In Rowan’s fifteen years of living, the flower field was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. The flowers grown here contained every possible hue imaginable and then some. All Rowan wanted to do was burn this imagery into his mind.

  A small voice in the back of his mind protested his current actions, but he ignored it. What did that voice know when witnessing this magnificent sight?

  The air carried a refreshing scent as he took a deep breath, taking it all in. His mind instantly felt at peace as his whole body relaxed, his dropping whatever it held as he relaxed his grip.

  What was he holding again?

  It didn’t matter as Rowan wanted to see more of the flower field. His steps took him deeper in.

  At this point, the voice in the back of his head was screaming louder, but at the same time diminishing. Rowan continually ignored it as the voice in his head didn’t matter. What mattered was that he felt at peace.

  When was the last time he felt so relaxed and so peaceful?

  The answer, not for at least three years.

  There were no monsters around him to be wary of. Even at the camp, he was never relaxed as the future loomed over his head like an ax as the only possible way to have a future was to leave the Forest of Death. That was why he desperately put in the effort and trained.

  Never stopping, never resting. No matter how much he wanted to.

  Right now though, Rowan felt like all his worries had evaporated and only a quiet euphoria existed. There was only him and the flowers and that was the only thing he wanted to focus on.

  Rowan felt his mind relaxing even more and suddenly he wanted to lay down and soak in the floral presence. However he didn’t want to damage the flowers as they looked like priceless fragile treasures in his mind.

  Rowan slowly and carefully bent down as he used his hands to move the flowers. There were two voices in his head now. One was screaming the wrongness of the whole situation while the other told him to keep up his current actions and the flowers were priority.

  Priority? Why would flowers be a priority all of a sudden? I have another priority, but what was it again?

  Rowan could feel his own thoughts turning sluggish and become even more strange, but he did not care. He was able to clear a patch of earth where he could lay down and relax. He could finally lay down amongst this sea of flowers and put his worries away. Rowan no longer needed to think about the Forest of Death and its monsters.

  He no longer needed to worry at all.

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  As Rowan moved the dirt around him to make space for himself, he noticed something buried underneath. Curious, Rowan began to push the dirt aside to find out more about his discovery. It did not take long for him to uncover something. The first thing he noticed about the buried object was that it was white, hard and round. That was when Rowan realized what he dug up as it was not the first time he made this discovery.

  A skull.

  And there were more bones buried besides it.

  A chill immediately ran down Rowan’s back. His mind that had become lethargic immediately jolted itself awake. The voice screaming the wrongness of the whole situation that he had been ignoring the whole time was finally heard.

  Immediately, Rowan made the snap decision and began running as fast as possible. His direction? Back to where he entered the flower field and beyond.

  The flowers no longer looked so dazzling in his eyes. Currently they looked like a monster maw that was waiting to snap its jaw at the prey that came to its mouth.

  As Rowan made his way back, he found the dead goblin that he had dropped earlier in his muddled state. Except it looked much different when compared to when he first bought it. Small vines spread across its body like a spiderweb and there were even a few small sprouts on the body. The sight of such what happened to the goblin's body frightened Rowan even more. If he had not been running at top speed already, Rowan would have pushed his legs even further.

  Rowan didn’t stop when he saw the end of the flower speed. He kept on running. His legs didn’t stop or slow down at all. The trees flashed past him as he ran. His mind was in such a messy state that he didn't care if any monster noticed him.

  What in the world happened?

  Rowan was sure he had been careful. That was the whole point of grabbing a goblin as a test subject.

  And yet, somehow his mind was taken over before he knew it.

  Now that Rowan was thinking properly, the whole experience made chills run down his spine. A part of him had realized something was wrong, but whatever the flowers did to him made him ignore it.

  That wasn’t even the scariest part.

  The flower field hadn’t even entered his sight when whatever the flowers did strike him.

  How do you fight something you don't even know where its coming from?

  This ‘mind attack’ as Rowan decided to call it, somehow lowered his guard the closer he was to the flowers. It could attack from afar before the prey even knew it. That was the only reason Rowan had been dragged in without realization, despite being careful. Even in his current panic state, he still analyzed the event. Once he was in the field, his mind was almost completely taken over.

  How had he escaped? Now that Rowan had time to think about it, that was one of the biggest questions here.

  Survival instinct?

  There had been a voice in his mind telling him there was something wrong. When the bones appeared, the voice became loud and clear because it knew the significance of such objects.

  Danger.

  Death.

  Rowan shuddered at the thought. Thank the gods that his mind still somehow worked. Otherwise he would have ended up like the goblin.

  Infested and nutrients for the flowers.

  It wasn’t the first time he saw plants use living beings as food, but that didn't mean it wasn't horrifying each time he witnessed it.

  More questions raced through Rowan's mind as he ran. Questions that could not be answered today even if he spent all night thinking about it. There was too much he didn’t know. However there was one thing that was clear to the teenage boy.

  That he needed to stay as far as possible from the flower field as possible.