A young girl is pressured by her friends to enter a haunted house. Soon she finds herself trapped and stalked by indescribable creatures. Can Freida escape White Manor with both her body and sanity intact?
The first room was like a greenhouse, oppressively humid and filled with exotic and seemingly malicious plantlife. The leaves and flowers and spines of the flora seem to shift and dance of their own accord in the quiet, windless room. There were no windows in the room, but moonlight flooded in through a single skylight, high in the ceiling. Rain patted down consistently.
Freida didn't think anything in a greenhouse could help her escape White Manor, and if there was a woman among the plants she didn't make her presence known. The only slightly terrified girl was about to leave for the next door when a sweet scent caught her attention. It seemed to overpower all other smells in the greenhouse.
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Like cookies in an oven, Freida thought.
Again despite her logic, Freida found herself drawn towards the back of the room, brushing leaves of strange plants aside as she walked. The various scents were strong enough to make her dizzy, but the one delicious smell kept her on her feet and moving ever toward the end. Once well out of the glow of the skylight Freida saw it.
A giant flower, a red rose, sat beautifully against the back wall. It was taller than Freida and twice as wide, green thorned vines spread from the center and covered the wooden walls behind. Bones of creatures big and small littered the floor. The scent was coming from the gargantuan flower, Freida realized with glee.
Finally, something in this house that is not horrifying!
There was a sudden need in her to touch this great beauty, to feel the silk of the rose petals against her hands and face. Freida stepped forward, her head swimming in the flower's scent. A sense of dread once again overtook Freida, her hand inches from the deep red center of the rose. Wasn't this something she knew? Carnivorous plants lure their prey with sweet scents, she thought. But a rose is not a dangerous plant, save the thorns. What was this sense of familiarity? What was the dread that filled her stomach at the thought of feeling this great miracle of nature?
I'm being silly, Freida decided and reached out to touch the flower.
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Immediately a powerful pain seemed to attach itself to Freida's hand, traveling further up into her elbow and mercifully stopping there. She screamed. It felt like every pore of her skin was burning from fingernails to forearm. Freida withered on the ground, her mind no longer swimming in ecstasy but agony.
"Don't you know?" A feminine voice from far away broke through her screams.
"The Pixie Rose has venomous spores. That arm is done for, soon it will spread to your whole body."
The words barely registered in Freida's mind through the pain.
"Make it stop," she managed to growl through clenched teeth. "Just make the pain stop."
And then Freida lost consciousness, and the pain stopped.
