Root of it All

"Heathen. Order in chaos."

We all looked at each other in shock at what the caretaker had just said. It wasn't disbelief that he could talk at all after having something so atrocious come out of his mouth. It was in disbelief that he spoke about Heathen.

"Heathen?" We all stood up and readied ourselves for action. "You know about Heathen too?" I asked him.

The caretaker stared at me. He looked lost in the state of his Fractal. But he did not reply. His mouth began to open again.

"It's coming!" Kyra called out. In that moment, an even thicker knot of roots shot out of the man's mouth, stabbing again into the back wall of the room. We'd all avoided the strike, but we didn't expect what came next. The roots in the wall began to spread out towards the ground below our feet, and with roots now scattered across the floor like a spider web, branches suddenly began spiking-out from beneath. We were all jumping back and forth, trying to avoid getting impaled by the sharp branches that were popping in and out of the roots on the ground in increasingly fast intervals. Eventually, it was beginning to get too fast, and soon, dodging around wouldn't be enough.

In the moment, I had to think quick. I glanced back at the caretaker who continued to stand still, as he was bound by the roots connecting his mouth to the wall. I realized that everything was connected to a single origin point: the caretaker himself.

I began bolting towards him with my knife out, ready to injure him in any way I could to put a halt to his Fractal. But it seemed as though he anticipated this. Even while he was bound by the roots, stuck in place, his eyes darted in my direction, noticing me.

"Shit—!" I realized I'd put myself into a bad position. I suddenly felt roots snatch my leg and begin to wrap and tighten around my ankle, tripping me onto the ground where a branch was about to pop out. As it did, I'd barely rolled out of the way, still restricted by the roots around my leg. I understood that getting to the caretaker himself would have to be a team task.

"To stop all of this, we need to get to the origin point of the Fractal!" I yelled. Turning my head back, I saw that Kyra had been caught in the same trap as me. Her legs were being intertwined with roots.

"No!" She tried to shake it off, but it was useless. That's when Cynthia ran by the two of us and tapped each of our shoulders. I suddenly felt the surface of my skin tensing with solidity.

"My Fractal can block the attacks!" She told us. We'd just been imbued with her hardening Fractal. But then suddenly, she was bound by the roots, tripping her onto the floor the same way I'd fallen. Now the three of us were stuck. I tried using my knife to cut through the roots, but it wouldn't work. It was too hard. The popping of the branches began to get faster, and the roots were slowly making their way around our entire bodies. If we didn't put an end to the caretaker's Fractal, we'd soon be completely enveloped.

Cling! Clang!

Across the room, Garren was still standing. Branches from beneath were popping-up and hitting him, yet the attacks were bouncing off his body like it was metal. It seemed as though Cynthia had given him the touch of her Fractal as well.

"You have to get to the caretaker to end this, Garren!" I said aloud. I understood that none of us had the capabilities to get out of our own predicaments. Only Garren did with his Fractal.

"Urgh…" He was scratching at his suit. As the roots slowly made its way up his body, and as branches were striking his impenetrable body, Garren could only do one thing.

Scratch.

"It's itchy… I'm getting too itchy!"

I realized Garren was having an eczema flare-up.

"No… Not now…" I gritted my teeth. "Don't let it take hold of you, Garren! We need to all get out of here alive!"

"Urgh… Argh…" Garren was scratching at his suit. He was slowly getting more frantic as the itch seemed to increase.

"Not again… Urgh… Not again!"

I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. "Garren!"

His scratching became quicker, and it looked like he was scratching harder. The roots that had made its way up to his neck were now being scratched off by his nails alone. It didn't seem like he even noticed, but he was scratching the roots off of his entire body. He was liberating himself through the itch.

"Itchy! So itchy!" Garren was breathing heavily, scratching all over his body in an agitated state. He suddenly screamed in agony, as if bound not anymore by the roots, but completely by his insatiable itch.

His body quickly jerked in motion as he spasmed around the room. His hands were raised like claws and he began scratching at everything, including himself. The roots in the floor and on the walls were being sliced through like butter, but they grew back in an instant.

"You have to cut the source of it all!" I tried telling him. But I could tell he didn't hear me. Garren was lost in his itch-triggered state. He was frantically moving around the room cutting at everything, until eventually, he scratched at the thick knot of roots that connected the caretaker to the wall, serrating directly through it. It collapsed to the floor, with one half of it shooting back into the caretaker's mouth. The rest of it that was connected to the wall began to dissolve, along with all the roots and branches along the ground as well. Our legs were no longer bound in the moment. We stood up strong.

"Get him!" Kyra yelled. By now, we'd all understood that we had to get to the caretaker through a collective effort. As we ran towards him in a spread-out formation, his mouth began to open once again. It was aimed at me. The roots shot out of his mouth, but this time, I predicted the timing. I threw my knife up, parrying the roots and deflecting it towards the ceiling. As it stabbed into the ceiling, roots began to grow from it again, this time along the ceiling and slowly down the walls. It looked as though the entire room was slowly being covered in roots from top to bottom.

Slightly behind due to my deflection, I called out towards the three of my comrades at the front running right at him. "Finish it! Before the roots reach the floor!" As I said this, they were already beginning to creep down the sides. If they didn't attack now, we'd soon all be bound by the roots again.

"Fuck—!!!" Garren shouted as he jumped. The windbreaker he wore had been slashed apart by now, as he continued to scratch at his body. But for a moment, while in the air, he recognized the threat of the caretaker apart from his agonizing itch. He raised his hands away from his body, and slashed downwards as he fell onto the caretaker, right in front of Kyra and Cynthia.

"Ourgh—!!!" The caretaker fell to the floor. The roots from his mouth unwound apart as Garren scratched continuously at his body, eventually slashing right through. All the wood in the room had been stained by the caretaker's blood. The roots from the ceiling finally stopped growing, and all of it dissolved once again.

Even though the Fractal had finally been disabled, Garren continued to scratch. He scratched and he scratched and he scratched. The caretaker's body by now had been completely split into two halves by Garren's constant scratching.

"You don't need to scratch anymore!" Cynthia told him. Garren looked back at her, then back at the caretaker, reacting with an expression as if he'd only just noticed the caretaker was already dead. He then began to scratch at himself.

"Garren, stop." I tried to get near him. But then I remembered that he wanted us to keep our distance whenever he had uncontrollable flare-ups. I didn't know if this was one of them.

"I can't…" He sobbed. He was beginning to cry. He looked to me like he was in pain and regret, as if he didn't want to do what he was doing but couldn't stop anyways. Suddenly, he dropped to the floor.

"Garren!" Kyra rushed to his side. She immediately checked his pulse. "He's okay. He's breathing."

"It's just like what happened during the test. It seems as though he collapses after using his Fractal," I said.

"No." Cynthia corrected me. "Not his Fractal. He's probably drained after having a flare-up like that… It looked really painful and tiring…"

We looked at our surroundings, tired ourselves. What started as a quaint living room was now an absolute mess, with holes and scratches along every inch of it. In front of us, the caretaker was finally dead, divided in half. By his side was Henry, still sat in his chair with a neck twisted too far. Then, at our feet was an unconscious Garren, the true savior of the battle we'd just had. Only he had the capabilities to enact offense against the caretaker's Fractal.

I was sad for him, yet thankful.

"Rest in peace, Mr. Bautista." Kyra sighed, saddened at our failure to get the information we needed from this confrontation in the first place.