Page 5 of Eat Me Alive
He immediately shakes his head. “Your notes will be fine but no plastics. You’ll be provided appropriate writing material on-site.”
I click my pen one last time and toss it to the nearest trash bin. I respect that. They are trying to preserve everything on the island. It’s only right they be extra careful.
I’m very quiet when we’re inside the car. Ingar looks intimidating, but he keeps clenching and unclenching his fists. Nervous. Knuckles deeply scarred and calloused. He doesn’t look like a director or a scientist—more of a security person.
“What’s the name of this island?” I try to fill the uncomfortable silence.
“You’ll know everything there is to know when we get there.”
The air smells sweet here. It's sending a thrill down my body.
“I’m not being kidnapped, right?” It just comes out. My tongue is loose, and I can’t hold back. “Because you don’t look like a nerd like me.”
He slowly turned to look at me, his eyes quizzical. “You signed papers, in case you forgot.”
I shrug, suddenly lethargic. I can’t understand myself. My thoughts. I’m feeling…giddy, but tired. “Yeah, but you could always forge my signature and stuff.” I giggle. Giggle! “People like you are pro’ly above th’law.” I am slurring my words, and—like my hands—I see my tongue escaping. Jumping out of my mouth, and all I can do is stare in horror as it dances around, tears out a part of itself, then tips it at me like a fleshy top hat.
Shit. I’m drugged out of my mind.
His eyes shutter. Like he’s expecting something, he leans away and crosses his arms over his chest. “Don’t fight it, Professor. Go to sleep.”
My eyelids are heavy, my vision all but swirling color. Utter darkness is a sight all on its own. A scary one, but I’m too blitzed to feel fear.
When I wake up, I’m ripping his eyes out.
I’m back with it again—the mouth. Today, it attempts to talk to me for the first time. It babbles adorably, its tongue slipping in and out—barely missing those sharp teeth. It’s a precarious and gallant thing to do.
Seated on the ground, I inch closer to it when it whistles at me. In better light, I can see more of it. It’s not just a giant anthropomorphic mouth—it’s a gigantic dionaea the color of deep, deep fuschia. Almost purple. Right behind its bulbous head are lines of bright pink and green foxgloves decorating it like a floral crown.
It notices me admiring and preens. It’s cute the way it lifts its massive leaves to show off like how a man would flex his biceps.
I laugh out loud. It’s so cute. “Do you have a name?” I ask, my voice muted in my own ears.
It shakes its head. No. It places those leaves in front of its stem together, shaking them. It looks like it's pleading with me to give it a name.
“Of course! Umm, are you a girl or a boy?” My heart squeezes as it cocks its head. It doesn’t know. Well, from a botanist’s view, dionaea muscipula—more known as Venus flytraps—are both male and female. A “perfect” plant, one might call it.
“It’s alright,” I reassure it. “How about I call you Venus?”
It seems to consider this before shaking its head.
“Dione?” Still a no. “You’re a picky plant.” I chuckle and touch its maw, stroking. It loves this and leans in. “You’re such a brother bear.”
It shifts, and it looks like it’s about to eat me, but I’m pretty sure it is its way of staring at me. Suddenly, it just begins to jerk its head up and down.
“You like that, huh? First name Brother, last name Bear. Brother Bear, it is.” I’m smiling from ear to ear. I can’t remember the last time I ever did. “That’s a male name, though. I can’t keep calling youit. So you’re a he/him to me.”
Brother Bear’s incredibly happy at this and shows off all his ornaments. The foxgloves start to glow the darker the sky gets. I’m worried now. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go…I don’t remember anything…
Yapping, he then shows me a tree branch with rows of fruit that look like cute little beans. The placement of the fruits is unnatural, too straight. It’s obvious he loves them given how he strokes his leaves over them.
There’s a wet, silky caress along my neck. Alert, I touch that spot, feeling nothing. The crickets stop singing completely. It leaves a weight in the air that presses into my chest. I feel like I’m being smothered. My belly starts growling, churning.
Noticing this, his head cocks from side to side. I’m not sure how he can see with no eyes. I try to look for something in the sea of green, and there’s a shadow in the corner. I tremble knowing that it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.
This is the shadow—the hole that visits me during my darkest, hungriest times. I know what it wants. It feeds on my fear, my sadness, the searing, rumbling pain in my gut. It leaves me trappedas it swallows my vision like veins of used oil. It’s never done this before.
Brother Bear makes an urgent sound and hisses at me. He opens his jaws wide, and for a second, I think he’s going to eat me alive. But no, he wants me to hide inside his mouth. He’s protecting me from the hole.
