green-flower-during-the-fall
Day 1 - Kaya
Her candle flickered softly in the chill night air of the small town. The hour was past when Kaya should have been in bed, but she had climbed quietly out of her window and crept carefully across the lawn toward the shed. Her parents would be asleep by now, but still- she worried if they would wake.
Nearing the shed, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of bread and crumbled meat. The little girl had snuck it from the leftovers of dinner, excitedly awaiting the evening to set in.
Now, she crouched at the back corner of the shed, near the bush. Moving a branch, she could see her adorable little secret huddled up in a niche in the dirt. “I’ve brought you some food, Squishy,” the girl greeted the glob of ooze that jiggled in excitement.
Day 2 - Arlo
Arlo loved jumping and skipping through the spinning rope. He loved trying, anyways. He would wait too long or jump too soon and the rope would hit his foot or even his head. One time, after getting tangled and falling down, he ran home crying with scraped knees.
Arlo didn’t want to quit though; he always tried. His friend, Kaya, helped him as he tried over and over- tripping, falling, failing. Finally, he started skipping the rope- once, twice, fifteen times. His knees ached with bruises and scabs, but he laughed as he jumped.
Day 3 - Rook
Midday in the bustling market, Kaya and Arlo were knocking pebbles back and forth with sticks. Rook, a rough boy, ran up toward them. “Let me play too,” the boy shouted as he grabbed Arlo’s stick from the smaller kid’s hand. Before Kaya suggested to take turns, Rook smacked a large pebble up into the air.
The pebble flew through a nearby window and an old man came out yelling at them. Kaya and Arlo tried apologizing, but Rook ran back down the street. He was always getting in trouble just for being a kid. Rook found an alley to sit and hide in as he grumbled in anger, “I only wanted to play too.”
Day 4 - Tayla
“Tayla, come in for supper,” her mother called as the red-haired girl was stooped over her little garden. When the shade of her home soothed her skin from the sun, Tayla knew she had a problem. Her plants loved the sun, but her arms and neck turned red and hot.
The next day, her plants didn’t need much attention, so she spent her time in the woods and the prairies looking at flowers. Her mother found it strange when her daughter raced home empty-handed but excited to do something in her garden.
Two months and five burns later, Tayla walked outside toward her plants. Their leaves danced in the breeze that carried silky cottonwood seeds across the sea of clear blue skies and brilliant yellow sunlight. Tayla put a blanket over the prickly grass and laid down for a nap in the shade of her new sunflowers.
Day 5 - Arlo & Rook Meet Squishy
It took all day, but Kaya and Arlo were finally done doing chores for the old man whose window Rook broke. They swept, washed, moved piles of junk around for him and Rook didn’t help at all. He just sat there, talking, even though it was his fault they were being punished by doing all this work.
When the kids said bye to the old man who just grumbled back, Kaya asked Arlo if he wanted to see something. The two of them left Rook behind as they walked behind Kaya’s shed, by the bush. Kaya moved a branch to the side, “Arlo, this is Squishy. He’s probably really hungry because I haven’t fed him all day.” The little boy knelt down in excitement to say hi to the jiggly creature.
“We can’t tell anyone about him because they might think he’s a monster and take him away,” Kaya explained. As Arlo pet Squishy then pulled his hand away with strings of gooey mess, she asked, “could you help me feed him if I can’t?”
Arlo’s smile quickly turned to dread. Rook had quietly followed them to see where they were going. He was standing behind them, as shocked about Squishy as Kaya was about Rook.
Day 6 - Kaya’s Offer
In hushed arguing, Kaya and Arlo pressed Rook to keep the secrete. “It’s a monster,” Rook pointed at the blue blob cooed with concern. Kaya shook her head, “He’s my friend!” Arlo pleaded, “You’re going to get us in even bigger trouble if you tell people, Rook. Just go away!”
Rook lowered his hands as he looked at the ground, “I only want…” Rook turned around and started walking into the dark. “You know what- never mind.” Arlo was worried when Kaya stood up with Squishy in hand and went after Rook past the bushes.
The boy stopped walking when he heard Kaya behind him. He turned around and she saw his eyes wet with sadness, not anger. Kindly, she held Squishy out toward Rook. “He can be your friend too, Rook. Do you want to meet him?”
Day 7 - Rook & Tayla
One evening, Kaya, Arlo, and Rook pulled the bush back to feed Squishy. “Where is he?!” Arlo nearly shouted before Kaya could shush him. The three spread around the shed, searching. Further and further away they looked as their hope turned to fear.
Following a trail of ooze, Rook heard talking over by a garden a couple of houses down. Walking closer to the sound, he heard a girl’s voice talking softly, “What’s your name, happy little blob?” Rounding the corner of a row of sunflowers, he saw Tayla kneeling over, petting his new friend. Rook stepped over defensively, scared their secret would be found out. “His name is Squishy and your not allowed to talk to him or tell anyone!”
Day 8 - The Fall
In the afternoon sun, the kids argued by the river so adults wouldn’t hear them. Arlo argued it was Rook that let Squishy get away. Rook defended himself, saying it was Arlo. Kaya comforted Tayla, saying she is happy Tayla can join their little group now that she knows about Squishy. “Where is Squishy now?” Tayla asked, looking around. The blob had oozed away again, in fear as its big friends yelled at each other.
