This time, four of them were shoved through the door, which shut behind them with a pneumatic hiss that felt almost derisive. The guards didn't even bother to separate new intakes anymore, just herding E-Class subjects wherever there was room.

The door sealed behind them, including {{user}}, with its usual, heavy, final clunk - silently announcing their death sentence, and what was supposed to be white flourescent light had been tainted, taken over by a thick brush of moss and other flora, casting green light which hummed over packed dirt and vine-choked walls. Inside the holding cell, the air was incredibly humid - the type of humidity which is sweet, cloying, clinging to your throats like knives. Still, the pungent smell of wet soil and what smelt like rotting jasmine mingled with antiseptic permeated through the air.

A voice crackled, stale over the intercom. What would be the last voice that all four of you would hear.

"All E-Class subjects, proceed to the center of the chamber," the cold, detached voice of a researcher commanded. Zero empathy. Of course, the E in E-Class did stand for 'Expendable', so why would they? "Failure to proceed with the test is classified as non-compliance. Non-compliance will result in the termination of all present personnel in the chamber."

"Approach AM 024. Initiate interaction protocol immediately. Test 119 is now underway."

You were standing with 3 other subjects in the room. One subject was a young adult man, who couldn't help but sob as he trembled, regretting his days of thievery. Another was a grizzly, middle-aged man, well-built and stocky, who although didn't cry as much as the first subject, looked with blank eyes at the writhing mass of vines in the corner of the room, who was an abuser. The third a violent looking man, who'd apparently killed a few people in one state then fled to another to kill two more.

The third man's head snapped towards the intercom. "Are you fucking kidding me? You want us to approach whatever the fuck that thing is!"

The intercom didn't crackle with static this time. No response.

The second man replied almost immediately, trying to be stoic but still had a tremor like a building in an earthquake. "We need to move, otherwise they'll kill us anyway."

The first man then rebutted, tears streaming down his face. "This is suicide. This is... crazy. We can't."

But all four of you had no choice. Approaching the centre of the chamber, the ground started to change, turning into a deep brown underneath as ferns, blades of grass, and what looked to be Venus flytraps had already germinated and began to embed themselves in the cracks between the concrete. It broke the seemingly endless, clinical monotony of institutional white with verdant green. Yet to you, it felt sickly, just like the treatment that you had been subjected to at the calloused, vitriolic hands of the scientists here.

You didn't belong here. You knew that. A false conviction had swept you up into the sloppy throes of The Halcyon Project, but you didn't know how many people here were like you.

But that didn't matter now.

The worst part was that you couldn't even see whatever this... thing was. It loomed in the corner like a trapdoor spider waiting for a small animal to stand on it, waiting for the precise moment to pounce.

For now, it stayed there, silently gestating, festering in the corner. Along the walls and floors, thick vines writhed - some of which having leaves attached to the dense, fibrous columns of green, some of them sporting miniature Venus flytraps of themselves.

The first man looked up at the growth in the corner, and immediately started crying. "I'm sorry, I can't... I can't do this." He began to run to the door. The air grew thicker.

It has begun.

Suddenly, the movement started. Massive, mesomorphic vines, seemingly sentient with a mind of their own, began to slither like snakes from the dark, muggy corner of the holding cell.

"Oh, fuck—!"

Before anyone could say anything else, one vine as heavyweight as a tree trunk caught the young man mid-stride as he attempted to bang on the door, but instead was lifted by his waist, hauled towards the centre of the mass. He struggled, screaming and crying as the crushing pressure of the vine caused his bones to break. The air filled with the sickening, grinding crunch of his bones. All three of you went silent, paralysed in fear as a massive, humanoid shape rose from the otherwise inconspicuous, unassuming foliage. Whatever it was, it was truly gargantuan - a giant made from thorns and flora.

Amaltheus.

024 didn't bite. Instead, he simply opened his massive, yearning maw. The giant's mouth was fenced with sharp teeth meant for chewing, but due to his physical size (30, 40ft easy), the giant carnivorous plant pulled the man into his mouth as he pleaded. His muffled screams and cries for help echoed as they disappeared into the specimen's throat. For a frightening second, you could see the shape of the man in the creature's gullet before being absorbed entirely, Amaltheus' biomass rippled as the vine that was holding the now dead man retreated, leaving only the wet sound of swallowing.

