The jungle pulsed.

 

Not with sound, not even with visible motion, but with a rhythm. A breath beneath the vines, a hush in the air. Even from the glass walls of her reinforced lab dome, Dr. Mara Elen could feel it. A low, almost imperceptible thrum just on the edge of hearing. It wasn’t loud, not exactly, it was more like pressure, like a presence, like something vast and patient humming through the jungle's roots and leaves, into the steel bones of her outpost, and finally into the marrow of her bones.

 

She told herself it was seismic activity. Something innocuous. Minor tectonic shifts beneath the forest floor. The kind of ambient motion no one bothered to worry about unless it cracked glass or sent instruments flying. Or maybe it was a trick of the wind, the way it twisted around the trunks of those monstrous, spiralled trees and made them groan, made them whisper.

 

Or maybe the satellites, those old, grinding terraforming machines orbiting above like blind gods were broadcasting low-frequency signals she wasn’t meant to pick up. Some long-forgotten maintenance pulse bleeding down from the sky, brushing against the top of the atmosphere and vibrating the canopies below.

 

But that was a lie.

 

And worse, she knew it.

 

The rhythm didn’t come from above. It didn’t come from under the soil, either, not really. It came from the center. From that place deep in the grove, where the moss grew thickest and light pooled strangely. Where the trees gave way to something older, something rooted not just in biology but in something stranger. Something intelligent.

 

It pulsed like a heartbeat, but not human. Not animal. It had no urgency. No fear. Only awareness. Each wave of it reached her a second before she could register it, as though it had already anticipated her thoughts. It didn’t knock on the door of her mind, it stood on the threshold, quietly waiting, letting her pretend the door wasn’t already open a crack.

 

And every time she ignored it, every time she tried to bury herself in readings, or data, or dead silence, it was there. Humming. Waiting. Not speaking. Not yet.

 

It didn’t need to.

 

She pressed her palm to the glass wall now, watching the jungle glow faintly in the twilight. Nothing moved. Nothing rustled. But still, it was breathing. Watching. Listening.

 

And it had heard her.

 

She leaned over her desk, brushing a brown curl from her temple as she reviewed the morning’s scans. The holographic display flickered above the console, showing the outline of Specimen Theta-9, the central organism at the heart of this alien jungle. A mass of tendrils, root-like structures, and one enormous core: spherical, veined, and faintly pulsing with bioluminescent blue.

 

It was alive. It had always been alive. But now. Now there was evidence that it had become self-aware.

 

Mara’s fingers twitched, her mind restless. The air inside the dome was stale. Her thoughts, slow. She had been dreaming again, vivid, erotic dreams where silken vines cradled her wrists and brushed against the inside of her thighs. Dreams where a voice that wasn’t a voice asked her wordless questions, each one curling in her belly like heat.

 

Her body seemed to effortlessly respond before her mind did. Moments where her breath caught without her realizing as if in a dying anticipation, when her skin felt just a little too warm, when the silence in her ears was shaped like a presence. Ever since she had been stationed to a solo-mission in this lone forest she could feel the power and will of her mind slipping away from her. Though subtle at first, she couldn't help but feel it in the empty buzz of her mind or the warmth that tingled in her chest without any warning at all. It had all started on the first night. 

 

Her first dream. That dream started with the low hum of something soothing and comforting that etched itself into the back of her mind, almost drilling into her skull. It felt numbing, it felt good. She could feel her legs moving under her effortlessly, as if her body knew where to move while her mind felt trapped in dulling thoughts. She sought further into the forest, each step making her mind feel further emptier as the hum of pleasure became louder in her head. She approached it. A large being, a large plant, and she shivered under the slick, smooth sensation of its plant-like tendrils as they wrapped around her and slowly eased their way under her modest labcoat.

 

That was the first inkling of truth as she realized she wasn’t alone out here, not really. She woke up that morning in a cold sweat, an unbearable horniness plaguing her entire body. She could barely satisfy her own lust, eventually being left in a drooling and mushy state once she finally finished her own self-satisfaction. With each blink she could see glistening stars, her head throbbing as the drool on her lips dripped down her chin to the pillow beside her. It was unlike her.

