[Louis's Side]
The wall of bushes behind me didn't budge—no matter how many times I slapped it like a broken vending machine refusing to drop my snack.
"RONETTE!" I bellowed. "If you're dead, I swear I'll kill you again!"
Nothing. Not even a whimper.
Well—almost nothing.
The air shifted. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up like they were trying to evacuate.
Then, a low rumble rolled beneath my boots, deep and guttural, like the earth had indigestion.
No. Worse.
It was the sound of something ancient, something hungry.
I turned. Slowly. Very, very slowly.
The ground cracked.
No—split open, a jagged mouth tearing through the garden's skin. Dirt crumbled in slow motion from the edges, like the earth itself was coughing up something it had tried to forget.
From the yawning gap, something heaved into view. Towering. Furred. Draped in battered, rust-choked chainmail that looked stolen from the corpse of a forgotten legend.
A badger.
Ten feet tall.
Armor-clad.
Battle-worn.
And in one gnarled paw, it hefted an axe. A real one—rust-flecked, chipped, heavy enough to turn bone into paste.
I blinked. "Is that… a medieval badger warrior?"
It stared at me.
I stared back.
It blinked.
I didn't.
Then it roared.
Not the cute snuffly kind of badger growl you'd expect from a children's cartoon.
This was a war cry. Deep. Bitter. Echoing with memories of burrows conquered and enemies buried in shallow graves.
"Well," I muttered, cracking my knuckles. "At least it's not another gnome."
The badger swung its axe.
I bolted.
Sprinting. Screaming. My legs kicked so hard they might've belonged to a cartoon character whose life depended on comedic speed. Which it did.
But the garden wasn't done. Oh no—this nightmare had layers.
The trees around me shuddered. Bark split with a mechanical screech. Vines snapped back like loaded springs, revealing a marching band of sentient sunflowers.
Wearing sunglasses.
Each brandished a trumpet.
They didn't play music.
They fired lasers.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" I shrieked, twisting as a beam sizzled through my sleeve. "WHAT KIND OF GARDEN IS THIS?! WHY DOES A BADGER HAVE AN AXE?!"
Behind me, the towering badger bellowed something guttural that sounded suspiciously like "FOR THE QUEEN!"
'Which queen?' I thought wildly. 'Garden royalty? Queen Bee? Or some pet hamster crowned in a leaf hat?'
No time to debate rodent monarchy.
I tripped. Face-first over a normal garden gnome—thank every pantheon—and slammed into what I prayed was just moss and not carnivorous cabbage in disguise.
Then, from the bushes ahead, came a squeaky chorus:
"Yip yip yip—"
I lifted my head.
Dozens of chihuahuas. Clad in tactical vests. Their gazes flat, cold, professionally murderous.
They didn't bark.
They judged.
"NOPE."
I spun—only to splash down, feet-first, into a pond that absolutely had not been there a breath ago.
A koi fish rose from the water like a smug slap-happy spirit.
Slap.
Its tail struck my cheek with wet finality.
"...Did a fish just—?"
Slap. Again. Harder.
"OKAY, MESSAGE RECEIVED!" I yelled, flailing out like a half-drowned cryptid.
Somewhere behind me, the sunflowers reloaded with ominous brrzzzt sounds that could only mean more laser jazz.
I didn't stick around to find out if they were going to break into a synchronized death solo.
The badger roared again— "FOR THE QUEEEEEEEN!"—with the fury of a knight denied honey and vengeance.
And me?
I ran.
Because the only thing more terrifying than a sunflower with a trumpet was a koi fish with no chill.
"Go meditate, you stinking fish!" I hollered over my shoulder as it flicked its tail with zen-fueled contempt.
Floundering free of the pond, I barely caught the flutter of feathers overhead—a chicken in goggles swooping, claws aimed at the wig still miraculously perched atop my head.
"NOT TODAY!" I shrieked, swatting it away like a furious pageant queen defending her crown.
Desperate, I bolted toward the nearest structure—a lopsided cottage that looked about as stable as my current emotional state. I slammed the door shut, heart battering my ribs, like I'd just done cardio inside a blender.
No lock. No hope. Just me, my body wedged against the wood, and a prayer to every deity still on speaking terms with me.
Outside, silence. But not peace.
The badger.
The tactical chihuahuas.
The laser-toting sunflowers.
The airborne poultry.
All of them stood there.
Staring.
