Rory was shaken by the fall. It didn’t really hurt, but his muscles vibrated and his bones seemed to thrum at the impact. Besides that, the water suffused into every pore of his skin. It wasn’t too cold—in fact, Rory was actually surprised by the warmth—but the sudden contact and the change in temperature was still shocking.

Nevertheless, Rory recovered quickly. He had sunk a few feet into the water, and he was surprised again to discover that it was deep enough that the bottom was lost to darkness, but he swam up soon. He had gathered enough breath during the dive to not worry about his clasping lungs. Rory still gasped and dragged in a big breath when his head broke the surface.

“We need to get to the shore,” Dez said. Rivulets of water were running down the sides of his face to land in the water around them.

Rory nodded, then looked around. Evelyn and Lucy had broken to the surface as well. Now that they had confirmed everyone was fine, they followed Dez and swum to the nearest bank. It was only after they had climbed to drier ground and pulled themselves several yards deeper inland that Rory stopped to ask the question he was dreading the answer to.

“Did you see something in there?” he asked, speaking past his shivers.

Dez was bent over a little, breathing heavily. “I’m not sure. But I didn’t like the looks of what I did see.”

Evelyn nodded. “It was dark. Threateningly dark.”

Rory understood the fear. That depth could have hidden anything, and none of them were equipped to deal with anything underwater. After their recent encounters with the Wilders, Rory was actually betting that whatever resided in the bottom was going to surface sooner rather than later.

He looked around. The lake was long and curved away in the imitation of a river, but Rory could see the far bank. But it was the rest of everything he saw that had his mouth fall open.

The chamber they had fallen into was the size of a small stadium and resembled a natural paradise. Far above, the fissures they had seen from outside ran across the ceiling to let in natural sunlight. The land around them was covered in lush greenery. What space wasn’t covered by trees—towering redwoods and sequoias—had been taken over by grass that was as gold as it was green. He could hear the call of birds and other woodland creatures here and there.

“Where… are we?” Evelyn asked.

Lucy was staring around with wide eyes. “You guys sure we didn’t die and end up in some kind of heaven?”

“I’m starting to doubt myself,” Rory admitted.

“There!” Lucy had frozen, pointing off to their left.

Rory’s heartbeat hammered. “What?”

“The dog thing from before! It’s there. Wait, no, it’s running again.”

Lucy dashed off. They called after and hurried along. Rory was suddenly overcome with a terrible foreboding feeling. This wasn’t great.

“I don’t like this,” Dez said. It seemed he had the same feelings as Rory. “Any of this. It’s all… too deceptive.”

“Look, she’s stopped,” Evelyn said.

Lucy had come to a halt. There was something about the way she stood that sent alarm bells ringing in Rory’s head, though. She was unnaturally still as a statue.

“Lucy,” Rory called out. “What’s wrong?”

He paused just behind her, hauling in quick breaths as his lungs struggled to keep up with the exercise. She had led them to a small clearing within the giant trees. On top of the flattened grass, their quarry had finally come to a stop. Rory frowned at it, then found his breath growing shallow in surprise.

It was a hound, all right. But not any normal dog. It wasn’t even a plant-hound that he had assumed before. The darkness must have hidden its true form from him.

The dog before them was a regular dog, but with a plant growing out of it like a parasite.

“What happened to it?” Lucy asked. She sounded like she was about to cry.

Rory could only shake his head. The dog looked like a bloodhound, but a strange flowering plant had made a home on its back, its roots digging into the skin and anchoring itself there. Thorns grew out of the hound’s ankles and tiny leaves sprouted in place of its fur. On its back was a mess of thorny vines, but atop its head rested a crown of magenta flowers with closed buds that glowed in the low light.

Evelyn clicked her tongue. “Come here, boy.” She made the noise again, making gentle, friendly gestures at the dog. “Come on. We’re friends here. We won’t hurt you.”

That was a big gamble, considering the bloodhound’s eyes glowed with malevolence and its teeth were bared, ready to bite if needed. Rory noticed there was a sickly pallor to its skin.

