I Am A Carnivorous Plant

I got about three hours of peaceful photosynthesis and water before my targets finally showed themselves. I could feel the sneaky little cowardly hoofbeats of theirs through my roots! Just to be smart, I made sure I wasn’t anywhere near the side of the lake where they assaulted me last time. I might wanna fight ‘em, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let them sneak up on me! I’m the one who ambushes people (I’m sorry, I had to)!

 

I waited until the deer were all busy drinking and foraging. The more distracted they were the better! The little skittish freaks would probably hop away the moment they heard something coming, so I had to make sure to move as quickly and quietly as I could! Worst comes to worst, if they start running away I could try and attract them with my flower. Maybe I could get out in the middle of the lake and convince them to drown themselves? I’d be like a little leafy siren! I just have to hope whatever’s in the lake doesn’t magically take an interest in me, or smell my mist and decide that they wanted some too.

 

But that’s only plan B! Plan A is still in effect!

Sneaky sneak~

Sneaky sneak.

Sneak.

Sneak.

Sneak-

 

Once I got close enough to the nearest tree to them, I climbed it. I climbed as hiiiigh as I possibly could. After a few seconds of calculation (and really, let’s face it, total fear), I finally launched myself towards the center of the large grazing crowd of deer. I made sure to catch myself with my tentacles because no one wants a broken plant, and then the plan began! Fast as I could, I planted my roots, opened the leafy trash-can lid that is now my mouth, began spewing my poisonous gas, and started grabbing! My tendrils whipped around like mad, tripping every deer they could manage to reach, and yanking them back into my poison if I caught them straying too far. This time none of them tried to kick me, probably because they knew that going towards the thing that was poisoning them was bad. A few of them did however try to stomp on my tentacles that were coming for them, but with how much they were already stumbly and weak from the gas, it barely hurt me. Sure, some of the herd may have escaped, but that’s alright. One day they’ll need water again, and then it will be their time, too! Besides, I already have about twelve deer here all entangled in my tendrils and poison!

 

Mwahaha!

I will eat like royalty once again!

Revenge tastes quite nice, thank you~!

 

Anyways now I have a bunch of deer, but uh… Actually, I don’t think I really thought this part of the plan through. I mean yeah, of course I have a whole amazing feast here, but uh… Most of the things I’ve been killing and stocking up on have been relatively small? What am I gonna do if a pack of wolves turns up and decides that these deer are worth fighting for? No matter how much bigger I’ve gotten, that doesn’t mean that I suddenly got amazing at digging holes, you know. How am I gonna convince the wolves that they don’t want these?!

 

Ahhh, for now I guess I’ll just stuff as many of these inside of me as I can!

They can’t eat ‘em if I eat ‘em first!

 

~~~

 

Alright, so I ate about three deer, although I haven’t eaten their bones yet; I’ve been saving them and the antlers as a sort of secondary food source, since they won’t rot. Honestly, it’s pretty crazy that this child-sized plant body of mine could even eat as much deer as I just did. I mean sure, they’re pretty lean, but they still have a good bit of meat on them, you know? I may not have eaten the bones, but I ate everything else, so isn’t it crazy that I was able to digest all of that? My conversion rate for meat must be really really good… Or maybe it’s actually kind of bad if I think about it, since that means I need to consume more to feel full. But the conversion rate of bones is not the same at all! In fact it's far too effective of a food! That’s the whole reason I decided not to eat the bones, since I was worried I’d fill up on them without noticing, like eating bread-sticks. Well, it’s true that they won’t rot as quickly as the meat and organs would have… Besides, if the wolves decide to show up, then maybe I can use the bones to distract them? Who knows if the wolves in this world even react to the word fetch, though? Hah, not like I could say it anyways. Maybe I should learn how to make some kind of noise for communication or something.

 

Anyways!

 

I actually managed to come up with a plan for the extra deer! I’m such a smart little plant! Okay, so my tentacles have actually grown pretty strong, right? I mean, I’m not ‘rip something living in half with my bare strength’ strong, although I can dismantle these deer pretty easily now, well enough to pull their bones out before I eat them, anyways. But! I am strong enough to impale a dead deer on a tree branch! And if that tree branch just so happens to be high up on a tree, well then… You see where I’m going with this, right? If it’s out of reach of the scary things on the ground then I won’t have to worry about them as much. And if I park myself close enough to the tree, then I can reach out with my extendo-tentacles if some sort of buzzard or snake tries to come and snatch a piece! I’m a genius!

 

I’m sadly not enough of a genius that this didn’t take me about two hours to think up, but, like, it still counts, right?

Hey okay, let’s be fair, a bit of those two hours was me dismantling those three deer I ate, so really, like…

Look, I’m still pretty smart, okay?!

 

Sadly though the sun’s starting to set now that I took so long. Those deer don’t stick themselves onto branches, and it really kind of ate up a lot of my time. Why are the days so short?! Come on! I barely got to eat up any sunlight today, gosh! How am I supposed to grow under such conditions?! I won the fight but I really feel like I lost the war somehow…

 

I can’t leave this tree unless I’m fine with it being ransacked by something, sooo…

Hrmph… Maybe the moonlight will help me grow prettily too.

At least I can see it’s going to be a full moon tonight, so maybe?

 

Well, goodnight I guess.

Wish me luck.

 

