Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26250475-20150510152142

I couldn’t touch my wall.

This strange phenomenon had lasted for four nights. I used to sleep so soundly that even the noisiest thunder couldn’t wake me up, but these four days I woke up at midnight simply because of a strange odor, the odor of flowers. That was really uncommon. In such a busy city, every scent of plants, meals or animals would be turned into the smell of concretes, dusts and pollutions. Also, I shouldn’t be woken up just because of this odor.

In the first two nights, I just continued sleeping after waking up; however, at the third night, I decided to turn on my light to see wherever this bothering smell came from due to my curiosity and a sense of dysphoria. But I didn’t touch my switch, and my wall. That switch should be right on the wall next to my bed, and I should have touched it just stretch my arm toward the left. But what I felt was only the air. I even then stretch out half of my body from my bed, but I touched nothing. It was impossible, for my wall was right near my bed; I should have bumped onto it with such an action, while nothing happened. Turning back immediately and turning on my phone with its faint screen light to see what happened, I was in a cold sweat as soon as I saw the wall was right there, standing near my bed quietly. Carefully stretching out my hand again, this time I touched it, yet that familiar feeling of solid didn’t comfort me; I was even more confused by what I just experienced. But finally, my ration just concluded it as a sort of disorient after waking up from the deep sleep accidently, whereby I chose to go on sleeping.

I also lied on bed trying for several times during the fourth day’s daytime, and every time I truly touched my wall just by swinging my arm toward the left. After I almost regarded my last night’s experience as a dream, I woke up again owning to that flower odor.

It was not a dream.

I sat up to stay my mind clear, and my instinct told me that if I touched my wall again, I would absolutely fail. At the same time, I found something else abnormal. Even it was at midnight, there should be weak light, like the neon light, street light or moonlight, coming into my room through the window, whereas now it was completely dark in my room. At that time, I decided to find out the truth of this strange phenomenon. Holding my phone in my hand, I stretched out my arm toward left carefully – expectably, I touched nothing but the air. I moved to the edge of my bed and inclined forward at such a position that if my wall was at its initial place, my body now should be “immerged” into it. Then, I turned on my phone to see what in the world was happening in my room. With that dim light, what I saw was only darkness, and I could smell that the flower odor was coming from it. I narrowed my lids in order to see something hiding behind that darkness or  to find my wall, but it was all in vain; though a small part in my mind, the curiosity, urged me to step into that dark, the most part, the fear and the sanity, stopped this crazy idea. What was more, after I swung my body back and winked once, my wall just appeared at its original position. At the same time, the odor in my room scattered. I was not a timid girl during my daily life, and I didn’t know why my body couldn’t stop shivering slightly at that time, but both my instinct and ration told me that I should feel lucky as I didn’t went into that darkness. Maybe the next time I wake up I’d better just continue sleeping like nothing happened as I did at the first two nights.

