Things That Shouldn't Grow

The air was dry, and the sun held high over Isla Kela. From the rim of the crater, the scene ahead looked stunning and paradoxically beautiful. The lake appears to be a wide mirror that sits in a shallow dish, reflecting the sky in an onslaught of swirling colours, its image sprinkled with masses of white and pink. From a distance, the smell of acid and death doesn’t reach far enough to warn those planning on journeying through.

The closer one got, the more apparent it was that this wasn’t a place of beauty. Mummified creatures, dehydrated skin and bones turned to stone littered the perimeters of the deceptively called Rainbow Lake. It was quite colourful in visual, that fact held true, but it was no lake one can drink from, and it most definitely wasn’t as whimsical a place as it sounded. The only animals who called the salty solution their home were prancing flamingos and bugs that thrived on rot and salt, no less attracted by the rotting corpses, solidified into grotesque statues. It was a most inhospitable place for any dinosaur, and unprepared ones pay the price.

Still, one lone Suchomimus stomped along the edge of the lake in a wide arch, not to step into the volatile solution. Dante has been merely passing through; this place was most unwelcoming to his kind, after all. The salt flats weren’t visited often by large creatures like him and for a good reason, but who is he not to foolishly grant himself a shortcut through the crater rather than around it?

He didn’t think much of his haphazard walk through a death trap, other than the fact that he would be completely undisturbed. No chatter, no howls, no hisses. Just the distant squawks of the lanky birds at the centre of the deadly soup and the buzzing of brine flies. Background noise. He is not here to stay or linger, nor is anyone else.

He let out a yawn, promptly followed by a revolting sneeze as the acrid and dry air stung the insides of his long snout. It’s better to keep moving, and he merely trudged forward.

Everyone elsewhere is making a fuss over some drama about new plants and “odd occurrences”. Dante scoffs as the thought invades his mind. Odd things have been happening on the Isles. As usual. As always.

He heard the rumours floating about of strange flora, and a new kind of dinosaur working with hurried steps and paranoid glances. Oviraptors, they said. The only one he knew was the Shopkeeper, and he never mentioned any relatives. The sucho simply brushed the stories aside, deeming them merely gossip and another tale of the world ending for the tenth time in the decade.

Superstorms. Ancient doors. Mutants. What’s next? Aliens?

New species of dinosaurs somehow end up on the Kiama islands every now and then. He doesn’t understand why he should worry or care as much as everyone else does. If small leggy raptors are scurrying around the place like frightened rodents pretending to be elusive gardeners, he hasn’t seen any.

Besides the sickly air and colourful liquid full of algae and microorganisms, he hasn’t detected anything worth of note yet. Slowing in his pace and scratching a spot on his chest with the one arm he had left, the thought of sitting down a moment to lounge and take a break crossed his mind. He could go for a swim and chase the flamingos around, even, but he wasn’t too eager to get his feather coat all crusty with layers of salt or gain a nasty infection by dipping even a toe into the concoction.

So, he keeps walking. At least that’s what he planned to do until a splotch of green entered his line of sight. He usually doesn’t follow his curiosity, but the smudge of colour, one not swirling at the edge of the lake, but amidst rocks and dead shrubs, prompted him to pause in his step. It was just contrasting enough, and he bored enough, that he decided to investigate.

Approaching the thing, he notices on closer inspection that it was just a plant. At least it would be just a plant and nothing unusual at any other place, but here. 

The vines are twisting, thorned and of a fresh green colour that contrasts violently with the dry shrubbery common in the biome. Anchored in toxic soil, breaching the crust of salt, the plant seems to thrive and sprawl out in whichever direction with its stalks. Grasses and hardy plants aren’t absent in the area, there are surprisingly plenty considering the circumstances, but lush green foliage this close to the lake and growing freely at such an alkaline place? It’s not just a curiosity he stumbled upon and can move past. It’s one thing to be needlessly dramatic about new dinosaurs and new flavours of greens, but this? This is unnatural. An anomaly.

Frowning at the twisting plant, he shakes his head. He can’t get hung up on conspiracies. If it’s the Oviraptor’s work, who in their right mind would try to cultivate life in a place that reeks of death and has its victims' remains on display? How is this even possible or reasonable? What even is the purpose?

Letting his eyes follow the green lines spreading from where the foreign flora is lodged in the ground, he notices tiny claw marks where the culprit tested and scraped at the hard mineral layer and dirt. If he squinted or was invested just a bit more, he might’ve noticed flakes of shed scales or stray feathers unlike those of pink birds or lost dinos he knew. 

The foreign flora moves with the light breeze brushing over the flats, but it appears quite energetic for a bundle of twisting vines. Lively even. It’s an odd place to disperse seeds, but apparently it works. It works scarily well.

Wait, was the plant reaching for him? Yikes, no, thank you. Swift and without ceremony, Dante lifted a foot and stomped it down on the plant. Grinding his sole into the ground, undeterred by the thorns, cracking the dry sheet of salt with a crunch and squelch, he murdered the vines dead. Lifting his foot, now stained green, he took a step back. At least the stalks and tendrils stopped moving like a sentient thing beside the slow bents and twitchings of crunched foliage. It didn’t calm his disturbed nerves, but if flora starts moving like that, he makes sure it doesn’t.

Moving on. Without looking back, without giving the squished remains even a second glance, Dante found himself on his original path again, albeit with slightly hasted steps.

He doesn’t want to think about it. He found evidence of the very thing dino-folk are afraid of, but even now he doesn’t feel the pressure. It’s nothing to him. Fine, there’s anomalous plants and allegedly Oviraptors, no one knows where they come from, spread those. He has nothing to do with it, and if anything he’ll just stay determined in his opinion.

If he ever finds another oddity, be it plants or new dinosaurs spilling gossip advocating for seeding those, he wants no part in it. If he comes across any, he’s going to make sure they don’t drag him into this mess, be it by trampling down plants or one or the other newcomer.

Pushing circling questions out of his mind and filling his headspace with due nonchalance, he much rather had the rumours stay rumours. Then he could ignore it a little easier.

(1260 words according to google docs)