Silently judging me like I'd insulted their topiary ancestors.
They began to circle the cottage like hungry wolves.
I pressed my back to the door, clutching the wig like it held the secrets to life itself.
My heart thundered. My clothes were soaked. My dignity? Questionable at best.
"Don't they have better things to do?" I hissed, glaring at the chaos outside. "Like photosynthesis or emotional growth?"
Beyond the fragile walls, the garden answered.
Low. Mocking. A chuckle that rustled through vines and leaves—a living thing, delighted by my misery.
[Ronette's side]
Ronette slowly pushed himself upright, shedding leaves, dirt, and something suspiciously glittery that clung to his battered clothes.
The chaos he'd barely outrun—hyenas, traps, the disembodied voice—felt like a fever dream fading in daylight.
Because here, impossibly, was peace.
Golden sunlight dripped lazily through the canopy, pooling on emerald grass. Flowers sparkled like sugared glass. Dew beads shimmered like tiny pearls. And the air smelled so sweet it felt handwritten by springtime itself.
Ronette inhaled. Deep. Shaky.
"Ah… the air smells sweet and fragrant…"
"As it should," piped a squeaky little voice. "We're even edible!"
His eyes shot open. "Wh—who said that?!"
He spun. Heart hammering. Nothing but blossoms and blades of grass, so lush they looked filtered.
"Okay…" he muttered. "I'm either hallucinating, or I've just been addressed by a snack."
Wandering cautiously forward, he spotted one flower suspiciously jammed into the wall of hedges, its face comically flattened like it had lost a wrestling match with the leaves.
Curiosity—and denial—won. Ronette reached out and tugged it free.
"YEOUCH!" the flower screeched. "Hey! That's no way to treat your rescuer, skeleton boy!"
Ronette froze.
The flower had a face. A frowning one. Its petals were puffed in outrage, and its leafy limbs flailed as it tried to dust itself off with indignant grace.
Ronette blinked once.
Then twice.
Then, operating purely on instinct—
BAAM!
He stuffed the flower straight back into the hedge.
"MY PETALS!" the flower wailed from inside the wall.
Ronette stumbled back, blinking in alarm as the flower wrestled its way out of the foliage like an offended noodle.
Its leafy limbs flailed with the flair of someone auditioning for a soap opera, rubbing its flattened face with exaggerated injury.
"S–Sorry!" Ronette stammered, still trying to process the absurdity blooming—literally—before him.
But through the whirlwind of confusion, one thing rang clear:
'That voice… it's the same one. The one that guided me through that nightmare.'
The bush quivered as the flower flopped out fully, bruised petals drooping, glaring like it was preparing a lawsuit.
"You try to help a human," it sniffed, theatrically dabbing itself with a leaf. "And this is what you get. Facial trauma and a deep mistrust of elbows."
A second flower peeked from behind a daisy, freckled and smirking.
"Now your face is red instead of white!" it hooted. "Wakakaka!"
Ronette stood frozen. Guilt. Awe. And the dawning horror of what he'd just done.
'I had just physically assaulted my floral savior.'
'With a wall.'
Before he could form a proper apology—or even a coherent sentence—a blur of fur launched itself from the hedge.
A squirrel, wild-eyed and vibrating with squirrel energy, landed at Ronette's feet holding an acorn like a microphone.
"I TOLD YOU not to pull stunts like that!" it scolded, tail lashing. Then it spun, tiny paw stabbing at Ronette. "Now the abomination will find us and roast us all alive!"
"Wait—roast? What abomination?! I didn't— I'm not burning anyone!" Ronette blurted.
Though… he did briefly imagine Louis burning this garden to ash.
Overhead, a bird swooped, dropping a berry mid-flight like a protestor hurling fruit.
"Liar!" it cawed. "Humans always lie! You'll wilt us like the rest!"
That cracked the calm.
Chaos bloomed.
Flowers shrieked about pesticides. Squirrels cursed acorn shortages and nut inflation. A beetle clambered atop a toadstool, reciting tragic poetry of crushed kin. Daisies fainted every time someone whispered "pruning."
Ronette stood in the eye of the eco-storm, hands half-raised in surrender.
"Can't we just go back to being sparkly and peaceful?" he muttered, voice cracked.
A dandelion lobbed a pebble at his foot. Hard.
Ronette sighed. Shoulders slumping.
'It was going to be one of those days.'