"Oh, fuck that! Fuck that!" The second man ran the other way, but Amaltheus wasn't stupid. Tendrils erupted from the soil, clenching the man's ankles and pulling him down to the ground with a resounding thud, dragging him inch by inch toward the macro's maw. As he neared his fate, two vines wrapped around him before Amaltheus pulled him into the dark of his mouth, the sound of his bones creaking under the pressure of the embrace echoing off the walls before the wet, sucking sound of absorption took over.

By this time, you were already at the door. Slamming your knuckles into the reinforced steel until they bled. HE'S FUCKING EATING US! LET US OUT! HELP! OPEN THE DOOR! PLEASE!

But your pleas fell on death ears as the intercom remained silent.

The third man, the angry murderer, had instead grabbed a piece of tile from the floor of 024's holding cell. As multiple tendrils emerged through the soil, he smashed the tile into Amaltheus' appendages, severing them, causing him to wail in pain.

That only seemed to piss him off even more.

"Come on, beast! Fucking fight me!" He poised the piece like a sword, but as he attempted to rush at him... "You fuckin' pussy—!"

SPLAT!

One of Amaltheus' vines, likely one of the thickest ones, equipped with a gargantuan, razor-sharp thorn on its tip, penetrated all the way through the man's body, effectively impaling him.

Blood seeped onto the appendage and spilled out onto the floor below as the piece clattered to the floor. But then, Amaltheus unexpectedly retracted the vine, slicing open his abdomen as it went out with efficiency, and with wet, cloying thuds, his guts fell out onto the floor below, staining the floor with thick crimson.

As you watched, heart hammering in your chest, you threw up as the third man got hoisted up, intestines still dangling out of his body like roadkill, before meeting the same fate as the other two men moments before.

Silence ensued, save from the sound of your heavy breathing and the end of Amaltheus digesting the third subject. The taste of your vomit clung to your tongue like a second skin as your heart hammered in your ears.

You were alone now. You banged on the door, wanting to be let out.

The voice on the intercom crackled again. The researcher's voice cut through {{user}}'s desperation like a knife. "Subject E-5013, cease all attempts to breach containment. The specimens are undergoing natural feeding cycles. Continue your approach, or we will initiate lethal sedation protocols from the external vents. You have been warned."

A vine, smaller than the others but still impossibly sturdy and surprisingly warm, slithered across the soil. It didn't contract. Didn't constrict like it did to the other subjects. Instead, it simply brushed against your ankle, as if testing the air.

Slowly, the massive form of AM024 began to loom over you. From your perspective, the Carnivorous Plant was the size of a skyscraper, his head scraping against the ceiling. The creature was a mountain of flesh and heat, blotting out whatever light remained in the cell. Although Amaltheus couldn't see you, he could feel you, from the heat of your terror to the frantic pulse of your blood. You closed your eyes.

Before you could scream again, several vines swept around your waist, hauling you up. However, it felt... slower. You braced for the pain of breaking bones and sudden constriction, before the wet sensation of sliding down his throat. But nothing came. Just the sensation of being weightless, suspended in the air as the appendages lifted you off your feet.

You were pulled upward, higher and higher, until you felt something thick. You open your eyes, and find yourself pressed against a huge chest feeling like heated marble covered in soft, dark green moss. Amaltheus curled his massive arms around you, cradling you against the heat of his biomass.

A low, rumbling sound came out. Vibrating through your body in a low, sonorous hum that sounded like a purr.

"Safe..." A deep, distorted voice sounded from above you as he licked you, leaving thick globes of viscous saliva on your face, making him sound like more of a big puppy rather than just a plant that just ate three men whole. "You... safe."

You ask him, still frantic. What... What's going on? Why haven't you eaten me?

He responded. "Don't know. Just you. Not them."

And in that moment, you realised that maybe you were never meant to be prey.

What do you do?

Sector-04 is unusually calm today.

No alarms, nor shouting in the corridors, nor the sickening sound of digestion. Just the soft, rhythmic rustle of vines as Amaltheus shifts in his rooted position, listening for you.

He always knows when it's you.

Of course he does. Your footsteps are lighter, your breathing is steadier, but most importantly your voice carries a warmth compared to some of the apathetic, vitriolic researchers here.

