Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai 1

(Myls)

I had the weirdest dream.

I dreamt I was sleeping over a bed of roses... That I was lying comfortably over a blanket of roses flowers and petals.

I've always been envious of Rose, whom never cared to remember my name I think.

Even though there isn't much I have to envy her. Just her Blume, and her will...

I woke up suddenly and stood up as I heard a noise I can't describe and the ground is shaking.

It's day already. The sky is grey.

I see what could be a mountain flying, and roaring.

It's big enough to eclipse the sun, even though it's far enough to fade in the horizon...

So that's Dragod...

My heartbeat is rising as the ground trembles below me.

So such things really exist... I almost tear up.

Oh we've seen our share of monsters and weird shit alright. But nothing of such magnitude.

That older Rose... She went to war alone against something like that?

That's insane...

This world is insane...

Zeslinry and I, we're managing to survive in this unforgiving reality.

I'm probably a better survivor than Rose, but I keep envying her.

I keep on trying surviving in the leftovers of the world.

She manages to find a reason to live far beyond that.

And it's love... I'm so jealous.

This old Rose, Licht, what was she really...

Her reason to live was to fight that? She's crazy...

But in doing so, she revealed there are things bigger than whales now...

The dragon lands back where it had flown away from roughly. I feel a second earthquake following.

I keep standing on my feet.

Zeslinry calls me. I turn around. She's ready to start the truck.

We're heading north to another city.

But what I want is also more than just surviving.

Her and I rarely got separated more than a few days, for scavenging missions, since we met, five years ago maybe.

For my last birthday, my gift had been a chocolate cake and a cup of vanilla ice cream.

I cried over that. Because I knew how much efforts it took to find the ingredients and make them.

She's so kind. I have a tinge.

It's not that I want to leave her. We need each other to survive.

It's that I want a goal in life... I want to discover something like Rose has.

What I've seen, what we've seen these last few days, troubled us both a lot.

That Licht didn't lie about this dragon. Maybe she didn't lie about her goal either then...

Zeslinry the wise is leaving the area as advised by the old Rose. I want to witness what is happening.

I smile.

My dear old friend.

Z - Myls?

M - We'll meet where we discussed, alright?

Z - Okay... Be careful over there. I'll take care of our loading, don't worry.

M - See you later!

She leaves. I put on a helmet and hops onto a motorcycle. I start the engine and ride back toward our Dragod and our home. I don't go fast as the road is really damaged. I should be back home before night still, as we already too the time to clear the road on our way so far with the truck.

I want to see.

I want to meet.

I miss Rose, I miss Ann. I miss Blume!

Blume with a human body was someone I really liked. I don't know what she became since...

It was so weird, but nice.

I stop wandering in my thoughts as a violent explosion occurs in the distance, forcing me to stop and look ahead.

The weird mountain, swollen like a bobble of earth, exploded, without fire. Just like a bubble almost. I see a lingering rain of dirt around there, near the horizon. There was a huge amount of earth blown up and scattered all around.

They were probably rocks bigger than my house sent into the sky since I could see them clearly even from here.

I keep riding, though now I have a fair idea about what became the Dragod...

~

At nightfall, I've reached back the town where we lived for so long, or what's left of it.

Licht had been right, Dragod's body did extend this far.

If it was eating most magical creatures in the woods over the hill, southeast from there, maybe it explains why this city always had been so devoid of rodents and magical rodents. The Dragod was eating them all.

We had felt safe under the shadow of an alpha predator. We just never realised each other's existence.

The city is ruined and a caldera begins there. A sunken land of uprooted forests and earth. A giant uneven field of ploughed ruins and ground dirt begins.

I can't ride over that, it's too uneven. I leave the machine and helmet there.

I'll camp and explore this at dawn.

During the night, I have a weird dream of roses again.

My mind is trying to tell me something I guess.

~

Dawn rises. I drink a little from my bottle and eat one of our dry biscuits.

I check my feet, my socks and my shoes for any parasites. Some are pretty insidious. Weird diseases can easily be caught after unusual events, so today especially, I'm careful.

