Dawn slowly rose on the icy moon Enceladus. A beautiful wasteland, pristine in its nothingness. The sun gently shone across this tiny body, but found a dark spot on the southern pole.
An enormous structure-or creature, hard to tell-had taken residence here. Cephalopod in shape, the tentacles coiled and stretched around their center with thick, green plates protecting them. On the “head” rose a spire, blossoming like a flower. Here, it was warm…
Within the beast a humid atmosphere survived. Vines and teeth covered the walls. Long, spiraling tunnels rose to the spire, the guiding bioluminescent flowers hanging from the ceiling.
At the top of the spire sat a large room, roughly elliptical in shape. Sheets of transparent energy formed windows along the edge, and more vines hung from the ceiling. It was here that another head would die.
Wolyn had been restrained and tortured here for hours, the sharp tentacles sending waves of pain as they crushed her ribcage. She was suspended upside down from the ceiling, her red hair blocking her view of the dim figure at the window. He had not shown his face during their earlier encounter.
Wolyn screamed as the tentacles squeezed her tighter, her breaths becoming sharper, weaker. In response, a tentacle gagged her, and the figure laughed.
“A pity. He has left you here to die.”
She looked past the window, and saw the scarred, white gunship take off before the plant’s defenses could activate. Her last hope had left her.
“But I…. I won’t leave you.”
Poly turned and approached her, his “face” right up to hers. Her eyes grew wide in horror as she saw what he was, what they were.
“I can’t leave you, my dear. And I can’t kill you either. Henchmen are here for that.”
Poly left her for the window once more. Wolyn barely stayed conscious, yearning for the release of death. To her right, a portal of various colors swirled into existence, and a dark man hopped through.
"Hello? Where am I? Why am I here?"
The new fellow looked around, startled, and notices his employer at the window. From the window and all around the room, a million voices speak in a cacophony.
“Have you ever killed someone?” they asked.
A little taken aback, but standing up for himself, the man answered.
"I have. Many times. It's been a while though."
The voices respond in the same fashion.
"Good. This one... is most... irritating. Finish her as you will."
Wolyn’s face is covered in bloody tears as he approaches the victim. Crackling with electricity, he shocks her with bolts of lightning. All she can whimper is a single name: Vegge. To finish the job, the man in black engulfs her in flame. Her charred corpse falls to the floor and the stench quickly wafted away as the plant consumes her.
Poly continued to look out the window and nodded, summoning a briefcase to hand height from the ceiling, held by a tentacle. The dark figure takes the case, and before exiting through the portal, asked,”Will there be more jobs for me?”
"Mr Tiln, we have only just begun."
A sick pleasure is evident in the cacophony of voices, echoing through the halls.
The man coughs out “wonderful” and exits the portal before it closes.
Alone again, Poly strikes the glass in rage, shattering it. Cold, icy winds stream in from outside. Changing the voice to only one, Wolyn speaks from his mouth.
“Another petal, another day.”
-
Hmm. Who is Tiln? And where is Vegge? Hmm...