Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #11 – Dead Garden

A crunching noise. One. Two. Three times in a row. Fragments of chips falling back into the aluminum bag, right in time to be picked again and brought to the lips. Prim chewed yet another chip, savored the salt, the crispy texture that felt so satisfying to munch. The taste was whatever, but the sound her teeth made when breaking up that crisp potato disk was that satisfying. Right place, right time, right junk food. Mal didn’t lie: fries needed to be tried. She wondered how she could have lived till that day without even eating one. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. A symphony of short, sharp noises at every bite, one that would have still lasted for a while. Except Mal didn’t seem too convinced by that.

“Did you really have to buy ten packs of chips, Prim?”

“Yes.”

“What if you get a stomachache?”

“I won’t. My body will rework all the unused chemicals as lymph and expel it, there’s no need to worry.”

Another voice piled up on the conversation, raspier, blunt.

“If she sweats more lymph than usual, someone could lick it from her skin – or even drink it from her mouth, tongue in tongue, to help her. Ah, I wonder! I wonder who could that someone be.”

Felce. Playfully winking at Mal, almost patting his black locks with a stupid smile on her face. Mal pushed her hand away, stared at her with a grim look that could only be translated as ‘quit yapping’. Felce gave him the raspberry in turn, grinning like the idiot she was. Prim downed yet another chip, completely ignoring the innuendo of the other rhizome, though not before letting a smile escape containment and take hold of her face. That was, indeed, the weirdest situation she had been in a while. A human and two rhizomes, off-duty, none of which wearing their usual tactical gear. Mal was donning a yellow and green t-shirt, with short beige pants and mountain shoes – an outfit Prim had never seen him wear. Felce, instead, had gone for a pretty classic white buttoned shirt and blue jeans combo, but without any footwear, showing her carefully varnished nails with all the pride she could boast. On top of that, she was carrying several plastic bracelets on both wrists, neon-colored, of all different hues, plus a red ribbon tied around her left ‘antler’. As for Prim, she had spent something like one hour deciding what to take out of her closet. Last time she wore civilian clothes was that one week of vacation she was forced to take by her higher ups. Not having anything to wear except her uniform, she had to resort to borrowing random stuff from her colleagues, making her look like a reject circus performer. After that experience, she sailed through the comnet to buy some additional garments, garments that would fit her tastes more. Of course, that meant she overcompensated for it and now had to deal with choice paralysis. After a back and forth debate with Riri (a bit one-sided, but nonetheless helpful) she settled for a sleeveless pink sweatshirt with a bunny-eared hood (currently lying on her back), a comfy pair of purple jeans, and white sneakers with bunny faces painted on their tips. Her belt had, of course, a bunny-shaped buckle too. Riri approved that fit with flying colors. Mal was right – Riri was a good ‘emotional support plushie’, always ready to help her make a difficult choice, after all.

She munched yet another chip, while casually scanning her surroundings. First time she went to a shopping mall. It was strange to see so many stores crammed together, with humans moving like ants between them, in a constant background of chatter and steps. She was surprised that one could open a fast food restaurant there too. What was ‘fast’ in a cowburger, though, was not something she could really understand. If anything, it couldn’t move or defend itself at all. ‘Fast food’ in her mind was more like a criminal running away from her tendrils to avoid being drained of their water. That was pretty fast, indeed, and usually their water sucked. Too many drugs and synth crap dissolved in it, so much that it made her body produce even more excess lymph than usual. One of the reasons she stopped drinking people. Sure, it was efficient and replenished her energies, but nine times out of ten she had to throw up afterwards. Another chip, her teeth crunching it, feeling the crispness, enjoying every moment of chewing through it. Chips and fries weren’t the same, but both felt good for different reasons. Mal had the perfect intuition on where to bring the two rhizomes, though Prim had the distinct impression that he couldn’t stop staring at her for the whole time. Weird behavior, but humans weren’t known for being logical. If anything, Felce had caused all other customers in the small restaurant to focus on them. Her features were just too bizarre to escape detection. Now, that same Felce was pulling Mal around the small plaza, lightly tapping her feet on the ground, jumping around like a prancing doe.

“Say, pet, would you drink my lymph from my mouth, if I had an excess to expel?”

Right as Felce’s voice reached her ears, Prim almost bit her lip, as her teeth crushed the chip between them. For reasons outside of her understanding, the way Felce acted around Mal made her feel nervous, to the point of losing control on her muscles. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. It was just how Felce was. No boundaries. None at all. Mal, though, pushed her hand away, groaned.

