Camellia Bloom by Evangeline Beggs || Team Otter!! (I knew exactly what I wanted to write when I got this prompt. Aria's name is a placeholder, also. Couldn't come up with anything else.)
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I was hunched over my computer when Aria invaded my peaceful afternoon.

            I’d been working on my variety of projects for hours and, if she hadn’t come in, I would have kept on until the wee hours of the morning. My book was going great; my most recent music video was raking in thousands of views; my art was… slowly improving; and I had finally found the next volume of my favorite manga. The latter was a bit off-topic, but you get it. It was a great day.

            Then Aria slammed into my room. “Heya!” she said, her voice too loud as usual. “Geez, turn on some lights in here.”

            She ignored my faint “no no no” and flicked on the light. I slumped over and plopped my forehead onto the desk, sighing heavily and closing my eyes.

            “Nuh uh, no dramatic huffing.” She grabbed me by the back of the neck and peeled me from the desk.

            “Ow,” I whined as I slumped back into the chair.

            Aria glared down at me. “Time to touch grass, loser,” she ordered, closing my laptop. “You’ve been cooped up in here forever.”

            “I don’t wanna,” I complained, crossing my arms. I made sure to let my dark bangs cover my eyes. Eye contact was uncomfortable.

            “Well, you’re gonna.” She grabbed my hand, muttered something about my skin being way too cold, and pulled me out of my chair.

            I sighed and let her, knowing that my skinny build was no match to fight her. I stood, feeling like a tall, dark shadow compared to her robust brightness. She led me out of the room, and I complained the whole way.

            “The UV is high right now, I looked it up,” I grumbled.

            “Amazing! Let’s get you some tanning.”

            “Nooo, I’ll sunburn.”

            “Spectacular.”

            “Not spectacular! It hurts! And it makes my skin all peely.”

            “Womp womp.”

            “It’s hot outside, too.”

            “Weakling.”

            “Says the one who thinks sixty degrees is freezing.”

            “It literally is, man.”

            “No, sixty is perfect,” I said. “But it’s ok to be wrong sometimes, I guess.”

            I puffed out my chest (what little thin ribcage I had), priding myself on the sharp comeback, but she just sighed.

            “Whoah, look, a window,” she said, stopping by the dining room, where a clear window displayed the outside world. “Ever seen a window, Elles? Can you say window? Win-doh.”

            I stared. The air looked hazy. “I can’t go out there, there’s pollen,” I said pointedly. “I’ll get allergies.”

            “Lucky you. Maybe you’ll develop a little immunity so you don’t get sick when someone sneezes within five feet of you.”

            Her hand tightened its grip on mine. She was a bit annoying, but somewhere deep down, I knew it was just her way of caring for me. Making sure that I didn’t just waste away in my room.

            I sighed yet again as she led me towards the back door. “Ok, ok, at least let me take off my jacket so I don’t bake.”

            She sniffed, let my hand slip from hers, and watched me take off my long black coat. “Gosh, you and that coat. I almost thought you couldn’t take it off because it was fused to your body or something. Never seen you without it.”

            It makes me feel safe, I thought, folding it neatly and setting it on the table. But I didn’t say that, of course. “I like it,” I said. “It adds to my outfit.”

            She eyed me like she was worried I would scurry off at the chance to escape. “Yeah, yeah, your outfit. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen you outside of those clothes.” She swept her gaze across my long-sleeved white blouse, my loose black tie, my slender black pants. “They can’t be that comfy.”

            “They’re comfortable to me,” I said.

            “Whatever floats your boat, I guess.” She pushed me towards the back door. “Alright, vampire, time to see the sun,” she snarked, then opened the door and led me out.

            The afternoon sun was bright, and I squinted, glad I had my thick bangs to help shade me slightly. I felt its heat hit my neck. That’s definitely gonna burn, I thought miserably.

            “Your yard is so nice! Wow! Look at this grass. It’s so green.” She kicked off her sandals. “C’mon, touch some grass.”

            I didn’t want to, but unfortunately, I didn’t want to dirty my house shoes, either. I took them off and set them on the doorstep.

            The grass was soft and cool, and I curled my toes into it. I stared at my feet. They were starkly pale compared to the fresh liveliness of the world.

            “Hey, look,” Aria said, dragging my gaze to where she was pointing. “You have a couple garden beds.”

            “Huh,” I said. I didn’t know that. Must have been from the previous renter.

            “And there’s some flowers growing in them!” She grabbed my hand again and ran to the dilapidated wood structures, and I stumbled after her awkwardly.

            I stared at the cluster of flowers that exploded from the bed. “Camellias,” I realized out loud. “I thought they only bloomed in winter.”

            “That’s cool.” Aria released my hand and snapped off a bloom, then handed it to me.

            I held it carefully and gently, admiring its delicate petals. It was a young flower, still blooming, but already it was so beautiful. So brave, blooming outside of its season and still thriving. How?