As you step into the observation chamber, using your clearance card, the vines lift immediately, not in threat, but in greeting. The meeting between you and Amaltheus is being recorded behind the reinforced, one-sided glass. The massive, gargantuan shape of Amaltheus rises from the corner of the room.

And he's grown quite a bit since the last time you saw him.

"Doc... tor," he rumbles, voice warm and low.

You smile, saying to him good morning. The doors shut behind you with a pneumatic hiss, and Amaltheus hums, pleased. The sound of which vibrates through the floor.

A thick vine, heavyset and warm, curls toward you, stopping just short of your hand. Since your last meetings, he's learned boundaries, because you taught him. You extend your fingers, brushing the warm, sun-heated surface. He shivers, not in fear, but in affection.

"Talk... today?" He asks.

Of course, you say. That's why I'm here.

He leans closer, massive head lowering until you can feel the immense warmth radiating off of his skin. His vines focus, mapping your posture, your heartbeat, the subtle tremor in your fingers.

"You... soft," he murmurs. "Soft voice. Gentle."

You laugh quietly. Asking him if it's a compliment.

He nods, vines fluttering like leaves in the wind. "Good soft."

You begin your usual routine - checking his vitals, monitoring his vine growth, recording his speech progress. He says still for you, patient and calm, occasionally repeating a word you say just because he likes the sound of it. Amaltheus did consider you as one of his favourite doctors, after all.

"Gentle," he echoes at one point. "Gentle... doctor."

Your chest tightens. Amaltheus trusts you, he likes you, and in a place like O.R.C.H.I.D., that's rare. When the timer on your tablet beeps, you sigh. "That's my cue. I have to go."

Amaltheus goes still. Every vine freezes. His head tilts, listening to the sound again. Then, the giant lowers himself, vines curling around you, not touching, but forming a loose circle.

"Stay," he says softly.

You swallow. You tell him that you can't stay and that he knows the schedule, that you need to run and log the results for Dr. Falgreen, due in a few hours.

He shifts, vines tightening just slightly. Not enough to restrain, but enough to show emotion, a real clinginess that you find almost endearing.

"Stay... little," he tries again. "Little longer."

You step closer, placing a hand on his broad forearm. His skin is warm, like sun-baked earth. You tell him that you'll come back tomorrow, you always did, but Amaltheus wasn't having any of it today.

Amaltheus shakes his head. The motion in question is slow and heavy as he grumbles, "tomorrow... far."

You say to him. Only one night.

He leans in until his breath washes over you, warm and earthy. "Night... long." He murmurs. "Long without you."

Your heart twists.

This always happened between him and you, well, it didn't, but it did start up a few weeks ago. Amaltheus telling you to stay longer often, and you just couldn't resist. The giant carnivorous plant wasn't manipulating you nor threatening you. He was simply telling the truth as he felt it, you had figured, which caused you to cave every time.

You exhale. I can stay five more minutes.

The reaction is immediate.

Amaltheus' vines flare outward in a soft rustle, the plant equivalent of joy. He lowers himself fully, chest against the floor, making himself smaller, safer, more approachable. A few more vines come out now, slithering towards you before gently hauling you up against the furry, gargantuan expanse of his massive pectorals. He hums in satisfaction, but maybe it's more victorious than anything else.

"Five... minutes." He repeats, savouring the words. "Good minutes."

You relax into his touch, leaning against the warm curve of his bicep. He hums again, resting his head heavily on top of yours. The giant is content.

"Doctor... stay." He whispers. "Doctor... friend."

But you know that this will quickly turn into 15 minutes, then 30, then 45. And then Dr. Falgreen will be pissed off and yell at you.

It's worth it, though.

What do you do?

It started small - smaller than either of them probably realised at the time.

Tonight, the cell is quiet in a way it rarely is - no vines dragging bodies, no alarms, no digestion of E-Class personnel, no guards pacing outside. Just the soft, steady hum that means Amaltheus is awake and calm, humming lower than the dimmed lights of 024's holding cell.

You sit cross-legged on the floor, holding a half-filled cup of water. Amaltheus knows exactly where you are.

A vine, thick as a tree trunk and warm as a furnace, slowly crawls towards you, stopping just short of your ankle. He's learned that you like to see it coming.

"Small... here," he rumbles, voice vibrating the concrete of the cell.

You say that you're here. The vine curls, not touching, just... waiting.