“I’m not drinking anyone’s lymph, ‘kay? I’m not a bloody junkie!”

That, somehow, made Prim feel better, more relaxed. She brought yet another chip to her mouth, savored it slowly. Even if that felt a light-hearted group excursion, it was more akin to a survey. They didn’t choose that mall at random. The reason they were here was now staring at them, from the center of the small square. A circular flowerbed, around four meters wide, filled with chrysanthemums, of a subspecies that bloomed all year long. In the middle of that jungle of petals, a tall pillar stood out, with a light on top of it, aimed at the distant ceiling. Bronze labels decorated every side of the pillar, all filled with names – ten per tablet, except for one that had eleven of them. In memoriam. That was the place. The place where Kryzalid killed forty-one people, among which thirty-seven civilians, two years ago. Prim shivered. Forty-one humans killed for no good reason. Not for drinking their water. Not for eating them. Just for her amusement. Kryzalid didn’t have a goal. Didn’t have a purpose. In fact, the reason she was there was to get help with her eyes, after she had gone blind overnight during an operation. But, instead of getting her eyes fixed, she killed everyone else. Prim glanced over the pillar. Directly behind it, lied the small studio of the eye surgeon who was visiting Mimi when she went berserk, still closed and shuttered. Nobody wanted to rent it again, after that event, almost as if it were cursed.

Mal crossed his arms, stood close to Prim, gazing at the monument, moving line to line through the list of names.

“They buried the corpses under the pillar, you know? They were in such a bad shape that they gave up on finding out which part belonged to which. A pal of mine was on the crime scene. He’s still getting treated for his PTSD and has sworn never to eat meat ever again.”

“So, that soil…?”

“Yeah. It contains their nutrients. Which is why I wanted to bring you here. It was one year ago, but maybe you can still detect something.”

Prim’s eyes scanned the area, trying to gauge how many people were observing them at the moment. Two women with children. Workers in their coffee break. An elderly man with a child too. One Peacekeeper, apparently disarmed, simply watching the situation under their helmet. Not a lot of people, but one of them might have been an annoyance. Especially if Prim used her tendrils to probe the soil. That would have got more eyes on them than there were already. Yet, something unexpected happened. Felce. Felce was squeeing at the sight of the pillar.

“Yooo! That’s it! That’s the Mall Massacre Memorial, isn’t it? I only saw it on PV! I didn’t know it was so close to the precinct!”

Mal and Prim turned to the horned rhizome, confusion on their faces. Felce’s eyes were almost sparkling with excitement at the sight of the monument, in a way that felt completely uncharacteristic of her. She kept on talking, almost shouting in a barely containable excitement.

“Thirty-seven civilians and four Peacekeepers killed in the span of two minutes with an unknown weapon by just! One! Person! And no videos, no audios, no witnesses, no nothing! One of the most mysterious mass murder mysteries of New Babylon! Kryzalid was recognized as the culprit, since she was the only person still alive in the middle of the carnage and nobody, nobody left the mall during the assault! Of course she was gunned down by the iron bitch herself, the first who reached the crime scene after the deed! How did Kryzalid kill them? Why? How did she come back to life after the captain disposed of her? Aaah! So many morbidly mysterious details!”

Then, before even giving them time to elaborate, she started to casually stroll inside the flowerbed, taking her time to walk on the dirt, on the ground, dribbling through the flowers. The Peacekeeper turned towards her, glanced at her for a long second, most likely pondering on what to say – or even if it was the case to say anything at all. A rhizome with deer-antler-like branches walking barefoot on a memorial to the victims of a massacre, after loudly recounting the whole ordeal with what sounded like joy. Usually, that would have been quite easy to reprimand. Except the rhizome in question was Felce, one with a reputation for reacting badly to being disciplined. The Peacekeeper stood silent, chewing words that could have put them in trouble. Rumor had it that whoever crossed Felce’s path was mysteriously found dead the next time they were in a duty together. It was a rumor, just a rumor, because nobody could give them even a single name to cross-check. Yet, as all rumors, it had to have a pinch of truth in it. Crossing a vengeful rhizome wasn’t part of their job description either. So, they decided to do absolutely nothing.

