Verity was woken up by the dinner bell clanging.
"Wake up, Aurora! It's dinnertime!" Daniel exclaimed.
"Ugh . . ." Verity groaned as she sat up and blinked the last bit of sleep from her eyes.
"Why now? Isn't it an hour too early?" she griped as she climbed down the ladder reluctantly. Daniel sighed as his roommate climbed down the stairs, sulking and brooding.
"Hey ― it's just your first day here, Verity. Why are you in such a bad mood?" he asked. Verity glared at Daniel.
"Life is so unfair! I lost a sister, I'm not sleeping under my own roof, and I could die tonight!" she snapped.
Daniel put a leaf on the Hypno-Shroom's cap with a sigh.
"You have no need to worry about any zombies taking a bite out of you, Verity. Just a few minutes before you came, I was told to protect you. It's kind of like a rule in here. You must guard the plant in front of you, and never falter. You will never go meet your maker, as long as I am alive." he assured Verity, who shook off the comforting leaf with disgust.
"Nobody said I was supposed to become your girlfriend on the first night here, Daniel. Please, don't get too lovey right now, and never call me Aurora unless I say you can." she said sharply. Daniel felt like he had been hit hard.
"Sheesh, I was just trying to make you feel better!" he countered as he stepped in front of Verity. "You always seem so bitter! Can you at least warm up a degree or two?" Daniel objected, looking into Verity's eyes.
Verity gasped, and lowered her eyes as she recalled her mother's words.
"Before you lost your sister, you were funny and optimistic, just like your father. I want you to get those missing pieces back so that you can be in one piece, Verity. Be happy once more. That is all I ask of you."
I was sent here for a reason. I need a life. I deserve a life. I should make the best of it before I die . . . she thought.
Verity looked up at Daniel, and sighed.
"I'm sorry . . . it's just that . . . I don't really have a life ―" she stammered.
"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.
Verity shook her cap, and sat down at the long dinner table. As soon as she smelled the food, she had a flashback to when she was five.
Verity was in the kitchen, where she was making soup with her mother.
"Mimar, where's Ilaria? Isn't she supposed to help?" she asked in very baby-like Spanish.
"She'll come in her own good time, Aurora Borealis." her mother answered.
Verity smiled to herself when she heard the nickname, which she particularly liked. Just then, the door creaked open, and her seven-year-old sister entered the kitchen.
"Making soup again?" Ilaria asked. Verity nodded.
"It's the soup which has a secret recipe!" she answered happily.
Ilaria smiled as she helped her little sister stir in the ingredients.
"Ilaria, do you know what would happen if you squeezed in a bit more lemon?" Verity asked.
"The thing would taste as sour as grapefruit, Aurora." Ilaria answered as she sprinkled in pepper. Verity bit her lip.
"Why don't we put in a bucketful of the other ingredients to make up for the sour taste?" she asked as she pushed an empty carton over to the counter, which she stepped on top of so that she was almost as tall as her sister. Ilaria shrugged.
"Good idea . . ." she murmured as she sprinkled salt into the soup, which bubbled.
Verity grinned. "Imagine if this was a volcano! We could blow up half the city!" she giggled.
Ilaria took a spoon and held it towards Verity.
"A volcano's after you!" she laughed. Verity squealed with delight as Ilaria chased her around the kitchen.
"Try and catch me!" Verity taunted as she tossed a piece of paper at her older sister.
"Oh you . . ." Ilaria laughed as she dropped her spoon and tossed the paper back to Verity.
"Now, now. We don't want to make a mess, hijas!" their mother said in the most serious voice she could muster.
But, she was so amused that she joined the young girl-plants in their game, tossing wads of paper around, laughing hysterically.
"Verity! Verity! Earth to Verity!" Daniel said loudly, waving a leaf in front of Verity, who was strangely disconnected from reality.
"What?" she mumbled.
Daniel shook his cap. "You really are out of it, aren't you?" he sighed.
Verity frowned at her roommate.
"It's nothing . . ." she muttered as the soup was served.
As she ate the soup, she recalled yet another moment from her past.
It was a sunny day in May. Verity was eleven years old, and her sister was thirteen. The two were on an overnight trip with their school, and it was uncomfortably hot as they set up camp.
"Oh, my GOD! Why is it so hot?" Verity groaned.
"Exactly! It's hotter than California, Florida, and the Philippines rolled into one item!" Ilaria agreed.
Due to the fact that it was painfully humid, by the time all the tents had been set up, the whole congregation of plants was sweltering, with absolutely no means of cooling themselves down. Verity changed that. When she walked over to the rushing river, she found out that the river was strangely untouched by the hot weather.
"Jump in!" the young girl-plant exclaimed as she splashed in the water.
In no time at all, everybody had jumped into the stream, feeling refreshed in no time at all. But even after the group of plants cooled themselves down, they splashed and played until sundown, for the sheer sake of having fun.
"This was an excellent idea Verity!" Ilaria giggled as she splashed water onto her sister.
"Stop it!" Verity screamed as she threw water onto her older sister.
"Verity! What happened? Do you like the soup?" Crazy Dave asked, jolting Verity out of her thoughts. Verity quickly nodded.
"Why are you stuck in la-la land?" Crazy Dave inquired. Verity shrugged as she hurriedly ate her soup. Some plants were staring at the new mushroom, who seemed to be constantly detached from reality. Verity just ignored the slightly rude gawks. As dinner ended, Verity had an increased feeling of dread, for she knew that her shift was near.
"Daniel, what do I do?" she asked.