~~~

 

Alright, so I guess I was being a big stupid baby. I never actually tried to photosynthesize off of the moon before, so I honestly never thought it would work. In fact I’m pretty sure plants can't usually? Maybe because it was a full moon? I’ll have to look into this. Maybe I just never noticed this before because I usually run around at night. Not to toot my own horn but I’m quite the nocturnal hunter, you know.

 

Before the sun managed to fully rise, I ate a few more of my deer. Now there’s only half of them left. At the rate I’m growing I should be done with all of these in about what, three, maybe four days? And that's with me snacking on the bones and antlers from time to time, too… I really don’t know how I’m going to keep up with this eating rate once I’m bigger. Do I just have to take down huge game every day in a month from now or what? That’s pretty worrying. Unless I get some other better tricks up my sleeve, then I might just be in trouble.

 

Well there’s no point in worrying about that now I guess.

 

Oh!

Here comes the sun, my beautiful bright god of incandescence and growth!

I’m gonna make as much progress as I can today!

Tons of food, nearby an abundant source of water, with beautiful rays shining down onto me!

Now’s my time to grow~!

 

Pho-

To-

Syn-

The-

Siiiiize~!

 

~~~

 

So I think I jinxed myself. You know the phrase ‘Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear’? Yeah, well, I spoke about big game, and then of course one decides to show up. I was stopping my photosynthesizing for the day because the sun was starting to go down, right? And since I was coming over to eat up some more of my deer after a productive day of absorbing my nutrients, I wasn’t rooted anymore. And since I wasn’t rooted anymore, my wonderful protective cloud of poison wasn’t, well, protecting me anymore! There was nothing to drive away any predators, and the strong, stinky smell of dead deer was doing its work on the area for sure.

 

Yeah, so a freaking bear showed up.

 

Like, alright, it wasn’t like a grizzly or anything, just a black bear I think. But even then, a bear is a bear, even if it is kind of wonky looking for a black bear. I mean it has like… way too big of ears? And its body is a bit… lanky? It kind of looks like a sun bear, actually, but just… odd. Whatever, what’s important is that if it really is supposed to be a black bear, then, like… Don’t black bears climb?!

 

Oh no it’s gonna snatch my deers!

I worked so hard on those you bastard!

 

As fast as I could, I climbed up into my tree and vigilantly watched my last cluster of deer. I already managed to eat two out of three of the deer I was going to eat right now, so there were only four deer left. That sounds like a low number to look after if it wasn’t for the literal bear that was already making its way up my tree for my goods! Okay, so I say it was making its way up my tree, but it really just stood up on its hind legs while propping itself against the tree. It was already so large while standing up, but then it lifted its long arm up, and before I knew it, it had swiped off one of my deer. My poor hard earned deer came crashing down off of the branch I’d skewered it on. The sound of it landing was positively deafening to my (nonexistent) ears. But the bear wasn’t satisfied with just one of my deer, oh no; It started swinging its paw at a second one.

 

How dare this bear?!

The audacity it has to steal someone else’s food!

Those are my revenge meals you asshole!