Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai

581. A strange world, 2

(Rose)I have a good day to rest without leaving the bed before I can move again and just sit.

And after that, I’ll need a little while before I can run normally again.

Blume is hijacking my metabolism to force my body to regrow the leg from the knee down and speed up the process reasonably. I can’t move until she has everything set in motion inside my flesh, and I’ll need crutches for a while after.

B – You were supposed to give your flesh to me, not them.

R – I’m sorry...

I have some time to think. I am sorry. Even now I still make mistakes. I hope my dearest child will learn the best lessons from this as well.

Nokarlık is still a little under the trauma of the whole experience. She’s not smiling much and stays inside, around me.

It’s been a few days. I comfort her as much as required. She’s been scared and confused. About that thing, about me and about herself.

R – Auntie Blume can explain to you. Come and listen.

Nokaranlık comes and sit beside me and my leg that’s swallowed inside a bouquet of some sort.

Plants move. Blume’s egg fruit pod, where her body is slowly being built, isn’t moving much yet, so she plays with other floral aspects of her body instead.

For the first time, Nokaranlık hears her voice.

It’s metallic but soft, and rings alongside the pale and small roses that used to be on my chest. She made instruments of them to mimicry a voice. Me I have a nice scar there now that the skin has grown over the wound she left by the way.

B – I’m not your aunt but your surrogate mother.

She explains to me what that means.

R – So my dear Nok, you have your biological mother, whom left a few days before you were born. Your surrogate mother whom carried you till your development was complete, and me your adoptive mother, whom loves you the most.

B – And Rose contributed also with some materials such as mitochondria genes and proteins expressions.

Blume’s voice is lost in the hug I’m giving Nok, rubbing my cheeks against hers.

She’s still listening carefully though.

I draw things on rough papers at times along other explanations.

We teach her about T.I. and its relations to biology.

How usually cells relate to this form of energy.

B – I don’t think the extra tissues are stored inside her bones as you first thought.

R – But where then?

B – Probably everywhere. In every cell’s cytosol, or perhaps more specifically along some of the elements of the cells.

We think. I’ve come to learn that T.I. has an affinity to D.N.A in general, meaning long chains of organic molecules in patterns. This appears to be mostly why you see all sorts of life forms affected by it but rarely rocks and such inanimate things. But biology doesn’t summarise itself to these strings of fate that can also evolve anyway.

Blume believes that nightmare gave Nokarlık a D.N.A structure stupidly longer than required; thus pushing to the optimum her ability to process ambient T.I. and maintain extra materialistic structures inside her cells through these channels. It’s another theory. Since Blume teaches us about mitochondrion, now I wonder if these organelles managing a chemical form of potential energy couldn’t be playing a part as well. Could there be a counterpart to them on the side of T.I?

We don’t know where’s the gate inside Nok’s cells, but I understand she’s likely not storing extra flesh inside her bones but everywhere.

B – Her bones are made in materials that eases the change of size I think. And every cell of her body possibly holds many replicas of itself ready to appear at any time. I think parts of her genes even control these processes.

Nokarlık is a little lost, but I’ll teach her. It’s shocking news though, if her genes can also control such expressions of metabolism outside the scope of baryonic physics. It would mean that Nightmare managed to translate the biological bounds to T.I. and how will to affect it do affect it, into protein and nucleoid coding. Did she really manage to translate magical power into biological information?

If proven, that would imply so much...

For now it all means that as long as Nok’s reserves are well fed, she could almost instantly regrow any torn limb or heal any wound caused by adversity. I’m willing to bet that was one of Nightmare’s aims.

And Nokarlık has also this power to grow and shrink at will, to overcome nearly anything imaginable as well...

R – Nightmare wasn’t kidding when she said this child would be adapted to this world and the next...

As long as there is T.I. on Earth, Nokarlık will be nearly invincible.

And she doesn’t need to learn the science of T.I. to use this strength, it’s been inscribed into innate phenotype for her before she was born. She has the power of beings-like-hers naturally occurring inside of her, with a smooth balance I can never achieve consciously when I rupture my own gates.

And if someday T.I. vanishes, her body will remain as she is, some genes expression will become ineffective and inoperative but harmless, and she will live on as a smart warm blooded animal. This last part is true for me as well, but not yet for Blume...

B – Rose...

R – Hm?

B – Some... Thing, is coming this way.

R – Hostile?

B – I don’t think so, but...

I cannot stand yet, but none of us are defenceless if the worst comes to happen.

I hold Nok’s hand as the ghoul enters our warehouse home.

What on Earth is that... A walking corpse?

The human skeleton has barely, just barely the sufficient muscles along its bones to move and stand. Balance is challenging at every step. It looks more unsettling than threatening in any way.

Nokarlık is spooked nonetheless and I see her fur standing on her head and back. That’s a little funny to notice this skin reaction, and surprising to me.

I didn’t think a skeleton would scare her. Well, I might be to blame, after she saw a few of my own bones the other day.

The walking ghoul approaches slowly, unsteadily.

The skull is empty, eye sockets and jaws open on nothing. I feel more puzzled than anxious really. What is that? How does it perceive its environment if there are no sensory organs left? It’s not human anyway...

I finally notice as it clumsily walks toward us the nature of the puppet master throning on its machine.

Over the head stands the colourful slug. I can’t see the strings, but I know they exist.

Oh... It created this doll...

A human doll, far bigger than the critter sized it’s used to make from mice and rats.

My instincts where right about this little one.

It’s smart. And no matter how humanly socially clumsy it can be, it actually is sociable and friendly.

Because it came to show us its new puppet. One that was made to interact more easily with the bigger animals we are.

I raise my hand to shake and keep it in the air. Will it understand what I imply?

Very slowly, unsteadily, the old skeleton attempts to mimicry my posture. It rises its arm and its cold hand comes to brush mine. Not a handshake, but a contact nonetheless.

I begin to smile, radiant, while Nok and even Blume are too flabbergasted to react.

R – Hello there. I’m Rose Blume.

~