 

She hadn’t touched herself since the second night. Not since she awoke panting with the sheets twisted around her legs, her heart hammering and the scent of jungle flowers clinging to her skin despite never leaving the lab. She worried for her own sanity, her own lack of self-control and she told herself she would refuse to continue feeding into her lust. She called it coincidence, refusing to believe that such an organism could have an effect on her. Years as a xenobotanist, yet she had never heard of a being that could affect the mind of another. She refused to believe it could be reality.

 

Still, it called.

 

She pulled on her field suit. The thick fabric, woven with microfiltration threads and impact gel, sealed against her skin with a tight hiss, clinging slightly before adjusting to her body’s contours. The weight of it was comforting: sterile, practical, familiar. Layers of protection between her and the outside world. Between her and it. She tugged the hood over her head last, and it locked into place with a mechanical whisper, leaving only her mouth and eyes visible through the curved visor. She caught her reflection in the glass wall, her lips parted slightly, a sheen of sweat already beginning to gather on her brow.

 

A breath. Then another.

 

She stepped out into the twilight.

 

The jungle greeted her like a wet mouth. The heat was immediate, rich and heavy, wrapping around her like silk that clung too close. The air was saturated with scent, moist earth, warm bark, fermenting leaf litter. But threaded through it all was something else: sweet, almost narcotic. Not flowers, not quite. It was the smell of ripeness, of things swollen to bursting, of soft skin just before it splits. Something intimate. Something ripe with intention.

 

Beneath her boots, the moss yielded soundlessly, as if reluctant to resist. It glowed faintly in pale green clusters, their bioluminescence shifting with her movement. Light pooled beneath her with every step, fading behind her like footsteps in water. The deeper she went, the dimmer the sky grew, the thick canopy above closing over her in overlapping shades of emerald and umber.

 

She followed the trail, half-formed and organic, winding in curves rather than angles as if shaped not by human traffic but by the memory of movement. Her gloved fingers brushed past trailing vines, some of them twitching ever so slightly, though she told herself it was just residual wind.

 

Clipped to her hip were the sample vials. Glassy, weightless things. Clean and clinical. She tried to focus on them. She reminded herself of the purpose: to collect material from the central bloom. Tissue if possible. Secretion if available. Possibly a culture swab, if the surface showed viable growth. Standard procedure.

 

She told herself it was just another collection run.

 

She told herself she needed to isolate a new compound, analyse its chemical makeup, and report back with tangible data.

 

But as she walked deeper into the glowing green, her heart began to thud heavier in her chest in time with something she couldn't quite name. She didn't want to admit how her fingers flexed inside the gloves. Or how her thighs brushed just a little tighter with each step. Or how the vial case at her hip was the only hard, human thing left between her and the pulse that lived beneath the vines.

 

She was going to take samples.

 

That was all.

 

And then she saw it.

 

The Bloom.

 

It rose from the soil like a deity sleeping in slow motion. It was immense, elegant, and unnaturally serene. Half-plant, half-presence. Its surface was slick with dew that shimmered under the dim, dappled canopy light, skin-like and almost opalescent. Veins of bioluminescent blue ran along its folds in languid, branching paths, as if they were tracing thoughts instead of nutrients. They pulsed not steadily, but rhythmically, subtly responsive in time with her heartbeat.

 

Or maybe it was the other way around.

 

She couldn’t be sure. Her breath had already slowed. Her pulse had deepened. It was as though her body was trying to synchronize with it, like it was more natural, somehow, than her own rhythm.

 

The tendrils surrounding the central body were long, flexible, tapering to delicate points. At first they lay still, curled loosely across the mossy earth, like petals half-spent from bloom. But as Mara took one slow, cautious step closer, a few of them stirred.

 

No wind. No visible trigger.

 

They just… moved.

 

The motion wasn’t threatening. It was slow, exploratory, like something tasting the air. The tip of one tendril lifted a fraction, quivering slightly, the way a cat’s whiskers twitch when they sense movement. Its surface was smooth, faintly iridescent, and wet-looking, though the moisture didn’t bead like water. It shimmered like oil under light, like silk at dusk. She could see it reacting to her. 

 

And then, one tendril extended.

