup began to peel off with streams of blood running down Jewel’s face.
“Thaaaaat’s it. Good job~”
Seeing that blood was a solvent, Hannah scratched harder and harder until blood was flowing freely, Jewel calmly coaxing her along all the while. As she stood back, ready to receive Jewel’s secret, she felt her throat swell up to tell her she wasn’t ready at all.
It was her. Jewel was her. Through all the blood and splotches of makeup and raw skin, Jewel looked exactly like Hannah. Worst of all…Jewel’s unfazed grin proved she knew all along.
“You know who I am, then? Yup. I’m you~”
“From…from the future?” murmured Hannah, removing her mask since it was pointless now.
“In a way,” Jewel said softly. “From the future that will never be. I’m the you you could have been, if you didn’t just consume and consume and consume. I’m the you you wish you were. Making fun things, not to be remembered, but to be adored by the youth in your prime. But now your prime is passing. I am the proof.”
“How…?”
“How does not matter, it’s too late for a solution. I mean, can’t you feel them? Taking root?”
Hannah could feel them – had been for some time. She felt something deep in her lungs, weighing them down, slithering around and spreading in a way that didn’t fill them up, but made them heavy and hollow. Only when she felt the leathery skin of her lungs couldn’t drag any more against her ribs, like wet clothes on a washboard, did she feel her lungs start to fill up. It was not like water filling a balloon, but like feathers stuffing a pillow; some poking out here and there, leaving her gasping for air as they overflowed in the only direction left open: up.
Hannah hacked and coughed as sharp twigs scratched their way up her trachea, and a burst of purple petals popped out of her mouth, sticking against the blood now pouring in streams down Jewel’s smiling face.
“Ooooo, looks like you caught a case of the Hanahaki. Makes sense why they’re hydrangeas, too. A jealous, one-sided obsession. For the you you could have been, but know you will now never be!”
Jewel was laughing and choking as Hannah was strangling and choking. Neither could breathe, tracheas blocked by hands and flowers. Stems were sprouting uncontrollably, bulging Hannah’s trachea and smothering Jewel’s face. In her last conscious thought, Jewel clung desperately to her last hope. The hope that, once Jewel was gone, not only would the flowers stop – but Hannah could so easily take her place. Seize the attentions and affections she was certain she deserved, if only she had a chance and the inclination or ability to take it. This was her, finally taking it.
“Hanahaki! Hannah hacking! Hanahakihannahacking!” Jewel jeered, until the flowers found their way into her mouth as well and grew towards the darkness within. Every sickly stuffed gag intertwined them closer together under the cover of vines, the mirror images finally joined in what was and what could never be, what desired and what deserved. They clung for each other, one unable to exist without the other, until flower overpowered tissue, and their lungs burst. Both consumer and consummated, consumed by ravenous growth. Their only contribution to this world was fertilizing a violent violet infestation.
…
…
It took hotel management a full month to clear out the brambles. No one could find the source or the root of the sudden infestation of Hydrangeas that seemed to explode in a twisted formation from the center of Room 610. Every piece of furniture was overrun by that intertwined ball of vines, thicker than cables and sticker than sap. The oddest thing was, as they hacked and sliced to clear the room, was that the vines seemed to pulse, ever so softly – like a nervous system, attuned to a heartbeat. Two heartbeats, actually, for one root system beat within the pauses of the other.
There was also blood all over the petals, scraps of skin residue here and there, a jumbled mess of red, peach and violet. But no body was ever found. The only thing a forensics expert could determine, is that all DNA samples belonged to one missing girl. To her, or to the flowers themselves.
Morning's Early Dark 