It became more apparent how unnatural the whole area became after the incident birthed the Zone.
Wilhelm had them cut through a botanical garden that became overrun with growth and unusual trees that survived the radioactive contamination.
There were trees growing upside down, like a macabre art installation, the roots forming into the treetop as the actual treetop grew into the ground.
Trees that formed spirals, some having three-to-four trunks growing out of a singular tree, all twisted into spirals.
Some purple, some neon red, some normal, but Wilhelm says those ones have leaves that drip acid that eats through body armour.
Others looked dead, but as Wilhelm said, they're still very much alive, and dangerous as is with everything else in the Zone.
The dead trees particularly liked it when loners come to them to "drain their lizards" as he pointed to the red splotches that covered one particular dead tree.
"Those ones, they have grabbers that come out when you get too close," Wilhelm described what he found since being trapped in the Zone with Edgar.
Going around a corner, Wilhelm pointed at a seemingly thriving weeping willow tree, and warned that anyone who goes underneath the branches never comes out of it, again.
No one knows what happens when someone goes underneath a weeping willow tree, no one heard screams or anything suggesting that something horrible lurks underneath.
Still, something happens and since then, anyone with a working brain cell knew better going near it.
"Here, look it," Wilhelm stopped them when he saw something flowing on a trelliss left behind.
It looked like vines, but Wilhelm warned that they grow everywhere in the Zone, and anywhere.
"You touch them, you don't feel anything, initially," Wilhelm warns them. "Then when you least expect it, you just kill over."
Even a light touch on a covered shoulder is enough to set off the chain reaction.
Wilhelm saw it firsthand, when he traveled in a group before meeting Edgar.
Someone in the group didn't think anything of the vines and cut them down because they got in the way.
Hours later, he died of a heart attack.
"Just fell on the ground, that's it," Wilhelm summed what happened to their only medic.
As expected, when their medic died, things turned for the worst, thus Wilhelm was forced to survive on his own until he met Edgar.
"Is she responsible for the fauna being this way?" Anya asks Edgar, attempting to understand what sort of power the Zone has over the area.
Edgar summed up that the Zone did affect the fauna to a degree that even he wasn't sure what changed and didn't.
Though there is a chance what they see becomes different the next time they come through here, the Zone tended to be fickle that way, however, he encouraged Anya to embrace her connection to the Zone, let her speak the words that bestow Edgar.
"I don't know how to do that," Anya confessed that she wouldn't know how to embrace her supposed connection if she tried.
Chuckling, Edgar waved his hand as he assures Anya that it wasn't hard like she made it out to seem, all she needed was to open her mind.
"Makes it seem like it's a walk in the park!" Anya confessed as she looked towards Paul for guidance.
Shrugging his wide shoulders, Paul admits it sounded farfetched to him, but well, he and Taylor witnessed and experienced things that seemed tamer in comparison.
Never an instance where experiments and a nuclear disaster birthed a living universe.
It seemed hokey saying it like that, but nothing else came to mind.
Still, it was better than another round with the Daleks or Cybermen.
… Although, the dangerous setting he and Taylor found themselves in might make him yearn to a return to form.
At least he knew his way around Daleks and Cybermen.
Should be thankful even they can't create a sentient universe, lord only knows what terrible thing it'd be!
Would be ironic if it destroyed them due to taking their respected ideology to its logical conclusion.
"Hm?" Taylor briefly stopped when she saw movement in the distance.
Thought it was the breeze moving the trees or the trees moving themselves, given where she and Paul were, but she distinctly saw a figure.
Motioned by Wilhelm, she's forced to continue walking through the botanical garden.
They're past the trees, now they see what the Zone done to the flowers.
Why, there were sunflowers the size of buildings!
Wilhelm informed her and the others that the sunflowers were one of the few edible things in the Zone, the seeds are as big as their arms, and they're quite filling.
The husks were good fire starters, too.
"Only issue's that they weigh a tonne," Wilhelm warns that while the sunflowers were edible, cutting them down proved difficult on account that the flowers themselves weighed more than they looked.
Easily cracked heads if people weren't careful enough.
Wilhelm even provided the audible clinking noises of impact to emphasis how dangerous the sunflowers looked despite seemingly looking fragile.
"I prefer mine fried with a smidge salt," Edgar commented on his sunflower seed preference.
Shrugging his shoulders, Wilhelm responded with, "I like 'em with beer."
Going past the abandoned flower beds that looked pristine, Paul sees the brightly coloured flowers, though he had instincts to smell them, he knew better than to attempt it, else he risked his face melting off or somehow worse than that.
Looking at the flowers, Anya's amazed as she commented that they don't look wilted or dead, almost eerily considering the backdrop they're in, but Edgar says that's normal.
Even the Zone has a preference for flowers.
"I suppose they aren't for smelling, are they?" Taylor sheepishly asked if the flowers were dangerous, too, but Wilhelm expressed that he never knew anyone foolish enough to pick one and find out.
After the umpteenth person mangled and killed, people who willingly lived in the Zone generally learnt not to attempt anything unless someone else tried before them and lived.
Somewhat.
Scared them more when they find seemingly pristine things like the flowers.
Suppose living a life of running from the law, fighting others alike, surviving under conditions that would have killed other people for an extended period of time, the one thing that caught people off-guard living in the Zone willingly were things that looked normal.
"Shame, I'm sure they smell lovely," Anya notes how every flower they passed looked like something out of a magazine with how much care gone into it despite no visible gardeners.
Wilhelm joked she can be their first tester regarding the flowers, but Anya chose not to press her luck.
Walking with Paul, Taylor felt the need to turn her head.
When she did, she only saw trees interlocked with one another.
She attempted to turn her head back when she caught sight of something unusual.
"Mother…?" Taylor swore seeing her mother standing by the interlocked trees, wearing her violet prim dress.
No, it can't be her mother…
What…
"Taylor," she heard her mother calling out to her.