 

It uncoiled with surreal grace, rising into the still air like a dancer's limb. Not rigid, not sharp, but fluid and deliberate. It arced gently toward her, as if drawn to her heat, or breath, or perhaps something deeper. It hovered just a few feet away, then inched closer, measuring her, scenting her, tasting something invisible in the space between them.

 

Mara froze.

 

Her body obeyed instinct, even if her mind was too caught in awe to give clear commands. Every nerve in her skin came alive beneath the field suit, suddenly hyper-aware. Her heart began to thrum with something between anticipation and fear, but the fear was hollow. Half-formed. The kind that sparked when boundaries were about to be crossed. When curiosity overruled caution.

 

The tendril continued its slow approach.

 

Her fingers twitched. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to retreat or reach out.

 

Because the truth was, there was a part of her that had been waiting for this.

 

“Are you… trying to speak to me?” she whispered, her breath fogging the inside of her helmet for the briefest moment. Her voice was soft, more confession than question, the words tasting half-absurd as they left her mouth. She knew it couldn’t hear her, not through sealed glass, not in any way that made sense.

 

But still, something answered.

 

A pulse, not of light or motion, but something deeper. Internal. A warmth that brushed her mind like a sigh, barely touching her thoughts, like a gloved hand grazing a sleeping face. It didn’t enter. It didn’t invade. It touched. Lightly. Respectfully. And then withdrew just enough to let her know it could return.

 

Her body reacted before her brain could catch up.

 

Her spine loosened, that subtle tension she hadn’t noticed, gritted teeth, clenched jaw, fingers curled in anticipation, eased in one long, shudderless exhale. Her shoulders, high and tight in their sockets for the past hour, dropped like they’d been gently pressed down. Her tongue felt looser in her mouth. Her limbs relaxed. A soft descent, as if she were being submerged in water she hadn’t realized was warm until it had already reached her chest.

 

She blinked slowly. Once. Twice.

 

It was subtle. So subtle that she might have convinced herself it was a trick of adrenaline, or oxygen levels, or heat exhaustion. But she was trained. Precise. She knew herself. And this wasn’t an accident. This was an invited stillness.

 

The tendril in front of her paused, suspended in the air just inches from her faceplate, its tip swaying in a barely-there motion. Then it moved again, forward a fraction more, and made contact.

 

A single, soft tap against her visor.

 

It was not aggressive. Not testing. It was like a fingertip. A knuckle. The briefest, most intimate touch a stranger can offer.

 

And it wasn’t meaningless.

 

Because at that moment, something changed. Not outside. Not even inside her body. But within, behind the noise, beneath the clinical thoughts and scientific rationalizations. 

 

A presence spoke. Not in language. Not in sound.

 

But in something older.

 

It didn’t form syllables. It didn’t push into her mind like a voice shouting through static. It resonated like the memory of being asked a question in a dream and understanding it without knowing how.

 

 

Two words.

 

And yet not words at all.

 

The short sentence buzzed into the back of her mind, a soft whisper that wasn't spoken out loud but one that had been deeply routed into her subconscious. They arrived all at once, not sequentially, but completely, like a chord instead of a melody. Not a demand. Not even a request. A genuine question, held delicately in mental hands and offered to her. Soft. Inviting. Perfectly still, waiting for the shape of her answer.

 

It wasn’t intrusive.

 

It didn’t push.

 

It offered.

 

A question without weight, without pressure, suspended in her mind like a silk thread catching golden light. It lingered there, just out of reach, like the thought you almost remember in the moments between waking and sleep. It didn’t demand an answer.

 

It only waited.

 

But somehow, the waiting was more powerful than any command.

 

Mara felt her knees weaken. Not with fear, not even with awe, but with something more dangerous: invitation. The voice, not a voice, had coiled gently through her mind, not gripping, not controlling… but nestling. Curling around her thoughts like warm breath in cold air. Stroking the edges of her consciousness with phantom fingers, soft and slow, as if reacquainting itself with a memory of her that had never existed.

 

And it felt good. Too good. Euphoric and full, like something deep inside her that was quiet and empty for too long, had been filled with radiant warmth. A fullness that made her stomach flutter and her throat tighten. Her skin tingled beneath the field suit, as though the Bloom's awareness had seeped through the fabric, brushing against her in ways no physical touch could replicate.