Outside home, it happened a few times that parasites tried to attach themselves to any of those. Leather leeches are rare and really soft to the touch, like little stuffed animals, but they eat the leather like it's nothing.

And if that's only eating through leather, that's good...

I check my handguns. All elements slide properly. No weird rust or mould appeared over the metal or plastic. The smells are all normal too. I think the air is fine.

I've heard that astronauts at a time had guns too. Not because of space, but wildlife when they returned.

Wildlife is completely random. I've seen friendly boars and deadly, spiteful, butterflies and frogs.

I've rarely seen twice the same animal though, and many that I can't classify or name properly.

Winged trees, chimeras of many sorts and kinds.

Some of these are also based on human body parts. I've med crawling heads, hands, torso, and anything else you can think off.

Pieces hosting new beings like shells hosting new crustaceans.

What will I find here in this broken land?

I venture in. The air is still cold. Only earth can be seen in the distance but the landscape is so rough and uneven, you can't really yell. Every mound and crevice can reveal something different you couldn't see before you reached it.

Some fumes keep flowing slowly, from this freshly upturned mud.

If it were to rain, the whole area would become a giant swamp. A lake of mud.

And as lucky as we are, the sky is a hard grey that doesn't looks good.

I head a deep moan. Behind another rock and a pile of unidentifiable flesh, I find a body.

No, a shape. A body of black dust that is shaped like us, but not human.

It's crawling. It makes no sense...

What doesn't make sense may be a trap. I step back, handgun in hands.

The dark one keeps crawling, slowly evaporating under the sunlight, as if it was dispelling it.

It lifts a dying hand toward me, maybe. I step back.

It dies, and finishes turning to dust and disappears.

I go further carefully. I find huge amounts of flesh and living tissues as if at least a dozen whales had been gutted out around here, and spread into pieces around the area. Sprinkles of salt over a giant plate of mashed potatoes.

In some holes, I really find pools of flesh and liquids that smell like death.

In one, I see a human body floating. I go check it.

It's Rose... Naked, with that weird belly scar shaped like a crescent of moon. She's dead and cold.

So this was one of the mindless roses. I close her eyes, touch her forehead goodbye and leave her to rot there unfortunately.

Another lifeform will find a use of her body, or others will eat it. That's life.

I find another corpse further away.

And another, and another...

I begin to feel uneasy as I realise I'm losing track of how many I find...

How many roses were there? And how many survived?

I call her name. I yell it.

Rose, are you alive?

I doubt for a little while.

And then, I shiver as I hear replies, many, many replies...

I find mind broken roses here or there, hurt, survivors from the fall thanks to miraculous luck.

Shivering in cold. Lost. They all recognise me the exact same way.

And after the first one managing to follow me by herself, they all look horrified as they see the other roses behind me...

~

So far I've found twelve of them.

They act like lost children in a way. They're under shock and follow me blindly like a leader or mother hen.

I kinda like it I must say.

However I certainly don't carry enough clothing to cover their nudity nor enough to feed them all. So it's really embarrassing and hard on them. I shared what I could and suffer the cold air as well.

At dusk we reach back what's left of my city. We have explored maybe 1% of the dead zone, but couldn't go further with that many people along and hurt. We had to get back to safety before the rain and night.

The city has been cut in half. Half is fallen in the wasteland a few metres below.

The other half has only suffered two brutal earthquakes, and is also quite damaged.

My weird team follow me like chicks follow their mother.

What will I do with them?

What will they do?

What would two or more people sharing the exact same past and appearance would do?

I have no idea, and looking at their hollow faces, obviously neither do they.

We made a fire for the night.

Some of them came with me to one of our stocks of clothes that was in a safe outskirt building.

A strange being was already feasting upon it. A kind of giant sea anemone, a slug with lots of small tentacles with a mouth at its end.

It's making holes in the pile of clothes.

We chase it away and gather the boxes.

We dress them, and me, back to civilisation. They look half decent afterward, but still with very long faces and quiet.

We find some food, potatoes. We roast what we have and share.

They all sit around the fire and me, in silence, still in a confused daze mostly.

Some begin to talk between themselves, obviously shy, embarrassed and mostly worried.

