Symbiotic Bloom: Clara's Steamy Alien Encounter

SYMBIOTIC BLOOM

Clara was a creature of habit and quiet desperation. Her tiny apartment, overlooking a perpetually overflowing dumpster behind a struggling noodle shop, was her sanctuary from the underwhelming reality of her life. It was on a Tuesday night, during her routine recycling, that she saw it. Tucked behind the greasy bin, half-hidden by discarded cardboard, was a plant unlike any she'd ever encountered.

It wasn't beautiful in a conventional sense. It stood about three feet tall in a cracked ceramic pot someone had clearly given up on. Thick, rubbery leaves, the color of bruised plums shimmering with an oily iridescence, unfurled from a central stalk that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic, inner light, like captured starlight. Nestled amongst the leaves were several closed buds, tight and heavy, seemingly carved from obsidian but veined with pulsating lines of deep violet. It emitted a faint, strange scent – ozone, damp earth, and something indescribably sweet, like night-blooming flowers and hot metal. An Orchid?

Her brief time as a plant nursery assistant at the local university’s botanty department had made her more than proficient in identifying the odd plant or two. But this one was more than odd, and as she continued studying it, the less it looked like any orchid she had ever seen.

Most people would have kicked it out of the way, or ignored it. But Clara, lonely and starved for anything out of the ordinary, felt an inexplicable pull. It was weird, yes, bordering on creepy, but...