<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">Now it was the fifth night, and it was the time to go to bed. During the daytime I have tried to search for some explanations for what I have experienced, but nothing valuable was found; however, I saw four Q&A websites are asking about a situation same as mine, but responses beneath questions were not really useful – it seemed others just regarded our experience as a ghost story. I contact these four net pals and showed my wish of communicating with them, but now they hadn’t replied. And about tonight, I decided to continue sleeping after waking up. Though I had considered about staying up as an another avoidance for that phenomenon, I didn’t want to try anything not 100% safe at all – who knew whether something else strange would happen if I didn’t sleep as I used to do; furthermore, tomorrow I was going to attend several interviews – this was important to my future career and I would not like to let my interviewer see my tiredness. Finally, before going to bed, I left my light on. The light could, to some extent, relieve my stress about facing something unknown at mid night.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">Nevertheless, then I woke up, not totally because of that odor, but also due to a coldness. I didn’t understand why there was cold natural breeze and strange rustle of leaves inside my room or why the flower odor was much denser than it was in the last few days until I opened my eyes unwillingly. Though I decided to sleep whatever happened tonight, I couldn’t help to see what the hell was happened in my room – it was too abnormal for me to go on sleeping. However, after I opened my eyes, I found I was wrong. The situation was far more serious than I thought. Sitting up immediately even with no effort to close my mouth which opened subconsciously, I could feel my cold sweat dripping down from my trembling body.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">The light I left disappeared and now I was in darkness again. But this darkness was not as complete as it was in last few nights, for some light weaker than moonlight, the star light, gave me a chance to see what happened in my room. But I knew, it was not my room at all. Everything surrounding me was not my furniture but flowers. I couldn’t see what kind of flowers they were as they were as high as people, even a little higher than human beings, but I could identify their outline by star light. I didn’t know where I was, yet it seemed that I and my bed were in open air, a strange garden.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">After several seconds I felt I was a little calmed, I moved back carefully and put my hand under my pillow – I had put my phone there. To my surprise, my phone was still there. I thought the thing that took me here should at least deprive the communication equipment.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Ask for help.” It was the first thing I thought. I turned on my phone and planned to call the police, but then the reality of no signal forced me to give up. It was rather ridiculous to hold the thoughts of calling to someone in such a ridiculous place.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Maybe I should sleep instead… Maybe this was just a dream… And when I woke up in the morning everything would be fine…” Although I was saying like this, I knew deeply that it was impossible to sleep in such a condition. Breathing deeply, I smiled to myself to calm down.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">At the next moment, I felt my smile froze on my face, as I glimpsed something inside the left flower cluster next to me with the light of my phone. I turned left immediately, looking from the downside to the upside: feet, legs, blood, pajamas, blood, intestines, belly, heart, blood, arm, nightshirt, blood, neck, head, eyeball, hair, blood… a person. Flowers were growing in a person.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">I swung back, couldn’t stop shivering, felt cold sweat running down from everywhere in my body, and even forgot to scream. But then, I saw, the flowers in my right direction, were also growing from human beings fallen apart. Turning away, also, flowers in front of me and at back of me, were inside people. I was surrounded by corpses, which were disintegrated but formed together along stalks and leafs. Now, I even had no effort to consider why the smell of blood was too slight to be felt. My instinct had told me that my fate was the same as them.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Ah… Ah…” I wanted to scream, but I only heard some dry sound coming out from my throat. I wanted to run, to escape from this horror garden, but my whole body was just paralyzed on my bed, trembling in cold sweat.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Do you like my flowers?” Suddenly, a boy’s sound murmured behind me.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">I turned back immediately, and saw a teenage boy standing at the head of my bed, smiling warmly. “Ah…ah…aah…” I moved to the foot of the bed, with body trembling, sound drying, and tears running down. “Don’t… ki…kill…me…”I couldn’t even hear my own words, and could only pray for him by shaking my head continually.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“You don’t like them?” His smile disappeared, changing into a sad disappointment instead, and also, a faint murderous look. “He will kill me…” I swung back slightly, understanding that I showed something he disliked.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“No! I…I like your flowers! I love them! They are…they are beautiful! Aren’t they?” I inclined forward, using my whole power to shout out, showing him as bright a smile as possible, though it must be ugly.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Really?” He smiled again, showing his pleasure apparently. He stepped forward, and then stooped down, staring at me. Some petals were flowing out from his right eye.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“So, be my flower.”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">At the next second, something exploded inside my body. I could feel the seeds begin rooting around my navel; they just stretched their roots everywhere and tore up every cell in y body. Bloody out of its way started to run everywhere and messed my inner body up with those damned plants. The sound of their movement was exactly the same as the one of the boiling oil in the hell. I could hardly breath because I didn’t even know where my lung was. Darkness and fogginess spread in front of my eyes due to the lack of blood and oxygen. Now everything left in my mind was pain, the pain of being mangled.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">Suddenly, some memories flowed into my mind. The images when mom was cooking, when dad was doing sports, when my young brother was scrambling the remote control of our television with me, when my families and friends were celebrated me for my enrollment of my college as well as when I was facing some interviewers who rarely smiled just flowed through my nerves, and then flowed away without a hesitation. I wanted to stop them. But it was impossible. I couldn’t even stop the crazy flowers in my body. I couldn’t even save my own life.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“No… I want to live…”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Help me… Anyone helps me… Mom… Dad…”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Why must he do this…”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Why me…”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“I don’t want to die…”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">Finally, something tore up the skins on my leg. I fet a sense of falling down then; but at the next moment I found I was raising. Maybe the plants’ crazy growing roots also destroyed the bed, and grew into the soil to stand up, although I didn’t remember I heard the sound of my bed broken. But it was expectable when my hearing was continuing losing. Then, skins of other parts of my body began to split as well. Despite the extremely pain, I felt something different faintly. The plants started to grow their stalks, leaves, and flowers. I knew I would be strung on those flowers like others soon.

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">I wanted to stand up, but the stem ran through my whole legs, and numerous leafs and several buds budded from my skins; I wanted to vomit, but my stomach was already outside my body and was full of buds and leaves; I wanted to scream, but a leaf just penetrated my throat; I found my eyesight was turned toward the sky, and was raised to the same level as other flowers by this big flower; I heard my blood pumping out from everywhere in my body, but I could smell nothing but flower flavors. Before my eyes were full of scarlet, the last thing I saw was something like a ball was burgeoning out and blossoming from my mouth…

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">--

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Hey, did you hear that news?”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Hun? What news?”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“A girl in the near community was missing last night!”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Ah! I know this! Since two years ago such missing cases have become frequent and no one was found! What were the police doing?”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“I don't know, either! If there is a crime for this missing case, I think the feature of the crime is distinct enough! At least, other crimes would not leave a flower with a note on the missing one's bed.”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Em, I remember the note is... 'Thanks for becoming my flowers. Spring' What a strange and meaningless note! Is 'Spring' the crime's name? What do you think?”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Maybe it is. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. Well, comparing with that note, the flower might be the stranger one. I remember...that flower is... a poppy?”

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">“Yeah, a poppy."

<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt0cm;line-height:16.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:宋体;color:#D4D4D5;mso-font-kerning:0pt">"But poppy doesn’t grow widely in our country. And also it is not the season for poppy now. But all the poppies left were too fresh…

<span style="color:rgb(212,212,213);font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;line-height:16.5pt;font-size:14px;">“…As it was just picked from a garden.” <ac_metadata title="The Gardener (revised and unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>