Root of all blooms

Chapter5:Execution plan

"So who can come with me to collect food?" Alice asked, looking around the room, hoping there would be volunteers.

Ashira and Enzo raised their hands.

Alice's eyes lit up at seeing that people were willing to cooperate.

"Yay! Who else?" she said, her voice full of hope.

Some avoided her gaze; clearly, they didn't want to cooperate with her. She began to look around as her hopes started to vanish.

I raised my hand just to cheer her up. "I'll go, and also Kael, since he was the one who ate all the food. I think that's only fair." I looked at Kael with a teasing expression. "Right?"

He scoffed but still nodded.

Alice basically jumped where she was standing.

Her tone was once again cheerful and enthusiastic. "Yay! Operation Surviving is on!"

She and Enzo gave each other a high five.

It was fun to see her like this and to reflect on how this life has turned out.

We began to prepare to go out, taking any weapons we could use. Although I’m not sure if this will ultimately work in our favor, after a while we managed to gather some knives for defense before going out—at least to have a 5% chance of survival.

Once we had everything, we went our separate ways. As soon as we opened the door, a vine launched at us; fortunately, Ashira managed to close it just in time.

"What the heck?" Enzo yelped.

While we were still under the effect of adrenaline, we heard a chuckle.

I turned around to see Alice chuckling as if this were some sort of amusement to her.

"What?" I asked her, quite annoyed.

She was still laughing and starting to tear up. "Alright, I’m sorry... it's just—sigh—just that."

"Just what?!" I said, increasingly annoyed with her.

"You know what? Let's just go."

We took a deep breath, fully on edge and with weapons drawn, as we opened the door. This time, we were not ambushed by the vines. Thank goodness we successfully made it to the hallway. As we walked toward the storage room, we noticed how much it had changed in just one day. The corpse and remains had disappeared as if someone had cleaned up; the walls were covered in vine attacks from left to right. Luckily, Ashira and Enzo seemed to be skilled in combat; I can't say the same for myself. Without them, I would be dead by now, which makes me feel like a burden to them. Even Alice seemed calmer here.

She was skipping, and for some reason, the vines seemed to miss her so much. I suppose that's because she moves so elegantly and quickly—a factor of her being an athlete, I guess.

We managed to get into the storage room and decided to split into two groups: Ashira and Enzo would look for potential weapons and materials while Alice, Kael, and I checked the food storage.

We opened the door to the food compartment and looked around. I pointed my flashlight at the dark corner to investigate, but instead of food, I saw a weird-looking creature.

I stepped back as I observed a person-like creature covered with ivy, completely still.

"What... on earth...?" I asked in a shaky voice; I couldn't even move.

My flashlight remained pointed at the creature when it suddenly moved, tilting its head and revealing an arm hanging from its mouth. I completely lost it and fell to my knees. Alice seemed to notice it as she looked in the direction of my flashlight.

She also froze where she stood when the creature suddenly lunged at us.

Luckily, Kael noticed us; he didn't hesitate to drag both of us away.

"RUN!" he yelled, alarming Ashira and Enzo. We all ran straight to the door when we realized we couldn't open it. The vines outside locked the door from the outside with this monster. With no other choice, Ashira and Enzo decided to fight it while Kael tried to pick the lock through the small space, cutting the vines and kicking the door open.

They swished and hit it. "Careful! It's ivy!" I said as they fought. Ashira and Enzo just nodded, doing their best to fight.

I felt useless again; I couldn't even manage to fight or help them. I was zoning out when I came back to my senses—a vine from that monster was already on its way to launch at me when Enzo moved fast, blocking it with his bat but ended up getting hit on his arm—not fatal. By that time, Kael managed to pick the door open.

"Yes! Let's go, hurry!" Kael said, running out.

Alice and I followed right away, but when Enzo and Ashira were trying to have a chance to run with us, the door suddenly got blocked by vines.

"f**k!" Enzo cursed.

"Ash!" Alice screamed.

She was about to run back to help them, but Kael held her tight. "Don't be stupid," he said, pulling Alice away. With no other choice, we ran back to the gym.

On our way back, vines chased after us—of course they did—but fortunately, we managed to avoid them. Once we got to the gym, we rushed in to see that it was still the same as we left it; there was no improvement, so whatever.

"WHAT THE f**k!?" I heard Alice yell behind me, her voice full of anger; even her eyes had lost their spark.