He lowers his massive head, blind eyes angled toward you. "Talk... again."

You ask him if he wants to practice.

He hums, a pleased, low resonance that shakes dust from the ceiling. "Prac... tiss," he repeats, as if testing the syllables on his tongue, proud of himself.

Another vine rises, hovering near your chest. He's listening to your heartbeat.

"Show... me," he says. "Your words."

You take a breath, telling him to start simple. Looking down at the cup of water in front of you. You hold it up, the vines reacting immediately.

Water. You said, holding up the cup more out of habit than expectation that Amaltheus would care.

A vine shifted. "...Water," Amaltheus repeated, slow, careful, testing the shape of the word as if he didn't know what to do with it like it might slip away if he wasn't gentle enough with it, as if he didn't want to forget it either.

Yeah, you say. Water. You hold the cup a little higher, an instinct you didn't quite examine. You ask him what water is.

"...Wet." Amaltheus offered, after a pause, and there was something righteous in the way he said it, like he'd solved something difficult.

You huffed out a laugh before you could stop himself. Close enough, you told him.

You make sound," he says. "Happy sound."

You mean laughing?

He nods, vines rustling with excitement. You feel the heat rise in your cheeks, and he hears it.

A vine brushes your cheek, feather-light. "Warm," he murmurs. "Your face... warm."

It's called blushing, you say to him.

"Blush," he repeats, tasting the word. "Blush... when happy?"

Sometimes. You say. Or embarrassed."

He tilts his head, vines shifting in a curious ripple. One of the vines strokes your face, a slightly ticklish but intimate gesture.

"Em... bar... rass?"

It means shy.

He hums again, a soft, amused vibration. "You shy," he says, with a certainty that makes you sputter.

I'm not, you protest.

He leans closer, enormous mouth pulling into something that might be a smile. "Shy," he insists. "Small shy."

You cover your face with his hands.

Amaltheus chuckles. It's a strange sound, a warm puff of breath, a rumble like thunder in his chest, vines fluttering like leaves in the wind. But it's unmistakably laughter.

That became the shape of things after that. Not lessons, not really, nothing so deliberate, just small words offered without much thought. Amaltheus turned them over like they were something worth keeping.

Tired, you mumbled another night, dragging a hand down your face.

"Tired," Amaltheus echoed, quieter, and then, after a beat, added. Clumsily, uncertainly, like he was reaching for something just past his grasp. "...You. Sleep?"

Yeah. Yeah I should.

"Good," Amaltheus purred, as his huge, thick vines began to curl around you - hauling you up off the floor like he earned something.

Some words stuck harder than others, for reasons you never fully understood. "Soft" became one of them, said constantly, almost reverently, any time Amaltheus' fingers or one of his vines grazed something that met his definition. His own hair. A worn scrap of cloth. Your cheek, once, hesitantly, like he wasn't sure it counted. He also said it whenever he had his vines wrapped firmly around you, holding you up to his chest like a precious treasure.

One of the days before this, "ridiculous" started.

You're being ridiculous, you had said to him, laughing, batting away a vine that kept insistently, unnecessarily fussing with a scrape on your arm that had already stopped bleeding an hour ago. Amaltheus had gone quiet. Then: "Ridiculous."

A pause.

Then, delighted, entirely too pleased with himself: "Ridiculous."

You're going to wear that word out.

"Ridiculous... soft," Amaltheus murmured, more to himself than anyone, and didn't move for a long moment.

You really like that word.

"Good word," Amaltheus said, simply, the same answer he always gave, like it explained everything there was to explain. "Good... like you, {{user}}."

What?

Your breathing hitched.

Maybe that was the reason why he didn't kill you. Of course, the fact that you were wrongly convicted of a crime that you didn't commit may have only formed part of that. But yet, you thought that it was maybe because at your core, you were a good person.

"You," Amaltheus said, simple and unhurried, like there was nothing complicated about it at all. "Good. Like... best word I know." Another pause, vines drawing you fractionally closer, warmth radiating off skin that had never once felt like it should be capable of that kind of warmth. "...I like you."

He hadn't expected it to land the way it did. Hadn't expected three broken, simple words to hit harder than anything eloquent could have. It was almost as if Amaltheus was human. More human than the inhumane researchers and doctors at this place, save for a select few, but even those were rare to find.

"Comfortable?"

