Her shoes clanked against the cold hard metal of the submarine floor, heart racing out of her chest. Agibelle darted down hallway after hallway away from the monster chasing her. She knew in her heart that there wasn’t a way out, that as the submersible plummeted deeper and deeper into the ocean, she was really just delaying the inevitable. Whether it was fear or stupidity, her feet kept running, her heart kept beating and-

A door opened to her right. Bright golden locks twinkled behind the door as the sound of claws scraping against metal reverberated through the sub.

“Aaaaagibelle, come on. There’s no use running. There’s no one left. It’s just you and me.”

The voice of her friend echoed behind her. she ran faster, up to the second floor of the submersible, “Stay away from me. Please I’m begging.”

The sound of blades rubbing against each other and faint laughter followed behind her, getting closer every single second that she wasn’t running.

“Come on Agibelle, how much longer can you run? How long will that stamina take you until you’re crumpled on the floor. Give up. I’m the only one left here who can save you.”

Save… there was that word again. She kept passing over crumpled piles of flesh, bits and pieces of people that almost looked more like containers than people.

“Don’t fool yourself, you’re not saving anyone Hella! You let that thing into you. The only thing you’re doing is ending everyone that’s left!”
She screamed as another door slammed open. How did she get here so fast. The creature in front of her looked more like she was wearing her friend’s body like a second skin than an actual person herself. Sunken yellow eyes stared back as fingers ending in sharpened metal and drenched golden locks of hair swayed about her. Blood dripped down her lips and stained the turquoise jumpsuits that were standard for employees of this craft. The blood was still fresh. She had eaten only moments ago.

“There’s only one way off the sub Agibelle…”

Hella was her name. A former colleague, friend, and someone who she’d been close with. Now all that was left seemed to be some horrific monster. Was Hella even still in there? If it there was anything left of the old her in there most of what she had known was completely gone, lost to some kind of deep call that they had all started to hear 3 days ago. As the the comms worker who had initially discovered the signal, she had been the first point of infection, and the only one left alive.

Agibelle turned and ran as a claw swung into her back. The back of her jumpsuit tore open, but left her unharmed.

She ran down into the mess hall, wide open and sprawling. Dead bodies, half eaten meals and rotting food left out by long dead culinarians greeted her as she bolted down into the open room. She took a moment to catch her breath but it didn’t last long.

A hand wrapped around her leg and slowly began to dig it’s claws into her.

Panic immediately set back in and she struggled to pull herself away, only to trip and fall into the captain of the sub’s headless corpse.

“LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!”

A wicked laugh responded to her. She looked back and saw a hand seemingly slipping out of the ground beneath her and holding her tightly.

“Why so quick to run? I only want to free you from that cage darling. Why not let me?”

She kicked the leg with her other foot, and the grip loosened. She ran back into the kitchen and pulled out a steak knife.

“Stay back…”

The hand slipped further out of the floor as Hella’s head slipped up through the floor and then got down on all fours and began to slowly creep towards her.

“You’re going to die in that skin Agibelle. She can free you. Embrace her call. Join together in our beautiful harmony as we sing her song.”
Agibelle threw the steak knife at Hella and it slunk deep into her chest. Hella looked down at it and back up at Agibelle.

“Now now, there’s no need for knives.”

Agibelle grabbed three more and kept throwing them, “You killed them all! THE CREW IS GONE. DEAD. YOU DID THIS.”

Each one found their mark as the sunk deeper into Hella’s flesh but she simply kept walking forward.

“No, darling. I freed them. I let them out of those shells and now they dance with us. Can’t you see them? Can’t you hear the song?”

Agibelle rifled through another drawer and pulled out a butcher’s cleaver. Wielding it with two hands she ran at Agibelle and swung at her head. The knife sunk deep into her flesh. Hella simply placed a hand on Agibelle’s shoulder and dug her knife pointed fingers deeper into her shoulder.

