Ashes

The task had been to retrieve the flower. It grew among the rocks of the mountainside, a long green stalk, purple petals that glowed softly, no matter whether it was night or day. It was needed, for what purpose you did not know, you knew only you had been sent to collect it. Your master was a rather strange person, and did not often care to explain themself; you’d given up on attempting to understand what they did and why long ago.

At first you thought it was going to be easy. It was a short walk after all, up from the laboratory to the first plateau, a clear, winding path leading you all the way. Fifteen minutes, twenty. Sure, it was out of sight - trees filled the way between here and there, determined to grow amidst the rocks and dirt - but it was safe. No ferocious animals lay in wait in the inbetween, the comforts of home lay safely at your back, your pack that contained all you may need rested between your shoulders, and your feet fell sure and steady on top the path.

It was the retrieval of the flower you had underestimated. Miscalculated.

You’d opted for the simple, rudimentary, technique - digging down and ripping it out. The spade you’d packed was sharp (newly sharpened) and it tore through the rocks that rested on top of the ground, still scattered across the mountainsides surface from the last great storm. When you hit dirt and began to dig, you took no special notice of the glowing roots - the flower glowed, of course the roots would as well.

When you dug your hands into the now soft dirt, attempting to reach from the near-bottom to pull up and out, you were met with resistance. The roots seemed to tighten, some felt even as if they’d wrapped around your hands - hard - holding onto you and the soil. In that split-second of tightening, frustration, pain, and confusion dictated your instinct - which was to yank.

You were on your back, staring up at the sky, which was particularly confusing because you had just been on your knees, bent over and pulling up a flower from the ground. A flower, which now somehow seemed even taller, and was, facing you?

You sat up too quickly, had to blink a few times to clear the dots from your vision, to focus in again. The flower stared at you, glowing purple petals outstretched, as if in indignation. For a moment, the two of you did nothing but gaze at each other, caught in a trance. But then, you were up and at it once more, as if your previous failure had never occurred. Again, you dug your hands into the dirt, again, you wrapped your fists around the roots near-the-bottom and you yanked.

There was movement this time, a definitive budge in the positioning. But still, you found yourself on your back, staring up at the sky. It was time, you decided, to try a new path.

Your hands reached into your pack, an oversized leather-brown bag given to you by your mother. The knife you’d kept close since childhood rested in its usual place, the knapsack's top pocket, and you opened it swiftly, a quick, practiced movement. The flower looked almost, shocked, and appeared to even lean back, as if attempting to place as much distance as possible between itself and the incoming knife. This, you outright ignored, deftly continuing onward, grabbing the stalk and beginning to saw.

Back and forth and back and forth.

The sky was filled with dancing holes of black, you’d landed pretty roughly on your back this time. When everything had righted itself, and you’d made your way over to bend down and examine the stalk, you groaned in frustration at the sight of perfection. Not a dent nor a stray hair to be seen. Yet your knife, which had never left your clenched hand, told a different story. Its silver, gleaming surface was stained with a softly glowing, and utterly green blood. The sharpened edge, which you took care to maintain weekly, was blunt. Completely and utterly useless. Anger had you cursing it, tossing it down among the stones.

You decided to reach down into the dirt again, which only left you further away, with even more dots swimming in front of your eyes. In the moments of silence between your mutterings and curses thrown to the skies, you could almost swear that there was the faintest sound of twinking laughter coming up from the ground.

Dig the flower up, and bring it home. Dig the flower up, and bring it home. Madly, you mumbled to yourself over and over what your instructions had been, so simple that at the time you’d hardly dared to believe it. Now that simplicity mocked you, how could you be failing at such an easy task?

Dig the flower up, and bring it home. So dig you did. Apparently, you decided it was the key word of that sentence, and that your decision to not-quite reach the-bottom, was the cause of all your failures. Hours passed as you dug, and soon you found yourself in a crater of your own making - you’d kept having to expand the sides of your circle as you dug further and further down.

Perhaps it was the frustration of failing at such a simple task, but you didn’t have many rational thoughts left in that head of yours. You didn't even bother to take note of the fact that the roots were not thinning out, nor were they getting weaker and more ripe for the picking. If anything, they got denser and more fierce in numbers the deeper you went, the further you dug.

Soon, you struggled to climb up and out of your hole, and you swore that the roots formed together to trip you up, or to drag you back in certain places. The sun was starting to set, the flower beginning to become a more useful light source in the fading day, and you were breathing hard. Dirt coated your skin and was seemingly permanently wedged beneath your fingernails, and your ragged breathing only sounded more labored as you chugged the water from your canteen, standing at the hole's edge.

When you’d finished, water dripping down from the corner of your mouth, you gazed down at the maze of glowing roots. The what-felt-like impossibility of your task threatened to overwhelm you. You had to bring the flower back, it was your mission. Yet when you stared down at that lifeform that continued to glow and grow in front of you, you did not know how.

Over and over you kept yanking at it. The hole you’d created proved a worthy foe, forcing you to clamber over its maze again and again, all to reach its center. Endlessly, you'd grab the base of the stalk and pull with all your might, and endlessly you would fail. Black dots would swarm your vision, and you’d find yourself further and further away from the site each time. Yet still, you persisted. Over and over and over again.

Eventually, anger and frustration left you blind, and in a fit of pure rage, you swung the small axe you'd kept buried at the bottom of your pack into the base of the stalk with a might driven entirely by emotion.

Time, reverberated. All you saw was white, yet you could feel the distorted seconds ticking by. When your vision returned it was swift, and complete in its restoration. The flower was bent, half sawed and hanging over itself in submission. But its light was fading, and the glowing roots that laughed beneath you, were silent. Anger still had you in its clutches, grabbing at your shoulders and twisting you around; wordlessly, and without thinking, you reached for the bent stalk and you yanked.

Dirt crumbled in your hands, the beloved ashes of a loved one drifting into the wind. Darkness enveloped you, save for the one lantern you’d lit and left at the side of your pack. You rested on solid ground, the pit you’d dug eradicated. Your eyes ran to your clenched and empty fist, but what could they do but confirm what you already knew. You couldn't even feel the remnants of what had once been.