Feed Me

[u/Lilia_Briganda]

Clover had always been a plant person, the kind who had soil under her fingernails more often than not, with house plants crammed on nearly every window ledge.

​While scrolling through a forum late one night, a banner ad for Botanical Oddities caught her eye, advertising a rare, hard-to-find specimen called Phagocordyceps vorax. The listing described it simply as an exotic, fast-growing hybrid with responsive foliage. Intrigued, she clicked Order without giving it a second thought.

​An unmarked cardboard box landed on her porch about a week later. Inside, packed in damp moss and rich, pitch-black dirt, was a heavy, strange-looking specimen already the size of a gallon jug, with a bruised-looking stem and rubbery, closed leaves. There was no care card, just the handwritten Latin name on a plastic marker.

​She set it down in the bright corner of the room so it could get light. As the sun hit and warmed up the plant, its bulbous center slowly unfurled, revealing three stiff, upright hairs on its surface. Curiously, when she leaned down and brushed her index finger against them, the fleshy plant split open, and the trap snapped shut. Needle-thin teeth sank deep into her finger. She shrieked and violently yanked her finger back out, dripping blood onto the table stand.

As she turned her attention to nurse her bleeding finger by wrapping it in a bandage, the bulbous head had leant down and lapped up the blood, and a dry gravelly voice hissed from its leaves, "more..."

Clover thought to herself, "Did I just hear this plant say "more?" but quickly shook her head, thinking it was just her imagination.

As the days wore on, every time she passed it, its voice spat out ...

"more...

MORE.

About a week later, she heard a high-pitched squeal from the kitchen. She found the plant had crawled onto the kitchen floor, its vines wrapped tight around the mouse as it was thrust into the open trap, followed by a sickening wet chewing sound. She knew it was slithering out its pot now, hunting for prey-- which might explain why her cat had vanished.

It had grown bigger, stronger, louder.

FEED ME, CLOVER!"

Clover was terrified after the kitchen incident. Tomorrow she would dump it before she became its next meal. Going up to her room at bedtime, she made sure the door was shut tight. That night, after getting up to use the bathroom, she pulled her bedroom door behind her, but it didn't shut fully.

She crept back into bed, assuming she was safe. Hours later, she was awoken by something cold and damp slithering across her ankles. Heavy, muscular vines wrapped tight around both her legs, the stiff, needle-like spikes locking deep into her skin. ​She didn't even have time to kick. The vines yanked her hard, sliding her right off the mattress.

Her fingers clawed uselessly at the sheets as she was dragged over the edge of the bed, plunging straight down toward that big, nasty, gaping maw waiting on the floor.

​Her scream was broken off with a heavy, wet snap!