“Mog?” someone said from behind.

Rory tensed. That voice sounded far too human. He looked around to see the grass rustling, trying and failing to relax as a newcomer popped out into their midst.

A newcomer who was no stranger than the dog.

The young man standing before them would have been naked if not for the leaves protecting his modesty. Like with the dog, there was a plant growing out of the boy’s back with many thorns and vines wrapping around his body, and a magenta crown around his head. But instead of a furry covering of miniature leaves, the boy had bigger leaves that acted like loose clothes, covering his groin, shoulders, and calves.

What was weirdest, though, was the circle of vines around the boy’s neck. Rory blanched at it. The spiky vines had wrapped around so tightly, Rory would have concluded the boy had been choked to death long ago if he wasn’t standing and speaking with them.

But then, considering the clammy, bluish nature of his skin, maybe he was dead.

“Ah, newcomers,” he said in a pleasant voice without a hint of surprise. “You have arrived in time. There is a fresh batch of seeds awaiting fertilization. Come. I will guide you to the sowing fields.”

As the boy turned around, Rory finally found his voice. “Hold on. Who in the world are you? What are you doing here? And what…” The boy turned around and Rory found himself swallowing. “What happened to you?”

“What happened to me?”

Rory pointed, rather vaguely, in his direction. “There’s a plant coming out of you, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“We might be speaking to the plant rather than the boy,” Evelyn said, her voice grim.

“I was hoping this was a weird Sigil or something…”

“Hmm.” The boy considered them for a while. His eyes glowed just like his dog’s, who was circling around his feet and licking the leaves on his legs. “You newcomers seemed to be labouring under the mistaken assumption that this plant and I are different beings. I assure, that is not the case. There is no difference between the parts you identify as plant and the parts you identify as boy. We are one being. Truly.”

“You’re… an Otherworlder?” Rory asked.

“The term sounds familiar, but I am not sure if that defines us. Follow me, and you may discover your own answers.”

Without waiting for anything further, the boy and his dog both headed off deeper into the woods.

“Should we go after them?” Evelyn asked. She was obviously trying to control her fear.

Rory couldn’t blame her. He was trying not to be scared too, and it was proving difficult. There was something irrepressibly eerie of seeing the boy and the dog in that kind of horrific condition contrasted with the paradisal world around them.

“I want to know more,” Dez said

Rory reluctantly nodded. “Let’s go and find out. But be wary and careful.”

They headed in the direction the boy had gone. It seemed their new acquaintance hadn’t waited for them, though he had left a clear trail in the grass for them to travel. As Rory walked, the sounds of slithering and rasping vines grew louder, as did the sight of the enormous chamber’s far wall. The sense of foreboding he had been struck with was now stronger than ever.

When they finally reached another clearing, Rory and the others came to a horrified stop. They had finally found the answer they had been seeking.

The boy was there with his dog, holding a large, wriggling seed with hairlike tendrils waving in the air on their own. Several human bodies were laid out near him in an ordered row, while behind them, more of the half-plant, half-human hybrid monsters all stared at Rory and the newcomers.

The only differences between them and the boy were that they had different flowers crowing their heads and had bodies ranging from obese older men to middle aged matrons to kids too young to tell whether they were a boy or girl.

A couple of them had the same kinds of wriggling seeds in their hands, and they stood over the human bodies.

Rory’s Sigil of Knowledge was trying to grant him details but it was strangely slow, as though it was digging up many different kinds of information to come to some sort of conclusion. All he knew so far was that the creatures were some sort of precursor to the Wilders, though different from them as well. They shared a sort of symbiotic relationship with the monsters they had fought.

Speaking of which, there were a lot of them in the area. Rory counted what looked like almost a dozen different Wilders, though it was hard to tell with all of their viny and leafy parts melding together.

“What’s going on here?” Dez asked. He brought up his flaming fist. “Explain before I take any further action.”