One has a broken arm and we can't do a thing about the pain. She's crying softly. We're all sad.

What should we do?

Actually the answer is rather simple. I can offer them to come with me, and build a new town together. And otherwise, they can try their chance alone. I won't stop them...

I've had my unfortunate share of odd adventures and encounters, but this one today is by far the weirdest.

~

By morning, they've already begun to differentiate.

A few slept alone in their corner, others in couples or groups to stay warm. And two came to sleep close to me as I probably reassured them.

I'm scratching myself here and there, having slept poorly, when I realise the one with a broken arm died in her sleep.

Roses burying another one in silence is a depressive sad sight. One is holding my hand and trembling.

She's terrified, maybe more than the others.

I manage to make them understand what happened to them all, and where we're going.

Two are staying behind to look for other survivors. The strongest ones.

The other ones will come with me. We begin to walk on the road.

The two left behind, with my motorcycle on the side, and the leftovers of my home, they look at us in the distance. I scratch, feeling weirder and weirder about all this...

I've had a fucking weird nightmare this night because of them...

Onward we walk...

~

As the hours go by, I'm feeling worse and worse about everything.

Given what they are, I feel like their lives are worthless. They're frail, hopeless, and clones without purpose.

And they look...

I want to fuck one or two of them, I hear myself thinking.

This feeling of power I have over their meaningless lives doesn't bring out the best of me.

I love Rose, but they are just clones. They're like toys, and the idea of owning a few of them just for myself is strangely exciting to me.

I swallow hardly. The hand that holds mine keeps trembling.

As I look at her exhausted and sorrowful face, my twisted fire is washed down and I feel sorry.

They make me dream weirdly, but the real Rose always did, just not like that.

I feel weird...

They're so hungry now, they can just walk along and nothing more. They don't talk anymore.

We lack food. I should have shot the clothes slug to roast it for them.

They're starving. I see some sky fishes in the distance but they're too far away. I say nothing.

We're getting cold as night falls again. Day went by fast. We walk slowly.

They're quick to gather wood to burn. I ignite the fire and they cluster around it.

One of them looks at me with odd teary eyes. She says thank you.

The others all look at me and say the same.

This makes me feel so weird and wrong I don't know what to say. I have goosebumps.

I try to just shrug it off and chuckle nervously at the same time.

Most of them try a tired smile in reply.

~

At night, I feel someone touching me. I wake up and rise to see one rose suddenly running away.

I realise that she has stolen my handgun.

I yell and run after her.

She runs aimlessly through the woods. I'm better than her at running at night and through difficult terrains.

She falls as I catch up. I reach her as she's about to blow her head off in panic. I kicked her in the hand just in time.

The shot is fired and scratches my thigh.

It hurts, but it's benign.

She's crawling toward the gun again, crying. I stop her, angry and confused, and I overpower her easily.

Her eyes are filled with tears.

She says something I don't understand but meaning she can't take it anymore.

I truly believe she could find something for her life, if she survived just a little longer.

Meanwhile, I feel weird, and the pain in my leg spiced it up.

I've been wanting for Rose to notice me for so long...

Despair over human affection since the world turned upside down, it made of me a strange one as well.

Zes is like family. Rose too, but she's more the older cousin or Aunt I admired, and the one I kinda want...

I want her...

If she doesn't want her life anymore, I'll take it. I tell her that.

The twisted desire takes over my mind. Now she's mine.

I kiss her. She doesn't really react. It doesn't really matter. It's not a bad feeling on my lips and tongue.

I grab then my gun, secure it, and pull her up. I hug her and bring her back to the camp holding her hand.

I think her mind is broken beyond repair now, but I don't mind.

She's close enough to what I desired. I'll keep her and take care of her.

I actually feel kind of happy, bubbly. I have my own rose now.

We reunite with the group. They look terribly sad. They probably understood what happened, mostly.

I bring my rose to her knees, and I kiss her in front of them. They all look flabbergasted.

I don't care. I have found a recipient for my love and molten emotional desires. The situation made it somewhat exciting for me in a painful way.

As long as this one doesn't find anything better to live for, I'll give her the care I can, and take what I want.

~