I Am A Carnivorous Plant

My plan is genius, if I dare to say so myself. I aimed mostly for the bear’s eyes, so now it’s lost one of its senses, and its claws that were previously excellently sharp are being eroded as well. Sadly I had to lose half of my precious digestive enzymes to launch this deadly attack, but that’s the cost of winning I suppose. Besides, like I said before, I have a backup plan!

 

As I ride the writhing bear like I’m in some kind of rodeo, I reach out to the surrounding bones with one of my newly reformed tentacles, and find a nice big chunk to eat. Healing myself isn’t free, and if I want to do any more of that or regenerate more of my digestive acid, then I’m going to need a quick snack. Luckily I eat pretty fast, and the bronco that’s bucking me around is really in pain. Turns out acid to the face is awful! I… kind of feel bad. Good thing this is a battle to the death! This bear won’t have to suffer for much longer.

 

After a fast refueling and a bit more regrowth, I continued on with my attack. The bear seems to have now realized that the thing that’s been causing this whole mess is actually on its back, so it’s been trying to force its limbs to get back there and reach me. I’ve been using my tendrils to keep juuust out of reach, although its dull claws do scrape across my foliage occasionally. They’re certainly much less deadly now that they’ve been somewhat melted. I’m glad my acid is so effective! Speaking of~!

 

When I feel like I’ve gotten a bit more of my digestive acid back, I pour a little more onto the bear’s skull. It sizzles and fizzles and makes what I’m sure can only be disgusting smells as my enzymes go to work on the bear’s flesh and bone. By the time it seems to be getting less effective, I can see that I’ve already eroded through a good portion of the bear’s skull. Its screams are deafening! I’m pretty glad I don’t really have ears right now! Thank you, plant-body; Now I won’t have to go deaf from all this noise.

 

I have to eat a little bit more before I can finish the bear off, so I reach out for more bones. I don’t have to try and distract the legs anymore; Now the bear is only frantically shaking its head as if it's trying to shake off the pain somehow, so while I wait for it to tire itself out, I’ll make sure I’m good and ready for my final attack.

 

Plop plop plop~

Fizz fizz fizz~

Ahh, it’s so nice to refill, it’s like I’m chugging a bottle of water after dehydrating myself.

 

Oh, the bear is starting to slow down!

Don’t worry bear, it’s time that this ended.

 

I spit up one last good splash of acid and finally burn through the bear’s skull. The moment I see the fleshy brain peeking behind the sizzling bone, I strike, not caring one bit what my acid might do to my tentacles. The already weakened skull is pried open a bit more, and the bear’s now exposed brain is stabbed right through by me. I might have burnt my tentacles a little bit with that move, but I’m going to tell myself that it was wholly necessary! Besides, I have an entire huge bear next to me, so I’ll heal up in no time!

 

Anyways, bon appetit~!

Aaaaah-

I feel like a mighty warrior!

I’ll eat this bear and grow big and strong, just like it was!

 

Oh no, my stomach feels so empty right now!

Melt faster, already!

Hurry up, I need to eat more!

 

~~~

 

It’s a bit harder to digest things effectively when I’m running on a mostly empty tank. The good news is, the more I eat, the faster I’ll regain my acids and digest, so it all pays out in dividends, I assure you! I’ll need that, since I have this whole damn bear to eat. I think there’s enough here for two days? Two and a half? Maybe three, if I really stretch it. This thing is really good eatin’! I would have had to kill sooo many deer to equal how much nutrition I can get from this one bear. Yup, when I’m bigger these things might just have to become a staple of my diet!

 

Dismantling the bear was actually pretty difficult, though. Even when it’s dead it still has some really strong muscles, huh? The bottom of this cave is made out of some coarse dirt, so I can at least dig my roots in and try and get some extra leverage out of them that way but…

 

Oh?

Ooooh?

Ooooh~!

What’s this? What’s thiiiis?!

 

Alright so the rocks in the walls of his cave are actually very shiny and different looking than the other rocks I’ve come across so far on my travels, but… Oh my gosh, I think this dirt in this cave is actually full of minerals?! The dirt in the forest so far has been so nutrient starved, and hasn’t really given me too much to work with, but this… This feels like I’m in some kind of rehabilitating foot bath or something! Or maybe it’s like being in a relaxing steam bath! Oh no… I think I might get addicted to such comfy dirt like this~!

 

…You know… I’ve been a good plant, haven’t I?

A good carnivorous plant at least…

I’ve gotten an entire big bear to eat, and I’ve made sure to get lots of sunlight every day…

Maybe it would be okay if I just… Can’t I be bad for a few days?

This cave seems safe now that the bear is dead, so maybe I can just rest here and relax for a little while.

At least until I run out of food, okay?

I think I deserve a reward after all these weeks of hard work!

Yeah, I deserve it.

 

Goodnight everyone~, I’m closing up shop for a little while!

 

