I was thrown on the ground stabbed by a collection of rose thorns, I was no longer scared of them, after all I was long gone, yet even if my seconds were numbered, my rage still seethed.
I looked up at the nest, the thin wriggling brambles constantly shifting in their place. It made a humming sound, yet that humming was not the peaceful humming of a summer day, the feelings of the dew against your skin and the pollen in the air were absent, in their place remained horror and wrongness.
I could see it feeding its young my classmates, some of them were still alive, yet barely. Their heads being crushed by its maw. The thing was, that maw had no teeth, their heads were just being popped only by the sheer force of its jaw. It was appalling.
My fingers touched the crimson grass, I could feel it gnawing into my skin. I wanted to leave but the thorns didn't let me go. All I felt was crimson horror. All I felt was velvet pain. My skin dried up, I could see the blood seeping from its folds.
I was corrupted, I was deteriorated, wasting away into nutrients. I realized then that it was all I ever was. It was all I amounted to in the end, just some hydrocarbons used for sustenance. My lips quivered as I felt blood seep from every indent in my expression. I started to cry, I wondered what I did to deserve this. I then remembered that people don't get what they deserve.
I started to laugh at the absurdity, my pain only increased.
"Caw, Caw"
It was enjoying its meal. I heard a scream I recognized, it was Alexandra. We once did a science project together, her mom made us spagetti, it was delicious. I wanted to eat something like that again. I started to chew the air, it gave me a relief from the pain, imagining such warmth.
Isn't wanting to eat why I'm in this situation? I'm currently being eaten alive by these thorns because they are hungry, like I am. Not that I'll ever be vegan, but I think I'm beginning to understand some of the feelings that plague them.
I looked down at my prison of thorns, they enlodged themselves in me. Tracing the thorns to their source my eyes arrived at a corpse. 'He's like me, huh.' I thought to myself. I would be like him soon, but a mere trap for others.
I noticed something peculiar, his face was eaten, but not by the briar, but by the grass and there was no thistles touching his face, or the grass for that matter. I grabbed the grass, it hurt in my hands, gnawing and cutting into my exhausted flesh. I pulled the grass out of the ground and placed it around the brambles connecting the bush to the earth.
They latched on and started cutting and gnawing. I smiled although I knew my blood would spill from every facial crease. I just felt that elated. Not soon after that I heard a snap and I was free.
I stood up, a cage of thorns still enamored around my chest. I started to walk, I could feel the thorns wrapped around my leg bone, underneath the skin. I could feel them dying and at the same time, trying to kill me. It just mattered which one came first.
I was lucky that I was wearing shoes, just imagining the pain of walking barefoot through the red grass made me want to shiver. Although having your body penetrated by rose thorns is also excruciatingly painful. Eventually, I stopped feeling the pain, it's not like my condition got better, it actually got worse. My brain just decided to stop feeling the pain, or of course the rose thorns destroyed my pain center. I tried to not think about the latter.
I was trying to get to safety, but where in this god-forsaken hellhole is safe? There isn't a good answer to that question. I'd most likely get jumped by a creature of absurd strength and egregious proportions. Yet I didn't stop walking regardless of the possibility of walking into a grave. Why, you may ask, nothing but pure unadulterated cope.
Moving past the nest of thorns it was hiding in, I made my way to a structure obviously not from here. I pried open the glass doors and sat down inside on the green leather seats. The driver's corpse was rotting, a thin metal rod piercing his chest.
'Mr. Adams' I mused. I always liked him. He was nice and calm, yet seeing his frozen horrified expression really put things into perspective. I wanted to sleep, yet I feared that if i did, I'd never wake up again.
I looked at the bush enlodged in my chest, it was squirming. It was but an arm of the bush and an arm cannot live without the main body. It's fight reminded me of my own. Away from earth can I really survive?
I looked through someone's backpack and stole their lunch. We planned a field trip. It was just a field trip. I let the tears run down my face once more. The food was delicious, even better than I imagined, such was the power of hunger. Such was the power of home.
I rested yet did not sleep. I heard the cawing in the distance, the symbol of ever-present danger. I got lost in my thoughts. I tried to think about why this happened, but to no avail. Whatever happened had nothing to do with the science humanity knows.
It finally stopped wriggling in my chest, the thistles stuck in me finally died. I was safe from one threat now at least. That isn't to say they still won't cause trouble. Even if we ignore the damage to my internal organs the bush caused, we can't ignore the possibility of infection.
And if the infections here are anything like the plants, I'll be dead by morning light. If there is anything such as morning light here. I looked up through the bus window and saw a monotone crimson streaking a sky dotted in pitch black clouds. I wondered if that sight ever changes.
My eyes were tired, and against my better judgement, I fell asleep.
I woke up, I wasn't dead, yet. It seems that infections here aren't scaled that proportionally to everything else. I looked at my hands, filthy and bloody. I flexed my hand and it didn't break at every seam, I seem to be improving slightly.
I looked down at the thistles in my chest, they shrunk and are blacker now. They seem to be decaying, yet the rate is far to fast, it unnerved me. I grabbed the thistle and it cracked, the entirety of it falling to black dust. My eyes shot open, this was ridiculously bad!
I immediately put pressure on my wounds, yet with only my hands to work with, blood seeped through. The thistle was blocking off my wound from bleeding, yet with it gone, all the blood rushed out.
I layed on my side in pain, my hands pressing on my wounds, trying to hold out. The bleeding stopped after a few minutes, yet I layed there for hours, too scared to re-open my wounds. Since I could very well straight up die for such a mistake.
After I felt it safe I started to move again, albeit slowly. I scavenged for useful things in the bus, the engine was completely destroyed, so driving the bus wasn't a option. I pulled the rod from Mr. Adams' dead body. It was thin, only a few centimeters across.
I duct taped a small broken triangular-shaped piece of metal to the top of the rod to form a makeshift spear. I also grabbed a functioning backpack and filled it with all the food in the bus. I looked at the door, I didn't want to leave the safety of the bus, but I know that the safety the bus provides is fake and fragile.
I exited the bus, I needed to get to high ground. I was currently in a crater-shaped land formation. I just need to be aware of it, that thing in the nest. It looks like a giant black bird bobblehead from a nightmare with void-like eyes half the size of their face.
If they're birds, the mother should leave to get food for her young and that's when I should attempt to leave the crater. I waited for my opportunity, and after very countable amount hours it finally came.
I ran as fast I as could, the howling winds brushing past me, with the many shades of red forming into one. Behind me I heard a soul-shattering cry. The baby bird jumped down from its nest and squaked at me.
Baby here is a relative term, as it was easily over 12 feet tall. I was almost at the top of the crater when it dashed at me. I readied my makeshift spear to block its claws. It made a significant difference, instead of being impaled by it's claws, I was only immediately put on my ass, about 50 feet away.
In less then a second, I got up and started running. I saw a cobblestone road in the distance. The baby was fast behind me. I was in a plains, there was nowhere to hide.