A Hero?

'That's the story so far.'

'The longer I stay the more free my thoughts become.'

'Sorry for calling that golden trail piss earlier, I didn't mean it.'

She thought as she laid on the ground while looking at the flower and kicking her legs in the air like a girl at a slumber party.

'Ah right, here's something new.'

During these few years, she had developed a habit of writing a diary in her head.

She stood up and walked up to a tree, before skillfully climbing it.

Hopping from branch to branch, she thought.

'Every now and then, I see a faint golden trail other than my own being brought to the flower. Some bigger, some smaller.'

'It slowly shrinks and fades after some time though.'

'I guess there are other victims besides me. Feels bad man.'

During these years here, her conduct and speech have also changed. Whose wouldn't?

As she hopped around the branches of the surrounding trees, she suddenly noticed a large amount of golden trails making their way to the flower.

Stopping in her tracks, she sat down on the branch.

'Huh. There are quite a few.'

Falling backwards, she hung from the branch with her legs as she observed.

'I haven't seen something like this happen before. At most 3 or 4 trails of gold would arrive here together and even that is rare.'

A moment later, she fell down from the tree and landed gracefully.

As she did so, she felt something behind her.

Turning around, she saw how an entire wall of gold flew past her, sending a strong breeze through her hair.

Turning to the flower, she saw how all of the gold was consumed.

The gold did not stop flowing either.

After a long while of just standing by the side and watching, she saw the flower react.

What was a 6 petalled lotus flower before was now covered by a faint golden light bubble.

It glowed and shone.

After a second, it cracked and burst apart like glass.

The lotus turned back into a bud.

After a second it started to shake.

She did not make any comparisons or comments in her head now as she only silently studied the flower.

The lotus stopped shaking after gold stopped travelling towards it.

The lotus then started to slowly bloom. But it was... strange.

Tendrils of light that held slight similarity to lotus petals bloomed out in a spiral. She counted them and found about 9.

The flower itself remained in a bud.

After shaking a bit more, it bloomed out in a burst.

Some invisible force was launched out into the surroundings.

The flower was coloured silver. The closer to the middle of the flower you got, the more the colour turned into a scarlet vermilion.

The light that the lotus emanated held every colour that she knew.

She observed as closely as she could and found nearly 12 colours.

It was indeed a beautiful flower.

As she observed the flower and her surroundings to find what type of effect it had, she noticed something.

A light blue trail.

It was similar to the regular golden trails that she often sees.

Looking at the direction that it came from, she dismissed it while observing the surroundings.

'The flower most definitely had an effect.'

After a while, she could not find much of a difference.

Although she did notice how the golden trail that led her to the flower became stronger.

It was the only thing she noticed.

It was then that she heard voices.

'?'

After a long, long while. She finally heard the sound of people.

'Isn't this bad?'

She thought.

'I'm practically naked.'

With that thought in mind, she climbed a tall tree and decided to observe.

'I can't go more than about 60 meters away from this place, I measured it in my free time.'

With that thought, she climbed as high as she could, reaching a total of about 12 meters.

The trees around here weren't THAT tall so it was the best she could manage.

As she sat on the branch, she soon saw that the voices were coming from the direction of the blue trail of light.

'So do living people have blue trails and dead people gold?'

She looked at the trail with narrowed eyes.

'No, I definitely heard more than one person and yet there is only one trail.'

The first person she saw was a man that seemed to have an appearance similar to a person from the same place as her.

He was wearing heavy armour and had a giant sword on his back.

Then she saw a huge dark-skinned man with cat ears and two women, one of whom carried a giant samurai sword.

'Was this the thing called 'cosplaying' or 'larping'?'

She asked herself as the strange group looked around the area in astonishment.

After a while and some weird screech from one of the women, she was done with them.

'Just a bunch of weirdos.'

She jumped down from the tree and looked at the party, none of them seemed to notice her.

'Thought so. I am dead after all.'

Feeling relieved that they couldn't see ghosts since her pride as a woman would be destroyed, she walked up to them and tried to push them.

'Nothing.'

Hearing a splash, she was shocked to see that behind her, the man in heavy armour was walking through the water of the pond.

'You idiot! You can't do that!'

She started panicking and yelling in as many languages as she could. In her mind, of course.

'Nein! No! Ei! Ie! Niet!'

She saw how the pond was disrupted and started to grow murky. Before she could yell any more, the man in armour yanked the flower out of the pond like a barbarian.

'Ahh! You maniac! I take it back! I didn't even once think in the back of my mind that you were handsome! Stoooppp!'

She flailed her arms and started punching the man.

As she noticed how she was still being ignored, she grew frustrated.

The flower was starting to rot.

'I told you! I knew you were a terrible idiot the moment I saw you!'

She thought, loudly.

The man himself also noticed and slowly placed the flower back while the group conversed.

'Yes! Put it back! My soul is in there!'

The only thing she could understand out of all the strange words coming out of their mouths was 'Hero' and 'Mmm'.

'Hero? Hero!? If this disappointment of an armour stand is a hero then the ruler of that big cold place from back home was a saint!'

She then saw the petite woman with dark red hair start doing something similar to praying in her eyes.

'Yes! Pray that I don't send you idiots to the darkest pit of mud I can find! I was actually doing just fine here near this pond you know!'

As she saw the man they called the hero grab the praying woman's hand and then yank out the flower from the pond again, she started to scream even louder. In her head.

Just as she was about to say a pretty bad swear word, she found herself somewhere else.

Instead of trees covered with moss, there were pillars covered with gold.

Instead of grass and flowers, there was red and gold carpet.

Instead of a pond, there was an old couple and a few kids sitting on thrones.

Instead of bugs and small animals, there were knights and swords

The man they called the hero then yelled something and raised the flower.

'What are you doing?! That's delicate!'

She thought as she punched the hero in the face, only for nothing to happen.

'If the flower rots away so does my soul that's trapped there you know! Bring it baaack!!'

Before she could loudly think anything else, the old man on the throne yelled something and the flower where her soul was got dragged someplace else.

'Stoop! That's basically my home! I don't want to be a homeless ghost! Who'se ever heard of a homeless ghoost~?!'

She thought with imaginary tears in her eyes.

As she followed the men who ran away with the flower, she soon found herself being dragged through stone and metal walls because she was too far away from the flower.

She couldn't keep up with their speed.

After finally stopping in a grey wall, she started climbing through towards the flower.

'Stupid flower. Stupid hero. Stupid wall. Stupid knights.'

As she finally crawled out of the stone and metal wall after a long struggle, she landed on the floor.

'Hey... at least I know I can go through walls now. All I need now is the ability to fly and I can become that one ghost guy from that video box back at my last home.'

She looked around and saw that the flower was almost all rotten.

'... F*ck.'

The flower was surrounded by weird glowing pentagrams and hexagrams.

A ton of people in white suits were surrounding the place while pointing their hands at the flower.

'What cult did I stumble on?'