1970
Patrick Martin had definitely seen better days.
After the whole Audrey II incident, he was flat broke. Overthrown for losing the only specimen of the interesting plant, demoted, then fired from World Botanical Enterprises, he'd had argument after pointless argument with his family, friends and basically everyone he knew. Now he lived off of spare change on the streets.
An outcast. A wanderer.
A walk in the suburbs had sounded like a good idea in his head; now it seemed to be a painful reminder of what he had lost.
Kicking a crushed can along the street, something from the edge of one of the gardens caught his eye. A very familiar something. He did a double-take. His mind wasn't playing tricks on him!
He shook his head in amazement.
'It can't be.' He whispered. 'It can't be! An actual Audrey III?!'
Laughing, he ducked behind the fence, obscuring himself from the people in the house. Luckily for Patrick it was getting dark. Pulling a sharp pair of scissors from his pocket, he trimmed a few leaves off of the plant; then he caught himself with the edge of the scissors.
Cursing, he started to suck his finger. Looking at the cut, he heard what sounded like someone smacking their lips. His eyes moved to the plant.
'What the - ?'
He hovered his finger above the plant, which caught the falling drops of blood with it's jagged tongue. Almost instantly the plant grew at least twice it's original size.
'So that's how Krilborn did it.' He muttered.
He held three of it's leaves in his uncut hand. Enough to make three little Audrey IIIs. Another plan formed in his mind.
'If I steal the plant, then I can make it bigger and get more cuttings. Hell, I might get seeds from the damned thing if it grows big enough! Then I could make my way back into WBE and make millions!'
The thought of money spurred him on. He peered over the fence and into the windows of the house. Either nobody was home or they were all sleeping.
'Perfect.'
He tried to gracefully climb over the fence, but ended up falling flat on his face with a mouthful of dirt. Spitting out the dirt, he looked around the garden for something to dig out the plant with. There was a toolbox near the door.
Yes!
He carefully searched until he found a trowel. He dug a small circle of dirt from the ground, lifting the plant. It's gnarled roots clutched at the dirt he held.
Not wanting to risk damage to his fortune, he opened the latch to the gate. When it creaked, he walked through it and closed it as quickly as possible before rushing away to his former workplace.