~~~

 

That dirt was really effective! I absorbed the nutrients from that bear so well! I shot up like a- Haha, well like a plant! I may have tiptoed out a few times to catch a small bit of sun, but for the most part it was rich cave-dirt central for me! I even stayed in there an extra two days just eating all the bones that the bear had left behind and cleaning the place out. Hell, if I had a tongue on me I might have even licked those fancy rocks if it meant I could get even more out of that cave! …It’s probably for the best that that’s not the case.

 

And now that I’m back open for business once again, let me share my miraculous results!

I, the previous weird-looking leafy trash can, have now grown a head!

 

My petals have grown and fused together in some weird way to mimic a head, is what I really should be saying. They grew in just the right way so that the bits on the lid of my mouth have formed the top half of a head! They somehow stop, crease, and grow in a way so it looks like I simply have my eyes closed, and they even grew a tiny bit of fuzz or little fibers or something where the eyelashes should be to complete the effect! And then, where the top of the head stops, my petals come together into a cute little noise point! It’s all nicely blended together to almost mimic a pinkish-gold, maybe almost light-coppery skin, although it’s still crinkled a bit in a few spots as if it hasn’t fully figured out how to smooth out yet. It will though, I promise; That’s how all of it looked at first.

 

Alright, so there’s the top half of a cute little head, but what about below the lid? I would look so creepy if I had the top half of a head only, right? Well good news; Nature provides! The spacing between the first row of my petals after the mouth break and the rest of them is actually quite perfect to form the bottom half of my head! The lid is of course where it is in the middle (nose height) of my head, but the actual secondary valve that keeps my digestive acid from spilling out is exactly where the bottom of my neck should be. I don’t actually have a neck yet, but, well, you know what I mean, it’s around there!

 

I have a cute, pinker than the rest, crinkling of petal that’s pretending to be a mouth on the bottom half of my ‘head’, and that’s about really the only notable feature besides the slightly un-obvious line running through it. The line, I should tell you, starts right under my ‘nose’ at the beginning of the bottom half of my ‘head’, and continues down until where my neck should be. I won’t lie, I was actually pretty disgusted when I found out that the bottom half of my ‘head’ opens up outwards at the same time that the top pops open now. I kind of feel like I’ve morphed into some kind of alien whose mouth opens in three directions. The purpose is obvious, it’s clearly so I can fit more food in at once now that the opening for my mouth has much more room, but… But ew! Just ew. Ew!

 

Okay, so focusing on something else, my leaves! The top layer of green leaves hasn’t changed at all, so that doesn’t matter. The bigger change is in my silver leaves. These things were already growing longer and a bit fuzzier than the green ones, but now they seem to be specializing even more! At their base they’re just long thin leaves, but after a little over a finger’s length, they end up like some kind of cute curly fern? It’s like I have a bunch of cute little silver spit curls decorating the sides of my face in some kind of pixie cut. I look like a small flapper or something. Or maybe some weird kind of leafy cherub or fairy.

 

…Alright, so what am I, some kind of fancy orchid? I’ve heard about them mimicking birds and lips and tiny people and skulls and all kinds of things. Am I meant to be attracting prey by my super cute appearance? Do I look like a tiny lost child with its eyes closed so that I attract predators or something?

 

Oh no… Did I suddenly start looking like this because I finally killed a big predator?

Is this my body’s way of attracting more of them for food?

 

Hold on a minute! I don’t think I’m ready for this kind of unwilling attraction! When I grew this stupid (but totally cute!) flower on my head, I couldn’t even handle the barrage of herbivores that came at me! How the hell am I going to manage a bunch of even deadlier things trying to eat me?!

 

…Does… Oh no, could it be…?

Does this maybe mean I’m actually (gasp) behind the progress I’m supposed to be at right now?

Is it… Is it like a game?

Did I screw myself by jumping forward into the bear zone when I should really still be in the deer zone?

 

Oh no!!!

Please, I’m not ready!!!

Wait!!!