„THE COWPLANT."
Disclaimer: I don't have any rights to the world of the Sims; everything about it I do own is my Sim Piskor family I created. My beta for it was Esrelda Snape.
Bella Goth looked with the expression of pure, genuine horror visible in her eyes wide now with terror, at the muzzle of the cowplant, oozing with smelly saliva, getting now dangerously closer and closer to her, tussling and trying to get out of the strong grip of her neighbors, holding her. The woman would be screaming for help at the top of her lungs if only she could make a voice. A strong hand of her husband that covered her mouth though efficiently prevented her from making any sort of noise but for a breathless whine, no one could even hear. No one... but for the Piskors looking at her with a look of a strange hunger in their eyes.
Mrs. Goth winked in disbelief. All of this was so unexpected – a moment before, she, together with her husband Mortimer, was enjoying the garden party their neighbors, the Piskors, held, when suddenly she felt very dizzy. As if there was something in her drink – something that shouldn't be there. She slowly sank to her knees, confused, and the world swirled in front of her eyes for a moment – a very short one but sufficient enough for Cassian Piskor and his teenage son Drusian to run up to her with unexpected speed and hold her firmly, so Bella couldn't move. She couldn't scream either as already said because Mortimer quickly put his hand on her mouth, preventing her in this simple way from making any noise. Was it some bad taste joke? Was it even any joke at all?
Lagamnaphyllis Simnoorii – that's what its real name was, though everybody called it just a cowplant – sat in the corner of the lawn of the Piskors, overgrown with an emerald-green grass – a good looking, fully grown specimen. It prided oneself on a massive cow-like head – this was where the common name for it came from – with a „forelock" of leaves above. Some witty wag hanged what seemed a cowbell around its thick stalk as if it was the neck of a real cow and now the strangely sinister jingling of it resounded in the clear afternoon air. Its mouth was opened – the disgusting smell of the saliva reached the nostrils of the tormented woman to the point of her getting sick to her stomach – and Bella Goth could see the velvety pink interior of it. The yellowish, crooked teeth were sticking out of the muzzle of the bovine plant; large enough to be able to cut a Sim in two, as Bella quickly noticed in spite of her being so panicked. They glistened ominously in the fading light of the late afternoon; the woman felt the bad breath coming from the huge mouth – huge enough to swallow a Sim whole.
„I should have been dirty; no cowplant will eat a dirty Sim" the thought crossed Bella's mind. It was the very last one that crossed it because just a moment later, the next thing Mrs. Goth felt was the sensation of a horrible pain when the jaws of this spooky parody of a cow's head tightened around her neck and blessed darkness encompassed her. One short moment – and Bella Goth was no more. The cowplant burped and shivered a bit, as if deeply satisfied with the new meat its evil owners just delivered to it.
„We'll get a new portion of the elixir of life" Nathicana Piskor said softly. In her voice there resounded a tone of triumph. „How lucky we are that no one so far realized we kill the inhabitants of Willow Creek to get the elixir." The young woman stared at the afternoon sky absent-minded. It had the insipid color of peaches.
„Don't you feel bad for Bella?" her older sister Navarana asked Mortimer coquettishly, blinking her big blue eyes, adorned with long, dark eyelashes matching the color of the girl's hair. „She was your wife for so many years, after all. She bore you two children."
Mr Goth fell silent, staring at the peaches colored sunset sky. The tin-like sound of the cowbell put around the upper part of the stalk of the carnivorous plant by Zorian an Amelana – the youngest and at the same time the most jocular member of the Piskor family, reverberated in the cool evening air. The plant was shivering a bit as if it was a sentient being, glad of this abundant meal delivered to it so suddenly. For a moment – one very short, passing moment, Mortimer's young lover thought in his eyes there flashed an expression of sorrow, as if the man finally felt a shadow – a very pale shadow but still - of regret or grief, afterward. In spite of all, Bella remained his spouse for a long time and gave him two children, he was so proud of.
„No" Bella's husband answered shortly though, looking at Navarana's mother Kilmeny, milking their „cow". Her small, skillful hands with their long sharp nails painted ruby red, were moving fastly, not without some sinister grace, as the woman was pulling on the swollen pink teats of the bovine plant. She was collecting the life-extending drink, similar to the Elixir of Life invented by Mortimer. It made the lifespan of the inhabitants of Willow Creek longer by five days. Which was long by the standards of The Sim folk.
Mortimer cleared his throat before he spoke up again. „Not much at least" he added. „She was my wife, that's true but our love had burnt out by now. Now, you are the only woman in my life that matters" said Mortimer, addressing his young lover who smiled sweetly, contented with this answer. A wide, even if quite a malicious smile blossomed on the pretty face of the young woman – a bit too plump maybe but a curvy and voluptuous beauty, whose eyes were fixed now on the glass in her mother's hand, containing the „milk" of the Laganaphyllis Simnovorii.
„It is going to be for dad" the girl said. For a moment a shade of sorrow flashed through her face. „He already shows some signs of old age" she added and looked at the said man with the look of care in her eyes. „It would have been for grandpa Tybald but he is already dead. We could resurrect him with a meal of angelfish – mom could prepare it, she's such a good cook – but he seems perfectly happy with his condition of a ghost." Navarana looked with tenderness at the transparent shape of the elderly bald man hovering over the ground.
„You had a great idea, Morty" she chirped, putting her hand on the man's shoulder and smiling in a happy but insane looking smile. „One for inventing the elixir of life – it's almost as effective as the cowplant one – as well as one for getting rid of this bitch of your wife. In this way, we will always be together."
„Yes, always" Mortimer Goth said. „Forever. Until the end of eternity," the inventor of the elixir of life repeated.