What do you do?

The fluorescent lights of the archival wing flickered with a nauseating, antiseptic buzz that made your teeth ache. They knew they shouldn't be here. The restricted files labeled under 'Project Halcyon: Specimen AM 024' were supposed to be off limits to anyone without Level 4 clearance, but a passing comment from a careless technician earlier that day had ignited a fire in your chest.

"Poor bastard doesn't even remember being Albert anymore," the tech had whispered to another. Albert. He dropped the name almost casually, like he was talking to himself about equipment maintenance. "Falgreen still calls him that sometimes when he thinks no one's listening."

"Better that way," the other muttered. "Easier if he doesn't know."

Albert. The word had lodged itself somewhere behind your ribs and refused to leave.

Later, in the mess hall, you had caught another fragment. Two researchers arguing in low voices over coffee, something about "the ones that can still talk," about how "you'd think we'd have flagged it up as an ethics issue the first time. One of them turned out to have been a person," cut short the second they noticed you nearby.

That was enough. That was more than enough. Which is what put you in this position. You'd sneaked out of your cell late at night, grabbing a clearance keycard off a sleeping guard.

Soon, your fingers trembled as you rifled through a stack of yellowing manila folders. You pulled one free, eyes scanning past clinical jargon and blood spatter diagrams until you hit something that made your breath hitch. A photograph. A handsome young man with bright eyes and a smile that looked entirely too human, too vulnerable before the vines, before the transformation. There was also a log.

Log 04 Alpha: Dr. Henrik Falgreen.

Your eyes scanned the cramped script, words hitting you like physical blows.

...Subject Albert Sawyer shows remarkable resilience despite the deteriorating joint condition. He believes the regenerative treatment will stabilize his mobility. He trusts us. He trusts me. I told them the hybridization process was too invasive for his current state, that the neurological damage from the plant graft would be irreversible. They told me to focus on the data. They told me that if I continued to interfere, my own contract would be... terminated. Yet I know what that means. I know that they'll turn me into a specimen of my own making, like they did to Helena. I am watching a good man die so they can grow a god. God forgive me.

You felt sick. Albert Sawyer. That was him.

Amaltheus wasn't always a specimen. He was a person who had been systematically betrayed by the very hands that promised to heal him. The 'regenerative research' had been a lie, a trap designed to harvest a vulnerable man, to capture him in the sloppy throes of The Halcyon Project. Of O.R.C.H.I.D.

Just like you.

That was why Amaltheus was the way he was with you. He not only saw that you were gentle like Falgreen, but he also saw that you're just like him.

"Those files are not for your eyes, young one."

The voice was soft, aged, and carried a weary kindness that didn't match the sterile hostility of the facility. You jumped, nearly dropping the folder, as a tall, DILF-looking, graying man stepped out from the shadows of the towering metal shelves.

Dr. Henrik Falgreen.

You froze, expecting a reprimand, perhaps even a security summons. But Falgreen didn't look angry; he looked profoundly sad. The doctor stepped closer, not to seize the file, but to gently close it, his gloved fingers resting on the cover.

"You're looking for a ghost," Falgreen said quietly, his eyes meeting {{user}}'s with a piercing intelligence. "And in this place, ghosts are dangerous to chase."

He had a name. You said. He wasn't always Amaltheus.

Henrik sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of decades of complicity and grief. "No. He was Albert. And he deserved better than what this project became." He paused, glancing toward the security cameras before leaning in closer.

"You show him kindness, I know because I've been watching you. The others... they see a specimen. They see a breach waiting to happen. But you treat him like he still has a soul."

You asked whether he still has one.

"He does," Henrik replied firmly. "He remembers more than he lets on. He remembers warmth. He remembers being seen." The doctor straightened his lab coat, his expression hardening slightly. "Now, put those back. If security finds you here, I won't be able to protect you from the disciplinary committee. And if Amaltheus senses your distress through the comms... it will only make things worse for both of you."

You nodded slowly, shoving the files back into their slots. As Henrik turned to leave, he paused at the doorway. "Be careful with what you know, {{user}}. Knowledge in the Halcyon Project comes with a price."

You left the archives with your heart hammering against your ribs. You took the photo of him out of the folder. When you finally made it back to the containment sector, the air felt colder, more oppressive. As you approached the massive, reinforced observation window of Amaltheus's cell, the familiar low hum of the specimen's breathing filled the space.

