She screamed inwardly, as if she were to vocalize her terror, she would almost certainly die.

Marissa clung to the knife she had in her hands, her last lifeline to the world, a tether that would certainly not be enough to snuff out all of the men currently searching for her.

Footsteps sounded closer to her, then further, as someone paced the room she was hiding in. She tried not to breath too loudly, all too aware that it only took one of the men opening the closet in the room to find her.

“This brat…hey, Stanley, anything yet?” she heard the man grunt.

A bit of static sounded from a walkie-talkie, then “Nope. But she couldn’t have left the building, we’ve got one of those Amps making some shield. We’ll find her.”

“Right…okay.”

After another burst of static, there was a shuffling of clothes, and then the man remarked to the air, “Well, nothing in here. Guess it’s time to search the ballroom…again.”

Marissa let out a quiet breath as she heard the man leave the room. Then her heart stopped as she heard voices from the hallway just outside her hiding space.

“Hey, Jermey, didja check that room yet?”

“Just did. A desk, computer, and uh…that’s about it.”

“Hm. I’ll double-check for you.”

Marissa’s eyes widened, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself for gasping for breath. She could feel the panic attack coming on.

The steps of a different man entered the room, walking around the relatively empty space. Then,

“Hmm…what’s this? A closet?”

No. No! Marissa thought frantically. Her eyes darted left and right, trying to find any way to escape the situation. The closet was despairingly empty, and Marissa felt the panic growing in strength as the footsteps grew closer, and closer, until the door slowly creaked open.

The world froze.

At first, Marissa thought her life was flashing before her eyes. She had heard that something like that happened when you were about to die. But then the butterfly appeared.

Floating from somewhere she couldn’t see, it flew past the frozen expression of the man, shocked at what he had found. The butterfly looped lazily around Marissa before landing on the back of her hand, and almost looking up at her as if it was sentient. And then time started moving again. And for just a second, she could see everything.

The building she was in was old. Decrepit. Mold infested the walls, snaking back and forth through the wooden posts and concrete that made up the structure of the building. Flied, gnats, spiders, and even a snake were lurking in the walls, their pincers clicking as they scuttled around the halls of the building. It had been around for many years, more than she had been alive. There were stories in the doors, the walls, the paintings that lined the walls…it had been her home.

“Hey! Can you hear me? Are you even listening?” A slap to her cheek brought her back to her senses, though her brain was still dazed, confused at the sensory overload she had just experienced. She gazed, confused, at the man who had opened the closet door.

“Listen, girlie. You’ve caused enough trouble as is. Why don’t we make this easy, and you come with me, and everything’ll be okay. Yeah? I’ve, uh, here-” He rifled through his pockets before pulling out an old sucker with dust flaking off of the plastic wrapping. “Kids like candy, right? You want this?”

She sat and stared, almost through the man. Her eyes were still filled with the butterfly that had appeared, and she instinctively raised her hand, reaching for what she thought she saw. The man, thinking she was reaching for the candy, went to place it in her hand. She smiled, an empty smile, and the man’s fake smile in return quickly turned to a grimace.

Dropping the candy to the floor, the man went down on one knee, clutching his chest. “Ngh- what did you do- you b-”

His eyes froze, and a peaceful sigh escaped his lungs as he collapsed. Then, something else burst from his chest. Numerous vines with spikes growing from them exploded from the man’s chest, wrapping around the girl and starting to spread out around the building.

Shouts of alarm came from the dead man’s walkie-talkie, and soon footsteps alerted the vines to people entering the room. As the first man walked in, his eyes widened, and he retched. “What the- augh!!” The vines dealt with him swiftly, growing around and into him, until he too burst into more vines, which spread out further, expanding the girl’s reach outside of the room.

She understood now. It was like a game! She touched people with her vines, and they exploded into more, letting her move around the building even more. It was just like getting stronger in a video game. She was so excited!

The vines wrapped around a man, who screamed in pure delight as he became part of the game. She giggled and clapped her hands. She was so happy the other people were enjoying the game as much as she was! But then she sensed more people, lots and lots of them, just outside of the building. She had to get them to join in too, but how…

The men were unprepared for thousands of thorned vines to burst from the ground and begin wrapping around them. Even more people screamed in happiness, even the ones who weren’t getting turned into vines. It was the girl’s way of spreading happiness and fun to people, through her game!

She suddenly winced as she felt a sharp pain in her side. Sending vines to investigate, she found a boy dressed in a fancy suit that made him look like a superhero, like the ones her mother had told her about. He was summoning round disks of blue energy and using them to chop the ends of her vines off. That made her angry. He couldn’t do that! This was her game, not his! So she ordered the vines to not add him to her game. They quickly slithered around him, constricting his arms and legs to the ground, and a particularly thick vine raised above the boy, slamming down onto his body repeatedly, until he finally stopped trying to ruin her fun.

That was pretty disappointing for a first boss, though. The girl wanted more fun, but everyone here had already been played with, so she couldn’t reach far enough to get at the people she could sense outside of her range. So how exactly was she supposed to get more people to play with her?

The burning question was answered soon enough when, a few hours of playing around with her vines later, a man stepped into her range.

A smile grew on her face. Now she had someone to play with her! Maybe she would try and talk to him first, to see what he was like before she added him to the game. Concentrating, she felt a mouth sprout from the vine closest to the man. Then, just for fun, she sprouted a few more, and spoke out of all of them.

“Hey, mister!”

The man turned and glanced at the mouth. “Well. Look at you, growing so fast.”

“Hey, do you wanna play a game with me?”

“Hm. Maybe. How about you play my game, and then I’ll play yours?”

The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Yes! Let’s! What’s your game?”

“Well, it’s simple enough, really. I can bring some people to you, but I don’t want you to cause them to erupt like the others. I want you to try and change them. Plant a little vine into their heads and try to move them.”

The man snapped, and someone else appeared, bringing several unconscious people into her range. She frowned. Not add them to her game? Why would she do that? But, it was this man’s turn, so she did as he asked and slithered a vine up their ears, dropping the tip of one inside each of their heads. She tried to avoid the gooey bits that were all grey, they made her feel icky, and the person always flinched too much when she touched them. After she had finished, she thought really hard at them, and they stood up, their eyes dull and mouths slack.

“Well? How’d I do, mister? Did I win?”

The man chuckled. “Well done. I think you could be very, very strong if you wanted to be.”

“Thanks! Now we play my game!” She sent all of the nearby vines at the man all at once, hoping to add his wonderful game ideas to her game as quickly as possible. But the man jumped over her vines, then pulled something sharp and nasty from his cane. He stabbed at her vines until she called out to him, “Stop! It hurts! Why won’t you play my game? We agreed!”

The man smiled. “My dear girl, your talents are wasted on this house. What if I told you I could get you enough people to play your game that you could reach a city nearby here?”

“Ooh! So many people to play! I love that idea! But, when will you play?”

“What about this,” the man said, “I will play your game once you’ve played with ten thousand people.”

“Okay!”

As the man walked away, she called out once more.

“Excuse me! Do you know my name?”

The man turned around and scratched his chin. “Hm. Let’s see…how about…Bindweed.”

“Ooh! I love it! I’m so excited!!”

The man smiled and kept walking until he was out of her range.

She couldn’t wait! The game was afoot, and she was going to make so many people have fun with her!