“Your fight is so cute, you know? I like that in a girl.”

Agibelle screamed and pushed her away. Hella’s body once more giving no resistance as it seemed to fade back into nothing as she saw the previously embedded steaks knives settled on the floor a few feet away.

What was going on.

Agibelle looked around the mess hall.

“Where are you?”

No answer.

She walked over to the knives and picked one up. It was perfectly clean, no sign of blood or entry. Just a bit of grime from the floor. Was Hella even here? Was she even real? Was there anyone else on this sub but her?

Another laugh from the door behind her immediately dispelled that thought.

“This isn’t like you. What happenned to you?”

“You’ll hear Her call soon Agibelle.” The voice echoed.

Agibelle kept running. Running up stairs, down hallways. A door at her side banged open and there she was again.

She knocked over a torpedo and rolled it down the hallway at Hella. The creature seemed to pass right through it and slowly began to keep it’s pace. Almost gliding through the floor itself.

Agibelle was dead. She knew she was dead. She knew she was absolutely already dead. After their fuel had mysteriously disappeared last night their sub had begun to plummet to the bottom of the ocean, and with that signal overtaking the communication room there was no use calling for help. No one would hear it. Every part of their comms had been jammed. Agibelle didn’t know why she was still running, still fighting. The vague hope that maybe just maybe she could live, could be saved. Could live to see another day and-

She paused for a moment. What part of the sub was she on?

Her heart sunk and she felt the despair settle.

The communication room.

Her pause damned her. The her ears stopped ringing for a moment and she began to hear that signal once again.

The signal they had picked up began to overwhelm her eardrums and the room around her spun. She had been sloppy. Careless. This room is where it all started. A door slammed shut behind her. She turned around and looked up to face her once more for the last time.

“Hello Agibelle. So happy of you to come back to me once more.”

More of them appeared. Three more each from every corner of the room. She took a step back, hoping to give her any other option any additional space to run or any way out but it was over. Hella was already blocking the door and with the Signal slowly seeping into her mind her adrenaline slowly began to fade as radio static pulled apart the fight in her. Hella stepped forwards. Agibelle’s arms fell to her sides as her eyes connected with the monster. Those Yellow eyes burning bright, sunken skin that looked waterlogged at best and those bright red claws that dripped with what looked like fresh blood reached out for her face.

“Hella?”

The four of them, slowly surrounding her spoke in unison, “Yes, Agibelle?”

She was just a toy to them wasn’t she? They ran her around the sub for fun only to pull her here. Agibelle felt like she had been forced into a corner like a caged animal and Hella had her right where she wanted. The signal echoed through the room as the static began to overtake her mind and slowly picked apart the panic in her. Her eyes glazed over as calm overtook her. Static and signal and hints of voices echoed through her head. With no fight left, she had lost. She was done for and the bits of her that were left slowly began to depart for the deepest corners of her mind.

Her heart beat slowly in her chest. There wasn’t much time left until she was gone. She was going to die. She was always going to die, that much she knew. It was just the illusion of choice as to whether she’d starve to death, or get viscerally murdered by whatever this creature lost in the radio signal was.

“Please be gentle.” Fitting last words.

“Of course my love.”

Agibelle crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll Her head hit the floor with a dull thud as her green eyes began to slowly glow with a soft yellow. It was already in there. They all had it in them. The moment the signal played it was too late. Hella took a step forward and slowly ran her claws down Agibelle’s cheek, trailing it ever so softly down her neck and towards her shoulder. If Agibelle enjoyed it, it didn’t show.
She continued her hand, slowly running it up to her chin and down to the front of the jumpsuit. Hella raked her claws down, ripping open the jumpsuit and exposing flesh. She placed a hand over Agibelle’s chest, softly running it down the curvature of her body and placed it directly over where her heart was.

With another hand, she dug her claws into her partner’s flesh and ripped it open like it was nothing. A sweet aromatic scent began to waft through the room.

