Guro Challenge #26: Plants
#9 of 33 Day Guro Challenge
Shadow, light and slender, took point, followed by Redtooth, while Cluny stayed a cautious pace behind, letting his lackeys test the route. Cluny was still a young rat, though the oldest of the group, but big and heavy with muscle. Shadow sniffed along, shook flimsy branches and selected the strongest, checked for traps. Redtooth bumbled along behind him.
"The scent is strong this way," Shadow murmured, so softly it was almost lost in the sounds of dripping water and humming insects. No frogs croaking or monkeys calling. Not with Cluny on the prowl.
"Heh, stupid creatures, bats. So much time in the air, y'know, blows their brains right out." Redtooth waved a paw beside his ear and whistled to demonstrate.
"Shut up, fool, they might be stupid but they're not deaf," Cluny hissed. "We need stealth on our side if we're to take on creatures who can fl-"
Redtooth, unable to pay attention to his chief's words and his own steps at the same time, had stepped off the branch at the wrong moment. T he sudden removal of his weight caused the branch to shake, and Cluny might have been able to cling on if the branch wasn't wet and rotting partially through and a large leaf hadn't at that exact moment slapped him directly in the face. As it was, he slid off with an angry yell, leaving clawmarks in the branch. Redtooth and Shadow ran to the edge, but were too late to do anything but hear a tremendous splash.
Cluny surfaced, hacking up and spitting out water, and looked around to see only muddy green. Far above him, a pink leafy ring surrounded a circle of sky. Funny-looking plant. Oh well, it was better than breaking his back on the ground. If only slightly, he amended, as he realised the liquid wasn't quite water; it was unpleasantly viscous, oily, and stank of rotting flesh, scummy pondwater, and bile, overlaid with sickly-sweet nectar and with a noticeable undertone of a neglected latrine. Cluny wasn't one to be disgusted easily, but he still found himself coughing hard, struggling to breathe in the wet clinging fumes, not enough fresh air able to reach him in the depths of the plant. He made a mental note to push Redtooth into this thing when he got out, and swam over to the walls. No luck climbing; the leaves were covered with tiny downward-pointing hairs, too short to get a grip on, and with a waxy coating which his wet paws slipped off and his claws couldn't dig into deep enough. He checked his tail for the flint he'd strapped there, and found it gone. The twine must have softened in the liquid and loosened. "Damn it, I knew I should have fixed that on better," he muttered to himself. "Maybe next time I'll get a metal one..."
Something frothy floated near him; inspection proved it to be the melting remains of a slug. Actually, now he looked, the pool was full of dead and dying insects and other small creatures. A shrivelled spider here, a thrashing centipede there... The bare skin on his paws and tail was starting to burn unpleasantly. He looked down, through the murky liquid; half-sunk in the sludgy black bottom, he saw bones.
A muffled voice called from outside, and shadows were visible through the leaves. "Chief! Are you alright?"
"I'm in the guts of a giant plant, what do you think, you fool?!" Cluny screeched at the top of his lungs, went under, and came up spitting. "Bleh! Get me out of this thing!"
"Can you cut your way out?" It was the first time Cluny had heard Shadow make any noise approximating a shout, and he had to strain to hear it.
"If I could, don't you think I'd have done it?" Cluny scratched at the leafy walls, gouging out chunks, but the walls were thick, and swimming in the stinking fluid with little air was weakening him. "Can you tell where I am? If I dig from here and you cut from there, I can get out!"
Shadow and Redtooth said nothing, but Cluny heard the sound of knives scraping leaves on the other side, and little by little the green light brightened as the wall thinned.
Finally, the leaves gave way, and Cluny emerged, followed by a rush of the sickly soup. He lay coughing on the forest floor, looked up at his thoroughly soaked followers, and experienced a feeling he never had before; being pleased to see Redtooth's stupid grin.