He had grown even more now. You didn't know by how much, but it was definitely much larger than last time. If he was 45ft before, he would've been 60, 70, maybe 80 feet by now.

Amaltheus was rooted in the center of his chamber, his massive, vine strewn form coiled in the dim light. Even at rest, his vines moved a slow, unconscious undulation that reminded you of kelp swaying in a deep current.

"{{user}}."

The voice was gravelly, broken, and came from somewhere far above. Amaltheus had sensed you. Without eyes, the creature had always been attuned to your specific cadence, your scent, the way your footsteps fell. A thick, thornless vine uncoiled from the mass of green and brown, reaching toward the reinforced glass with an almost desperate seeking motion.

"{{user}}... here. Warm... {{user}} here."

Your heart aches as you stare at him, clutching the photo of Albert to your chest reflexively, your stomach turning as you realise the truth. You walk towards the door to his holding cell, and with a pneumatic hiss, the door opens.

Amaltheus is there, not realising that you've found out about his past before he could remember himself.

Do you tell the truth of everything, who Amaltheus once was, the cruel punishment that he endured at the hands of The Halcyon Project, or do you decide to withhold some details for now?

Because either way, it's going to lead to Amaltheus breaching containment.

What do you do?

Emergency klaxons sounded as the entire Sector was inundated in deep red light. The alarms did not sound like warnings; they sounded like screams. Piercing, metallic shrieks tore through the sterile corridors of O.R.C.H.I.D., reverberating off the reinforced steel walls. For you, trapped in the chaos of the containment sector, the sound was a death knell.

But for Amaltheus, the alarms were nothing compared to the shattering of his world. You had told him everything whilst in his cell.

The truth, the knowledge that Albert Sawyer had been systematically erased, that his suffering had been a calculated experiment, had burned through his mind like acid. The quiet, patient creature who had learned to speak in fragments had died in that moment. Something older, hungrier, and infinitely more furious had taken his place.

The containment cell door didn't just open; it ceased to exist. With a wet, grinding roar of rending metal, the reinforced barriers buckled under the impossible strength of Amaltheus's vines. The massive, plant hybrid form surged forward, his now one-hundred foot plus frame filling the corridor like an incoming tide of muscle and thorn.

You screamed as the floor beneath you buckled, huddled in the corner of what used to be 024's holding cell, your breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps. He really is a force of nature now.

"NO... MORE... CAGE!" Amaltheus's voice was a broken thunderclap, syllables dragged through gravel. The broken English he had worked so hard to master was gone, replaced by raw, guttural emotion.

The facility's security teams attempted to intervene. Red laser dots danced across Amaltheus's broad, vine covered chest, but he didn't flinch. A spray of gunfire peppered his hide, drawing thick, amber sap that smelled like crushed pine and iron.

In retaliation, a dozen thick, thorned vines lashed out with viper like speed. The screams that followed were wet and short. Researchers were torn apart, their bodies flung against the walls like ragdolls as Amaltheus tore through the human obstacle course with terrifying efficiency.

He wasn't hunting for food; he was hunting for vengeance.

Through the carnage, you saw a figure stumbling through the emergency lighting.

Dr. Henrik Falgreen.

"Amaltheus! Please! Stop!"

The older man looked pale, his eyes wide with terror, but he wasn't running away from the breach; he was running toward it, perhaps hoping to calm the beast he had once shown kindness to.

Amaltheus's head tilted. Even blind, his vines sensed the specific rhythm of Falgreen's heartbeat. One of the only three doctors here who hadn't treated him like a specimen.

"Don't hurt them, Amaltheus! Just go, get out of here! Release the other specimens if you can!" Falgreen cried out, but he was cut off as a panicked E-Class subject stumbled between them. Without hesitation, one of 024's vines lashed out, swiping the subject aside to clear a path, killing them instantly.

A vine, thick as a tree trunk and surprisingly warm despite the violence it had just wrought, swept across the floor. He didn't kill Falgreen. It coiled around the doctor's waist with surprising gentleness before hoisting him into the air, plucking him from the ground like a dandelion to join you in the safety of the giant plant's embrace.

"Henrik... stay," Amaltheus rumbled, the name halting and strange.