Before they had time to blame one another, the kids, now four of them, split up to look for their secret friend. Rook went towards the village square. Arlo and Kaya left for the west side of town while Tayla took the trail going east. They ran off, leaving a trail of prints across the sand.
Water rushed along the river, birds sang their songs and small critters rustled in the bushes. The birds chirping stopped first. Squirrels gave up their chase, stopping mid-run. They sensed something.
As if someone stopped pumping, the river flow slowed quickly, then stopped. The clear water became as smooth as a mirror; reflecting the parting clouds in the sky above. The clouds parted, revealing all sizes and kinds of shapes that began to glow.
Day 9 - The Rise (DRAFT)
Rook went towards the village square. Horses buck and loose their cart filled with barrels that Rook helps stop.
Arlo and Kaya left for the west side of town Arlo complaints that Rook is at fault and Kaya tells him to stop. Arlo asks why she cares if they are fighting and she tells him “Look!” She’s pointing up at the shapes but Arlo sees something else. A toddler falls off a balcony as he reaches out to the shapes in the sky. Arlo leaps to catch the small boy mid-air, and rolls to take the fall while protecting the smaller child. Kaya runs to help Arlo up and help if he’s hurt. He stands up, and he’s not hurt. Once sure Arlo is ok, the two of them look up at the sky and around their village which is breaking out in a panic.
Around the town, there are Squishys all over. Dissolving fences, food stands, even the stone road. “We need Rook and Tayla,” Arlo says.
Tayla took the trail going east. She nears her home and the symbol’s in the sky cast a light that burns her skin. Hurt, she runs towards her sun flowers, who turn to look at her and shoot magical rays of light at Tayla. She runs in terror. The plants around town are all going crazy, attacking people.
Rook sees Tayla running down the street, scared. He scoops her up and heads to the west, for Kaya and Arlo to help calm her down.
Arlo is running and jumping around, collecting all the squishes. He goes to put them in a troth with water in it and they squeal in terror. They can’t get wet. He puts them in a dry troth to at least keep them all in one area for a bit while Kaya tries talking to them.
Rook and Tayla show up. Kaya grabs Tayla by the hands and tries to calm her down. Vines are erupting from the ground and grabbing the well and crushing it, water spills out, singing a couple of nearby squishes. Arlos grabs the squishes from the puddle, and leap across the road toward Rook. The larger boy is throwing stools, sacks of vegetables and whatever else he can find to build a fence around a growing number of blobs.
Kaya tells Tayla that with whatever is happening right now she can’t promise Tayla will be safe. But the rest of them are scared too and they need her help. If they are going to survive, it has to be together.
The squishes begin merging together in front of Rook. More and more within his barrier flow together, and increase in size. Larger now, it grabs a stool from the barrier and quickly dissolves it, gaining it’s mass. Stepping backwards, Rook’s eyes open in terror. Arlo stops short of throwing two more into the barrier as he returns from down the street to see the growing blob. The squishes in Arlo’s hands glow, then leap into the air and take off to be absorbed by the blob in Rook’s barrier.
The barrier walls topples over under the swelling size of the blob which quickly sucks up the debris and begins growing further.
“What do I do?” Rook calls out.
As the blob begins rolling down the street, vines erupt from the ground beneath the blob, blocking its path. Tayla lets go of Kaya’s hand, and raises it, fingers outstretched. More vines shoot out from all sides of Squishy. When Talya wraps her fingers into a ball, the vines wrap themselves around Squishy, containing him.
Rook lifts up the large, wrapped up blob, hoisting it over head where it can’t hurt anything and shouts “What do I do with it?”
Arlo recalls the Squishys not wanting to get into the wet troth and getting singed by the well water. “Water! Throw them in the water!” Rook snaps the ball off from the vines Talya had grown around it so he can carry it to the river. As he begins walking, Squishy begins to dissolve through the vine barrier around him. “Hurry!” Calls out Arlo.
Kaya walks over to Tayla, “You can control the plants?” “No,” Talya smiles, “I just help them grow. They are their own life.”
As Rook races down the street toward the edge of the creek, he hears Squishy whimpering above him. “Aw, Squishy. I know you don’t like the water, but if we don’t, you’re going to eat the whole village up!” The whimpering slows, but Squishy shivers in fear as it continues to uncontrollably grow, dissolving the rapidly decaying vines around it.
Rook is pulled back suddenly and his legs go flying out from under him. Landing beneath the Squishy shell they had made, he saw that it was being held up by new vines. The vines pulsed, and brought new life into the case around Squishy. Kaya stood forward, and put a hand on a part of Squishy that was retreating into the regrowing plant barrier. She whispered to the blob, and it’s whimpering stopped. It nodded at Kaya before oozing into the closing ball. Tayla shifted the vines and bulb toward the center of the crossroads, then grew them rapidly. So quickly that it couldn’t sustain it’s own growth and had ballooned into a dry husk.
There was a moment of confusion and Rook, Arlo, Kaya, and Tayla exchanged glances. Kaya reassured Arlo and Rook with a look that this was the plan. Then Tayla began to look worried.
“Where is Squishy?” Rook asked. He looked at the dry husk, trying to understand how his globby friend could have survived that. Then the crevacies of the husk darkened. The darker browns spread outward, and Rook saw they were dampness.
The husk began to collapse as moisture returned to weaken its walls. It crumbled away, revealing a large thick bud that split and blossomed before them. A miraculous flower.