Felce turned around the pillar, reading the names in silence, slowly moving closer and closer to it, without damaging the flowers. Then, she stopped, her feet solidly grasping the ground. Minuscule, almost invisible tendrils emerged from her soles, delving into the soil, leeching off its nutrients. Usually, those tendrils were extremely short and simply grazed a thin layer under the surface. This time, though, she had to go deeper. She slowly extended them, making sure they avoided the roots of the chrysanthemums, going down and down through the ground, reaching the mass grave stashed underneath it. Somewhere down there there had to be human remains, many of them too. She kept probing, deeper and deeper, her tendrils now extending at least one meter under her soles. Till she finally felt it. Bones. Human bones. With some flesh still attached, in a soup of organic mass not completely eaten by worms and bacteria yet. Some of their water was still there, trapped in that tangle of earthly remains. Polluted water, of course, tainted by the natural decay, but water that might still hold some traces of poison or anything else that caused the mass death of so many people. There was just a small chance, of course, but any small chance was better than nothing. Felce’s stingers penetrated into that stash of fat and other waste substances, started sucking up. She felt the stream of substances entering her system, being filtered by her immune cells. Nothing. No real difference from other corpses she drank from. Except maybe a pinch of… something. Something she couldn’t really put in place, an aftertaste she had never sampled before. Disgusting. Propagating through her vessels. Turning her stomach upside down. Forcing her body to react. Suddenly, she puffed her cheeks, retched, shivered, forced her tendrils to retract. Then, she bent over the flowerbed.

And started throwing up.

Her eyes wide open, her pupils contracted, her hands on her belly, right as green lymph poured out of her throat. Mal stared in shock, as Felce started to breathe again, slowly, wiping the green ooze from her lips. Prim unfastened her shoelaces, removed her sneakers, took off her socks. Then, ran to the flowerbed, ran to Felce, nodding in Mal’s direction. Only for Felce to throw up once again. Before the Peacekeeper could complain or send them away, Mal put himself between the guard and the girls, raising his hands. The Peacekeeper pointed their finger at Felce, while staring right at Mal behind their darkened helmet.

“What is this shit? Is that plant with you?!”

“Don’t worry pal, we’ve got that covered. She just… huh, didn’t stomach those fries.”

“Fries? You gave fries to a plant?”

The distorted voice of the Peacekeeper resonated in the small opening, almost deafening. Mal covered his ears, groaned.

“Man, lower that amplifier, wanna make me puke?”

“Well, she puked on a city monument because of your damn fries!”

“Hey, chillax, it’s just lymph, right? If anything, it will make the plants stronger.”

“…wait, I’ve seen you at the precinct. Ain’t ya that loser, Malstrom?”

“Pal, you ain’t supposed to say that out loud, not in front of, you know, civilians.”

Prim used that opening to reach for Felce, hug her, help her stabilize. Felce groaned, wiped her mouth once again, green fluid still dripping from her tongue.

“…damn it. Their water… what the heck did they get into their bloodstream, before dying? It’s… so fricking weird.”

Prim nodded, planted her feet in the soil.

“Let me try too.”

“Your loss. One meter deep. Don’t stop before. And… get ready. It reeks. Truly.”

Primula’s tendrils started delving into the ground, much like Felce’s did before, avoiding the roots of the chrysanthemums, twisting around them. Thirty centimeters. Fifty. Seventy. One meter. Till it reached them, the mass grave of human remains. Prim stopped the roots of her left foot, let those of her right feet go even deeper, in the middle of that lake of decomposed biological matter. Then, started sucking water out of them, out of the surrounding soil. The fluid went up her vessels, entered her circulation. Prim gasped.

That water felt weird. Wrong. It had a strange aftertaste.

The same aftertaste as the water she sucked from her team.

She stopped sampling it as soon as she got confirmation, as soon as it was clear that it wasn’t a play of her imagination. The water of Kryzalid’s victims. It had the same properties. One year before. One year later. There was a connection, but why? How? She tried to calm down, to fix her thoughts into a workable state. Felce stared at her, squinted her eyes, will still cleaning her mouth.

“Wait, no reaction? None at all?”

“That unknown substance wasn’t strong enough for my digestive system to go haywire.”

“Not strong enough?! Lagash in space, what are you made of? Asbestos?!”

Somehow, that remark caused Prim to giggle internally, causing a rare grin to emerge on her usually expressionless face. After all, there was at least one thing she could do better than another rhizome. The sound of steps behind her, though, made that grin disappear almost immediately.

“Okay, you three, stop. You’ve disturbed the quiet enough.”

The Peacekeeper, now brandishing an inactive plasma rifle. Grabbing Mal’s wrist with his free hand. Staring at them from behind his visor.

“Follow me to the back rooms, now. This has gone too far.”