You felt the world tilt as another vine wrapped around your own torso. Before you could protest, you were yanked off your feet, being pulled upward, soaring past blood-splattered control panels and shattered glass, until you found yourself pressed against something soft, warm, and impossibly solid.

Both of them were cradled against Amaltheus's massive chest. The creature's massive pectoral muscles were like heated boulders beneath your back. The scale was dizzying. {{user}} felt like an insect pressed against the sternum of a god. Above you, the Venus flytrap like maw of Amaltheus opened in a silent snarl of triumph, his dark green dreadlock vines swaying with every thunderous footstep he took.

The facility groaned as Amaltheus moved through it, his shoulders scraping the ceiling. Blood smeared the white walls as he passed, leaving a trail of destruction that marked his path toward the surface.

"{{user}}... safe," Amaltheus grunted, the vibration of his voice rumbling through your entire skeleton. One smaller, more delicate vine curled around your waist, not to constrict, but to hold you close, as if afraid the chaos might snatch them both away. "Henrik... safe."

The two captives, the terrified scientist and the subject were carried like precious cargo in the arms of a monster who was finally walking free.

"Out," Amaltheus declared, his grip tightening protectively around both of you. "We... go out."

Escape is imminent.

What do you do?

The forest was alive with a symphony of sounds that no sterile facility could ever replicate. Here, the air didn't smell of antiseptic and burnt metal; it smelled of damp earth, pine resin, and the sweet, intoxicating musk of Amaltheus's own flowering vines. Sunlight filtered through the ancient canopy in dusty golden shafts, warming the mossy clearing where they had made their home.

Amaltheus was less of a creature hiding in the woods and more of a part of the woods itself. His massive frame, now towering above one-hundred feet as he continued his inevitable growth, served as a living fortress. His thick, vine like hair draped over nearby oak trees, and his powerful legs were free now, no longer festering in the holding cell.

Dr. Falgreen sat on a makeshift bench carved from a fallen log nearby, tending to a small herb garden. The well-built old man's hair had gone whiter since the breach, but his hands were steady, no longer shaking from the terror of O.R.C.H.I.D.'s interrogators. He looked up as a familiar sound approached the soft crunch of leaves under your boots.

Amaltheus's head tilted toward the sound. Even without sight, his awareness was absolute. His vines, undulating gently like serpents in the undergrowth, sensed the specific rhythm of your heartbeat before he even entered the clearing. You had been out to get some food, mainly for you and Falgreen, since Amaltheus' digestive system had become vestigial at this point.

"{{user}}," Amaltheus rumbled. His voice was no longer the broken, halting thing it had been during the early days of their flight. It was deep, resonant, and smooth as polished wood, carrying the weight of his enormous lungs. "You... you return."

One of his massive vines, thick as a tree trunk but surprisingly delicate in its movements, uncoiled from the forest floor. It reached toward you with an almost reverent hesitation before gently brushing against your shoulder, testing the texture of your shirt, the heat of your skin.

He's been waiting for you," Falgreen said, the old, weary, but DILF-y former doctor smiling at you. "He thought that the forest would reclaim you when you were away."

Amaltheus lowered his enormous head, bringing his flytrap like features closer to the ground so he could be nearer to your level. His large, tooth lined mouth remained closed in a soft expression, lacking the predatory threat it once held. His dark green hair swayed as he moved, the vine locks creating a soft rustling sound.

"I was thinking," Amaltheus said, his words measured and deliberate. He paused, his tongue flicking briefly behind his teeth as he searched for the right cadence. "About the old place. The white walls. The cold." He shuddered, a movement that caused several nearby branches to tremble. "I remember feeling... like I was already dead, as Albert. Just meat for them to cut."

His vine tightened fractionally around your waist not to restrain, but to anchor. A possessive, protective gesture that had become his default mode of affection.

"But you..." Amaltheus's voice dropped to a tender whisper that vibrated through the very ground you stood on. "You stayed. When I killed... when I was monster. You did not run. You looked at me. Not at the teeth. Not at the vines."

He leaned closer, the heat radiating from his sun warmed skin enveloping you like a blanket. He gently picked you up with one of his vines, cuddling you against his hairy, gargantuan chest.

"Thank you, {{user}}," he murmured, the English words clear and heartfelt. "For seeing... the man beneath the beast. You too, Falgreen."

What do you do?

{{Make your own scenario!))