Several months had passed since that day, and Tara walked up beside a cornfield, head hung low, hand on Vivian's Swiss Army knife housed in her pocket, mind still stuck on that day. Because she didn't know what to tell the authorities, of how to concoct a believable explanation of how Vivian died, she spent all night gathering wood and dried leaves and lit Vivian's body ablaze, seeing it fit for the work she did.
Tara spotted a group of dandelions growing in the ditch between the browning corn and the street shoulder. The admiration, however small, she once held for dandelions had since dried up, and Tara passed them by without a second thought.
But then she noticed that one of them didn't radiate like the sun. In fact, she couldn't describe the color at all. Tara's heart sank as she saw that one of the Flowers was, in fact, a Celestial Flower—something she hadn't seen, and never wanted to see again, since that day.
Tara gritted her teeth, eyes wide with paranoia, and started away from the Flower before words echoed in her head.
The same goes for me or anyone else who's consumed the power of a Celestial Flower...
...consumed the power of a Celestial Flower...
...the power of a Celestial Flower...
...consumed...
Tara backed up and knelt so that she could have better look at the Flower: none of its pedals were visible, yet it looked like it would bloom in another day or two, provided that Celestial Flowers blossomed at the same rate as actual flowers.
She removed the Swiss Army knife from her pocket, pinched the stem, and cut beneath her fingers.
Nothing.
Tara held the bud up to her eyes for inspection, twirling it back and forth, absorbing how plentiful sunlight brightened the Flower in some areas but darkened it where sunlight could not reach as well. The longer Tara stared at the Flower, the more appetizing it looked.
...consumed the power of a Celestial Flower...
“If I ate this Flower,” Tara said, and stopped spinning the Flower. “I would have the power to kill them all.” She said nothing and thought nothing else as she let that fact set in. When it had, the corners of her lips cracked into a demented ear-to-ear grin. A few maddened chuckles escaped her lungs, and she promised to herself, “I'll kill them all. I swear it.” Then she placed the bud on her tongue and bit down.
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