The Adventures And Mishaps of a Half-Plant Apothecary - Febuwhump 2024

Day 16 - Came Back Wrong

CW: Death, mild body horror, mild panic attack, horror elements

AN: honestly my favourite prompt. like when I saw it for the first time, I was instantly going to use it for this character because it fits perfectly. I have so much lore for the mechanics of this weird necromancy thing that wouldn't fit here you have no clue

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Nyxie is not supposed to be alive.

At least, that's what she thinks when she shoots up from the accidental bed she made in the grass of the forest floor. She gasps for breath for a while, like she's actively being choked out, for a few minutes, because that's what it feels like when suddenly you find yourself being half-covered in moss that's partially stuck to your head.

Wait, what?

Nyxie reaches up to clasp at her head. Instead of her regular black hair, she finds moss growing on her head. Starting to panic, she grasps at what she thinks for half a second is hair but ends up being a flower. She grasps at the tip of the moss-hair, genuinely lost for what to do.

She just sits there for a while, blinking. When her eye closes, she can still see on her left.

Something uncomfortable bubbles up in her throat. She reaches up to where her left eye would be, only to find a flower in place of it. She tries to close both eyes. She can still see. Even trying to only close that one eye doesn't seem to work.

In hindsight, that makes sense, seeing as flowers only close when they want to.

Interesting thing to think about.

Before Nyxie can get herself into an actual panic attack, she stands up, with difficulty. She wobbles for a few seconds, like she would if she'd just been sleeping for hels-knows-how-long, but gets her bearings anyways.

She starts to turn, but stops when she sees a face. She resists the urge to call out to them, instead rubbing her eye cautiously. She doesn't know what happens if she tears her flower-eye, and doesn't particularly want to know either.

The person is gone.

Cautiously, Nyxie steps over to where she swears the person once was. Surely they didn't just... disappear on her, right?

Sure enough, though, the only thing left to show that someone was ever there was the dead, brown grass where their feet must've been, a stark contrast to the almost neon green around her.

Nyxie steps back, leaning against a conveniently located tree. It has only been a few minutes, and she is already beginning to get tired.

That says a lot about her current physical state, huh?

As she leans her head back, though, she feels a strange something trickling down her somehow-still-mostly-intact shirt. She frowns, pulling away from the tree, before putting her hand to the bark.

It comes away blackened and covered in rot.

More than a little disgusted, Nyxie steps away. Everything about this place just seems so weird. Like she isn't supposed to be here.

Nyxie starts to walk in some direction. The trees around her don't sway in the breeze, as there is no wind to speak of. Even though the trees are sometimes so thick in places that it's a struggle to get through them, there are no leaves crunching underfoot as she walks. As a matter of fact, she can't hear her footsteps at all. Even the grass, now that she gets a good look at it, seems artificially painted that shade of green.

Finally, she steps forward into a clearing. She breathes a sigh of relief and immediately flops down onto the ground, uncaring of any bugs that might crawl on her. She didn't have to worry, really; there were no animals, insects or anything even resembling life in this place.

Probably the one good thing about being here, she guesses.

After a good few minutes of rest, she stands again. Something about staying still for long periods of time suddenly feels wrong, almost. She's also thirsty, so there's that.

She does notice a puddle on the ground a few metres away, so she picks herself up to go have a look. She isn't going to drink it, obviously, but it doesn't hurt to explore.

Nyxie gazes down into the puddle, and she doesn't recognise the person staring back.

Her entire left of her face is practically covered in this moss, and her remaining hair on her right is a mess. Her skin, even though the water can't ge the exact shades right, is obviously a milky shade of white, almost as if she's dead.

That isn't the thing that is the most striking, though.

Her left eye, once a dark brown, has been replaced by an abnormally large, bright red flower. Its centre completely takes up the space where her eye once was, and it brushes a little uncomfortably over her nose. She had barely even realised it until now.

With her head both completely full of thoughts and devoid of anything, and herself not looking like she should, and the way that nothing seems right where she is and the fact that she's either in the afterlife or not supposed to be alive,

the only thing that Nyxie can really do now

is scream.