Bloomed Roots Novels & Stories

​The Neon-Dawn ​The transformation was horrific and beautiful. ​The iron-rich soil didn't just accept the roots; it was Consumed by them. The "Black Bloom" on Proxima b didn't grow green leaves; it grew crystalline, translucent structures that acted as solar-collectors, tuned specifically to the red spectrum of the Proxima sun.

Said with my eye for fashion, I shouldn't throw away my shot to grow. The email sat there in my inbox, like the one bright spot in all this mess. *** I drove back to my small rented apartment. Not big, but clean, quiet—mine. I turned off my phone, peeled off the heavy wedding dress, and washed the makeup off my face.

She forced her voice to come low. “These are fibrous rooted flowers. During autumn, they try their best to conserve water by closing their root pores. So, immediately you remove them from the soil, their root pores close even more,” I said, raising the flower to Mother’s face. Then I began to give little scratches on the roots, “By scratching their roots and dipping them into water immediately, you help reopen the closed pores and make them aware that the new environment contains water.” I demonstrated the exact same thing I told Mum before putting the flower back into the soil.

I opened my mouth to scream— And roots pushed past my tongue. They came from below. From inside. Coiling from my belly like they’d always lived there. Thin at first. Hair-fine. Then thicker, gnarled. Hungry. They twisted through my ribs, slid around my spine, split skin without pain. I wasn’t bleeding. I was growing. The moss beneath me rippled. Roots burrowed deeper, tangling around the spiral burned under my ribs. But it wasn’t fire anymore—it was soil. Cracked. Fertile.

She knelt in the cold soil, her fingers tracing the outlines of the beds, the hidden geometry of roots and bulbs. One afternoon, she found a small, forgotten bulb, half-buried in the leaf litter. She turned it over in her palm, feeling its firm, dense weight. It was alive. It was waiting. She planted it carefully, deeper than before, and covered it with a layer of compost. "You're a root person," Liam said, appearing at the garden gate. "Always planting things that are invisible." "Roots are where the promise is," she said, brushing the dirt from her hands. "They're what hold everything together when the top parts are gone."

"The flowers are a deep, bruised purple, shaped like a hood. But the root... the root is where the power is. It’s dark, almost black, and when you cut it, it bleeds a thick, milky sap that smells like rotting honey." I staggered back, my hand flying to my mouth. A wave of nausea hit me so hard I had to grab the edge of the table to stay upright. "Reylap?" Eliott was by my side in an instant, his hand firm on my waist. "What is it?"

She was crying, and trying to mouth words but I couldn't exactly lip read it. Then, nothing. The scream cut off, and the garden fell silent. The Veliwrath Bloom stood untouched, as if nothing had happened. I was on my knees, gasping, my ears ringing. The Veliwrath Bloom was wide open now, its center glowing faintly. At its base, tangled in the roots, was a twisted, silver-white tuber. Lunara Root. Blake was the first to speak. “What the hell was that ?” I didn’t answer. My hands shook as I carefully dug out the root and the flower didn’t attack again.

Then the hollow erupted. The Root-Heart’s roots lashed upward, hundreds at once, filling the cavern like a storm of serpents. They writhed through the smoke, pale and gleaming, reeking of rot. Thick sap dripped from them, venomous and foul, and wherever it touched flame it hissed, spitting, hardening into black stone.

Vernon had returned, looking exhausted. He was even holding a bouquet of fresh flowers. He walked toward me with no trace of guilt or remorse. "Avril, I brought you your favorite roses." Red roses represented sincere and passionate love. Right now, those flowers looked like a joke in Vernon's hands. I accepted the roses. Thinking that I was no longer angry, Vernon began to explain. "It's Peggy Cahill. She's been diagnosed with bone cancer. All she wants is to marry me.

Right in the center grew a plant about half my height, with a grayish-green stalk and oversized leaves veined with black streaks. A dark purplish-black flower bloomed at the top, its bloated petals looking like slabs of rotten meat. They reminded me of the man-eating plant from the game Plant and The Undead. Its roots stretched long, bulging up from the soil and spreading toward the edges of the chamber. Along each wall of the room sat a long container, where its roots had crawled into each of them. And in the farthest corner of the chamber lay an iron cage, with something trapped inside. It let out a weak sound when I stepped in.