            Aria was watching me. “Aw, you look so cute. You’re like a little kid.”

            I felt my face warm. She always found a way to make me feel self-conscious, and even now, the image of my face in the mirror glared at me in my mind: my aggressive blue irises, my pale skin, my droopy lazy eye. I wasn’t ‘cute’, not by a long shot. And yet Aria was still my friend. She cared.

            I still have that camellia bloom framed on my wall. By my open window, of course.

❤️❤️❤️ I love this. It is beautiful. 

Arden dreamed of rescuing his Rapunzel from her tower. Well, her name was Pansy, and it was more of a bunker than a tower. And he was far from a dashing prince. He was just the delivery boy in such desperate need of money that, as soon as he got his driver's license, he took a job delivering groceries to the crazy people.

Pansy wasn’t crazy. At least he didn’t think she was. Her father was the crazy one. He went to extreme lengths to keep her safe within their bunker. She had spent her entire life there, never even going outside.

Today’s delivery was the standard weekly order, no additions. He pulled his cart into the entryway and watched as the door sealed and lights flashed around him.

He’d learned a long time ago not to sneak in gifts for Pansy. Once, he’d decided to bring her an actual pansy in a pot. The lights had gone haywire, alarms had sounded, and her father had shouted to him in words that he didn’t understand for nearly twenty minutes. The man still watched him with suspicion every time he came.

Once the lights deemed him safe, the second door unlocked, and he stepped inside to find Pansy waiting. At eighteen, Pansy was the picture of a storybook princess. She had fair skin and blond hair that hung in long waves down to her waist. He longed to put his hands on that waist, pull her close, and kiss her like they did in movies.

Her father was always right there, though. Arden barely got a chance to even talk to her.

Today, he wasn’t there. Arden glanced around the kitchen, expecting him to appear at any moment, before registering the worry on Pansy’s face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he took the bags from his cart and put them on the counter.

“I’m worried about Papa,” she said. She started pulling things out of the bags. “He left on an errand four days ago. I tried calling him, but he doesn’t answer.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “He always answers.”

Arden couldn’t help himself. He stepped closer and took her in his arms. Her head fell to his shoulder, and she cried. Arden wanted to feel sorry for her and think of a way to find her father for her, but all he could think of was that she smelled like a fresh spring day. How could she smell like a spring day when she had never even been out in one?

“Pansy.”

She looked up at him.

“How would you like to go outside?”

She shook her head and stepped back. “I can’t.”

“You’re father’s not here to stop you.”

She glanced at the door. “I can’t go out there, there’s pollen!”

“Pollen?”

“My mother died from pollen.”

“From pollen? I don’t think that’s possible. It might make you sneeze, but there’s not even that much out there this time of year.”

“Papa said never go outside.”

“What can it hurt?”

Her eyes darted toward the door.

“Besides,” he continued, “the best people to help find your father are out there. I could take you to them.”

She turned to the groceries and began putting them away. Arden helped, forcing himself to keep quiet and let her make her own decision. Once the last thing was put away, she turned to him.

“Okay. We’ll step outside. If it’s okay, we’ll go to someone who can find Papa.”

Arden smiled. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

She stood close to him in the entryway and looked around at the walls as the door behind them sealed. He took her hand in his and gave her a reassuring smile. The door in front of them opened. She took a deep breath then followed him out.

She looked around in wonder, putting a hand out to better feel the slight breeze. She bent down and touched the rocks under her feet. A tree grew not far from the door. She put a hand on it.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

A bee buzzed nearby, and she stared at it in wonder.

“You’ll want to leave those alone,” Arden warned as she reached for it.

The bee moved closer and landed on her finger. She giggled, and it flew away.

“See?” Arden said. “It’s not that bad out here.”

She looked at him, confused. “Why does Papa insist I stay inside, then?”

Arden shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he just thought it would be bad for you but didn’t really know.” He held out a hand. “We can ask when we find him.”

She smiled and took his hand.

Another bee appeared, buzzing around her head. Arden tried to wave it away but it seemed insistent. Then, there was another one. Then more. He tried to pull her to the car where they would be away from them, but she pulled her hand from his to swat at the bees.

“Be careful,” he said, “they sting.”

Then, they were swarming. He was forced to step back.

“Pansy!”

“Stop! Stop!” she yelled, but the bees didn’t stop. They just kept coming.

“Run to the house!” Arden shouted. “I’ll get the door.”

He ran ahead of her and opened the house door, hoping the lights would stop any bees that decided to join them.

She started running towards him. Bees covered her so that he couldn’t even see her anymore. Then, she fell. Arden stepped forward as if to catch her, but the bees kept him back. Her form seemed to melt to the ground.

Then, just as quickly as they had come, they disappeared. Arden stared, but there was no Pansy. He glanced inside just to make sure she hadn’t run past him, but she was nowhere.

“Pansy?” he quietly called.