"Just hypnotize the zombies and make them fight for us, Verity. Remember, I've got your back. No dimwitted carcass will ever attack you." Daniel answered.
The nighttime air was filled with fog. Fog by the kilogram, fog by the bushel.
"How do we see?" Verity asked. Just then, a Plantern tapped on her stem. This particular Plantern was very nasty, and she had red ribbons festooning the top of her glowing head.
"That's the stupidest question I've ever heard in my thirteen years in this world!" she scoffed. "My name's Sara, and I'm the plant that drives away fog and smog, mist and murkiness. I'm the thing that helps you see through this maddening fog which seems to pop up at nighttime, spiral eyes."
Verity gritted her teeth, and was about to retort when Daniel came to her rescue.
"Sara, can you not be so bothersome for one night?" he asked.
Sara scrunched up her face at Daniel before she stomped off to her place. Verity rolled her eyes at the Plantern's snide behaviour.
"Wow!" she huffed.
Daniel nodded. "It's been happening ever since she set root here. She's a bubbling pot of irritation and idiocy, Verity." he said.
Just then, an odd, groaning sound could be heard.
"The zombies are coming, Verity. Don't be scared. Remember, I will always be right behind you, watching over you every second," Daniel whispered.
Verity nodded as the first zombie shuffled over to her. I can do this . . . she thought as she made the zombie turn around and attack the opposition. Daniel smiled as he blew up zombies.
"That's how to do it, Verity. Keep it up!" he praised.
Verity smiled a little to herself, and blushed at the extolment, using all her strength to hypnotize every zombie that came into her lane. This ain't hard! This is undemanding! she thought blissfully as she made yet another rotting corpse fight the oncoming horde of zombies. At 8:00, the final zombie fell, headless and armless.
"Whoa, that was incredibly easy!" Verity exclaimed.
"That's what you think, Verity. Just wait until you encounter Dr. Zomboss!" Daniel replied.
"Who's Dr. Zomboss?" Verity asked.
"Do you really want to know the story, Verity?" Daniel asked.
Verity nodded impatiently.
"You asked for it, you got it. Well, it was 1898, and it was a dark and stormy night in London, England. A chemist by the name of Edgar George was working in his science lab with his wife, Angelica. But something went terribly wrong." Daniel explained.
"What happened, Daniel? Tell me, por favor," Verity pleaded.
Daniel laughed at Verity's Spanish before continuing.
"Well, you asked for it, Verity. Anyways, they were experimenting with Leyden jars, and Angelica touched one of the jars, and electrocuted herself!" he said, putting a lot of emphasis on the last words.
Verity jumped back, startled and scared. Daniel chuckled at his friend's reaction.
"Relax, hoyden! I thought you weren't scared of anything!" he teased.
"Grrr . . ." Verity growled.
"Fine, fine! I'll continue the story!" Daniel said defensively.
"Alright. Well, Edgar was driven insane in those few minutes after Angelica died. He killed himself. But what only a few of us know is that Edgar was a thanatologist, which meant that he knew various methods to make himself rise from the dead. He took mysterious drugs, which not even his wife knew about. Because of the mysterious drugs, he came back from the dead, with absolutely no recollection of who he was before he became a zombie. Edgar was known as Dr. Zomboss from then on. He was power hungry, and he wanted minions to help him take over the planet. Edgar poured his drugs onto every corpse he could dig up in the graveyard. He spawned a rather dimwitted army, so he made them addicted to eating brains in the hope and belief that they would "get smarter." Kind of like the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing, I tell you." he explained.
Verity absorbed this information with interest.
"I get it." she said at last.
"And that reminds me of when my class was supposed to do Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for a play. Wanna know what happened when we commenced it?" she asked. Daniel nodded.
"Well, these weird things kept on happening when we did it. The windows opened on their own. We heard lightning when it was sunny. We heard weird voices when we were silent, and the electricity seemed to blow itself out, when nothing seemed to be wrong! We thought that some ghosts were haunting the classroom and the whole school!" Verity explained.
Daniel's eyes widened in pure shock.
"Is there an explanation for this?" he asked.
"Oh, hell yeah! In 1989, a class was re-enacting the scene where Mr. Hyde beat up a little girl. Well, the boy-plant playing Mr. Hyde beat up the girl-plant playing the little girl a little too hard. And ever since that incident, the girl-plant's ghost apparently haunts the school, discouraging the play so that no other girl-plant has to meet her maker." Verity answered.
"The weirdest ― and perhaps the funniest ― thing that happened was that random conflagrations kept on starting. And I can honestly tell you that the fire department was not happy about this. They kept on saying, "If this darn thing is cursed, don't bother doing it! If there's a ghost in the school saying "don't do it!" then just listen to her for the love of God! Tell the people at Queen's Park that this inanity has to be dropped from the curriculum if it'll negatively affect the safety of all!" Dang, those were the old days…" she said, bursting into hysterical laughter a second later.
Daniel looked shocked to see Verity laugh, let alone smile.
"You look pretty when you laugh, Verity," he whispered.
Verity's smile widened.
"Thanks. That's the best compliment I've ever been given . . ." she murmured. Daniel swiftly recalled Verity's young, exhilarating laugh. She laughed! She smiled at me! he thought with excitement. Verity peeked inside a window to check the time, and found out that it was ten minutes to midnight.
"Daniel, come on. It's already eleven. Lord knows how long we've been sitting here on this lawn! I mean, everybody's asleep, and Crazy Dave's been snoozing for about an hour!" she exclaimed.
Daniel slipped his leaf into Verity's as they went up the stairs, and strangely enough, the girl-plant did not gripe and grouse . . .