Something was underneath Agibelle’s skin. Something was breathing. Living. Writhing.

Hella continued, ripping away skin, organs, clothing, and bone. Blood dripped from her fingers as a hand with thorns and wrapped in vines reached out from inside the body itself. Hella grabbed hold, thorns piercing deep in her flesh and began to pull the thing inside of the corpse out. The sickening sweet scent grew stronger as the three other Monsters surrounding Agibelle’s body began to fade away like the illusions that they were. Hella pulled harder and the scent grew stronger. Bare shoulders came out showing roots digging deep into humanoid flesh that bloomed out in the cold sub air as a single yellow rose pushed it’s way out of her neck, piercing it open with thorns.

She pulled harder and Agibelle’s head burst out as the vines pulsed deeper into her body, pushing her right eyeball out of her socket as a vibrant crimson rose filled the emptiness. The left eye fluttered open and stared up at Hella with a warm smile.

“Are you awake yet, my love?” Hella looked down at her with a thirsty grin.

“Unfinished…” Little words came to Agibelle’s mind.

Her single remaining eye rolled back into her head as she felt roots dig deeper and deeper into her body. Veins and airways overtaken as roots grew to fill their space. Agibelle moaned out in pain as she doubled over and vomited out blood and what looked to be a still beating heart.

“Hold on. I’ve got you.” Agibelle picked up the heart, as her jaw unhinged. Rows upon rows of teeth stared back as she plopped the heart into her mouth and swallowed it whole, “Mine now~”

Agibelle clutched her chest. There was no more beating. There was no more pulsing of blood throughout her body. She held a hand up to her mouth again as more came out. Blood. Her last meal. Water, and finally.

A sickly sweet sap dribbled out of her lips, “What?”

Hella knelt down, taking her partner’s soft hand and pulled her up to her feet and gave her a kiss. Sharpened knife like teeth pierced her lips but no blood dripped out, just that strange sap like substance once more.

“Perfectly delicious.”

Agibelle took her partners hands, and pulled herself to her feet. Her body was covered in vines, roses and petals. All of them bursting out of her skin and digging back in as though she was just their vessel, just their pot, just their place to grow. No… that was wrong. She could feel them. The roots burrowing in her skin taking in the air and converting it. The feeling of stillness overtook her as she stood in a pool of her own blood in a now heartless body that looked more like a garden than a person.

These flowers were a part of her.

She was the flowers and the garden.

“My Garden.” Hella said, gripping her by the throat and pulling her closer.

“Your Garden.”

There was something about those eyes. Something about the static that just ever so faintly fell into the background of her hearing. Even before it was there, burning in the background as she ran. How long had it been there. How long had she been this? How long had she been living in a body that barely suited her, that barely felt like home and felt more like a prison? This was freedom. This was truth. This was Her call.

“Thank you.”

“Her call frees us all, my love.”

Agibelle’s eyes went glossy as she stared into those glowing yellow eyes. There was nothing left to worry about. Nothing left to be scared of. She was with them.

Hella pulled Garden in closer and slipped a long split tongue down her throat, pulling up more of that sap into her mouth. Sweet like honey but with a kick that felt like heaven, Garden stepped a bit closer, as thorns pierced Hella’s flesh.

“Good little Garden.”

Garden’s petals began to slowly reach out for Hella. Vines extended out, digging their thorns into her body and wrapping the two of them tightly together.

A bang echoed through the sub and the two of them looked up from each other.

“We’ve hit the bottom.” Hella spoke softly.

“Nowhere left to go…” The Garden responded.

“Then we are truly Hers.”

The Garden nodded and wrapped her vines tighter as she placed a foot down, and begun to push her roots down through the metal casing of the sub. This place would be hers. All of it would become her. The roots would keep growing, spiraling down and down deeper into the ground as the two of them bloomed into something new at the bottom of the ocean.