There was nothing of her left but a slight scent of springtime.

His rescue had failed, and her father was going to kill him.

I'd be grateful for critique!

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A Question of Worth

“I can’t go out there, there’s pollen.” As always, the words came as a vibration through the metallic skull, transmitted across the stainless steel table upon which Jack had set it. The effect was that of a muted, bassy scrape, less of a voice than of an auditory hallucination. 

Jack paid the voice as little heed as he could manage. As usual, Jack pulled on his vac suit and walked right by the skull on its table as he entered the hab’s airlock. The doors ground shut, the chamber depressurized, and with a silent swing he had access again to the granite mountainscape of Verdeshore.

Or rather, he had access to a tiny, fenced-off portion of the mountain and the mine beneath it.

Jack was alone on the mountainside. This bit of nothing, this meaningless chance to barely eke out a living, was what Jack had won in the emigration lottery when he’d left his home planet. His life was in the Company’s hands. That would be true until he miraculously came into some money.

He kept hoping the skull would be that miracle. There was a whole city buried under Verdeshore, a place once inhabited by colonists who’d died out when their atmosphere failed long ago. Only a few portions of buildings were accessible to Jack within the confines of his stake. Old industrial depots, residential hives. Broken streets and twisted remnants of civilian vehicles. There was material there that could be reclaimed by the physiochemical plant back in the hab.

But Jack could never for a moment consider reclaiming the metallic skull, the polite little enigma which he’d had for so long that he couldn’t even remember where he’d found it. No, that was surely far more valuable than its elemental components.

Jack made regular requests to the Company’s mainframe as to his find’s potential value. There was vast space between his colony world and the nearest worlds where the Company had its depots. An ordinary transmission was useless—Jack, each and every time, was forced to estimate a vector and then use the hab’s radio array to blast an intense payload of signal toward its fuzzy destination. It took weeks of long evenings after the day’s work to do the calculations each time, and one could never more than halfway hope that the signal would reach its destination.

And so he would continue to ask.

The day finally came when a new star burned in the sky—barely a twinkle at first, but then brighter. Jack went about his routine with utmost patience, both scavenging and calculating. Who knew? Maybe the light was just a passing trawler.

But eventually the star disappeared. The mothership (for so it was) vanished in a streaking orbit around the planet while it sent a blood-red, trilobed shuttle to the surface.

Jack watched from outside the hab in his vac suit. There was no air to be stirred by its jet-thrust descent, no air to carry the noise of the falling and burning.

The shuttle landed. Two figures emerged from its on-ramp. Their yellow-red suits bore no Company livery.

This surprise stirred no emotion in Jack, except mild confusion. Well, these strangers were here now. If they meant him harm, there was nothing Jack could do about it.

[Hello,] he sent over short-range radio.

The figures paused. One returned, [Hey there. Are you Jack? We got your message.]

[I’m Jack. I’ve been sending a lot of messages. Who are you? You’re not from the Company.]

There was a long pause. [Yeah,] returned the second figure. [The Company isn’t around anymore. We’re freelancers who picked up your signal in transit.]

The first stranger added, [We don’t know anything about the price of that skull, sorry. But we can take you off-world if you want. We’re leaving the system now, going to Rilliste.]

Jack had never heard of Rilliste. [I’m fine staying here. Got plenty of work. When I’m ready to go, I’ll have a Company ship pick me up.]

The second figure sent, [Uh, I think there’s interference. I said the Company’s gone.]

Jack turned and keyed for the airlock to open. [Come inside. Let’s chat in the air.]

They followed him slowly in. Their faceplates were fixated on his own as the airlock sealed, as though any of them could see through each other’s alloy shielding into what lay beneath.

Soon the air announced its hissing return, and the inner door to the hab could be opened. Jack trudged into the hab, the strangers at his back. He raised hands to his neck to release his vac suit’s helmet mechanism, then turned to see that neither guest was removing their own garish flight suit.

“What’s the matter?” asked the skull on the table beside him.

Neither stranger moved. The first one sent, [Jack, how long have you been here?]

“Since the Company gave me mining rights,” said the skull.

[When was that?]

“I can’t remember.”

[Why’d you remove your head and keep it inside the base?]

Jack had no idea what they were walking about, but the skull answered nonetheless. “It was necessary. I can’t go out there, there’s pollen. That’s what woke me up again. It wants me to return and tell it what I’ve learned. But the Company gave me my purpose. I won’t betray them.” It gave a rattling chuckle. “The work must be done. Pollen or no pollen. But thanks for giving my body something to think about. I really think it has learned to ignore me.”

Jack patted the space above the shoulders, where his own head belonged, but found it vacant. What a strange turn of events. No matter. When his guests eventually left, pursuing whatever uninteresting ends they might have in mind, Jack returned to his daily work, his nightly calculations. Next time he’d get it right. It wouldn’t be long now before the Company told him exactly how much this metallic skull was worth.