“We are in the middle of welcoming more of our kind into the world,” the boy said. He looked around at the others. “Is that not true, friends?”

“It is,” the matron said. “Long have we waited to embrace them and show them the delights in store. That time has now come.”

“We will do our best to guide them,” a small child said, voice shrill yet carrying an undeniable gravity. “They may be weak and powerless at the beginning of their lives, but before long, they will soon be members ready to contribute to our little paradise.”

“Those seeds.” Rory found his voice was reedy and raspy as well. “You’re using them to turn people into your kind. That’s… did they even consent to something like that?”

“What do you mean by consent?” The boy paused to think for only a second, then answered before any of them had a chance to say anything in reply. “Ah, I see. Well, they were quite eager to receive the blessing bestowed by the seed, so I would assume, yes.”

“All we have is your word for it,” Dez said. “Because from our perspective, this is… something too horrific for anyone to ever agree to. You were human once, boy. But it’s the plant controlling you now, so you can pretend to not remember.”

“You are once again forcing a distinction between parts you normally do not see together. Besides which, you seem to be bent under the assumption that you can stop this if you so choose. If that is your goal, then you are not welcome here. Leave, before you are forced to do so.”

Rory blinked. A part of him had been afraid that they had been lured here so that they could be turned into those half-plant, half-human hybrids too. Now, however, the monsters seemed to be happy to let them go.

Not that they could leave the survivors just like that, of course.

“We’re not going anywhere until we understand what’s happening to these people,” Rory said. “They’d never agree to this in their right minds.”

The boy looked on impassively, unimpressed by their defiance. “To seek refuge against the plague of monsters and sickness, one may take steps seemingly unfathomable to others. If you attempt to stop us, you will be dealt with.”

As if to reiterate the threat, the dog growled loudly. At the same time, all the Wilders around them started rustling and shifting their branches as well. They wouldn’t take kindly to having their efforts cut down in that fashion.

“Rory, what are we going to do?” Evelyn asked.

There was only one decision to be made here. “We’ll get—”

“You cannot extricate them,” the boy said. “The creatures here will not tolerate your interference in such matters. Besides which, you will only be killing our brethren by removing them from their paradise.”

“You’re the ones killing them,” Dez said, raising his burning fist high. “Your seeds are going to take over their bodies and kill the people who actually use it.”

“Believe what you wish. We will ultimately do what is right and needed.”

Dez cursed and summoned more flames into his hands, while Evelyn’s arms turned red as lava manifested in her grip. She looked angrier than Rory had ever seen. He stared around, trying to take note of their surroundings. All the Wilders were rustling with threat, and the other hybrid creatures all looked ready to leap at Rory’s group if they so much as twitched incorrectly.

“Enough,” a voice called from the back.

Everyone froze. The Wilders stopped moving as one, looking behind Rory’s group, all of whom turned around as well. Rory turned to see a slender tree on the other bank of the lake, standing apart from the others. A tree that was talking.

“Come, intruders, and speak with me,” it said. “Allow me to explain the truth of the matter to you. We will hold all in pause until you are satisfied.”

Rory and the others exchanged uneasy glances. After all the strange things they had seen, this wasn’t anything outright surprising. A giant tree that was shaped vaguely like a woman with branches twisting like hair, a knot at the top of the trunk forming a vague face, and the conical trunks covered with leaves and vines to form a dress? Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Who are you?” Rory asked, raising his voice so it could be heard across the lake. “The leader of this… madness?”

“Call me what you must,” it said. “But if you wish to end this peacefully, then come speak.”

Rory pointed behind him with a thumb. “Are you going to ask them to hold whatever it is they’re doing for now?”

The tree monster twisted its branches in a strange gesture, and the hybrid creatures behind Rory hissed their disapproval. He looked back to see that they were retreating. They were glaring at his group, the boy and his dog especially so, but they had stopped their ghastly procedure. Perfect.

Taking a deep breath, he turned around to face the lake. “Let’s go meet this creature then.”