 

Her lips parted inside the helmet. She didn’t notice.

 

A deep, forbidden part of her wanted to say yes. That part was soft, hidden, and long-unfed. The part that craved surrender without consequence. Not just submission, but release. To stop thinking. To stop holding. To lean into that heat she’d only known in dreams, dreams that had come night after night, vivid and wet, and left her gasping under tangled sheets, whispering please to no one.

 

To give in, even for a moment.

 

Her heart throbbed in her chest, not like panic, but like arousal dressed as anticipation. Every beat sent blood low, heavy in her hips, coiling in her thighs. She felt the growing ache in her core, an echo of want that wasn’t entirely hers, or maybe was, now that the Bloom had stirred it to the surface. Her body felt hot in her protective suit, a dizzying itch beginning to surface in the center of her mind. The urge to just let go, give in and thoughtlessly let herself become a part of whatever this creature wanted from her.

 

And yet, she stepped back.

 

Not from fear.

 

Not from doubt.

 

But from the certainty that once she said yes, once she leaned into that impossible, velvet-soft presence threading itself through her senses, she wouldn’t want to say no again. Not because she couldn’t. But because she wouldn’t desire to. She didn’t trust how much she already missed the touch that hadn’t even touched her. She knew as soon as she surrendered herself to it, she would lose herself entirely in the endless empty-headed euphoria that teased her in her dreams each night.

 

The tendril began to retreat.

 

It did so slowly, with grace, curling back on itself in a fluid, deliberate motion, as though it had rehearsed this gesture countless times. Not recoiling. Not withdrawing in disappointment. But arching back in a motion that felt ceremonial, almost intimate. Like a bow. A farewell. A promise folded into posture.

 

Not in defeat, but in recognition.

 

As though the simple act of stepping back was sacred. As though her hesitation was worthy of being honored.

 

There was no impatience in the motion. No tension. Only a vast, patient composure, like that of an ancient being who had offered the same question before, to others, maybe many, maybe few, and had learned the art of waiting. Its stillness was not passive. It was aware. Listening. Marking every breath she took, every ripple of doubt and desire shifting through her body.

 

Mara could feel it, even as the tendril pulled away: the subtle tether that still connected them. Not a vine. Not a touch. But a thread, thin and warm, stretching from the center of the Bloom to coil around her heart. It didn’t pull. It didn’t tug. It simply existed, vibrating faintly with a tension that wasn’t physical but emotional, sensual. A presence that didn’t leave when the body did.

 

As the tendril coiled in upon itself once more, nestling back among the others like a hand returning to its lap, the curve of its motion suggested something almost human. Not mimicry. Not imitation. But knowing. A recognition of gesture, of rhythm, of meaning. As if it understood exactly what it was doing, and the effect it had left behind.

 

It knew.

 

It knew what it had awakened in her.

 

It knew that something inside her had answered, even if her voice hadn’t.

 

And worst of all, it knew it could wait.

 

Compared to the other hungers in her life, fleeting, frantic or desperate for satisfaction, The Bloom’s desire was something else entirely. Not predatory. Not aggressive. But eternal. A hunger that could endure a thousand silences. One that didn’t grow weaker with time, but deeper. One that could curl into the corners of her thoughts, into her dreams, into her longing, and make a home there.

 

It waited like soil waits for seed.

 

Like breath waits for lungs.

 

Like yes waits behind the lips of someone who hasn’t said it. Yet.

 

Inside the helmet, Mara exhaled shakily. Her breath caught on the glass. Her lips were flushed, parted. Her skin prickled with a heat that had nothing to do with the jungle. She could feel the wetness gathering low between her legs, unwelcome only in how deeply familiar it felt, like it had been building for days, maybe longer. Her thighs pressed together instinctively. Her heart just would not slow as she stared at the retreated tentacle that let itself lay amongst dozens of others.

 

And still, beneath all the heat, beneath all of the trembling restraint Mara mustered, one silent thought pulsed in time with the fading glow. A thought so quiet she almost couldn't hear it at all, but the soft and warm word tingled in the back of her mind in a giddying array.