A Sprouting Secret

A mundane Winnipeg afternoon takes an unexpected turn when Simon's latent magical abilities spectacularly backfire, revealing a burgeoning, chaotic power that thrusts him into a world he never anticipated.

Simon’s boot scuffed against a loose pebble on the pavement, a familiar sound on Corydon. The coffee was cooling in his hand, a lukewarm comfort against the lingering chill of the Winnipeg spring. It was mid-April, and the city still wore patches of stubborn, dirty snow in the shaded corners, though the crocuses were fighting their way through garden beds further down the street. He’d been trying for weeks to ignore the tremor, a low thrum beneath his skin, just at the edges of his awareness. A nervous tic, he’d told himself, a side effect of too much caffeine or too little sleep. But today, the hum was louder, more insistent, drawing his gaze to a small fissure in the asphalt near a bus stop, where a defiant emerald shoot poked through the grime.

A single blade of grass. Nothing special. Except… it shimmered. Not with water, but with something else, a barely perceptible haze that danced in the pale afternoon sun. Simon slowed, his brow furrowing. He knew that shimmer. It was the same one he saw sometimes when his teacup warmed impossibly fast, or when a stubborn knot in his shoelaces unravelled itself with a faint pop. A clumsy, unpredictable, utterly inconvenient brand of magic.

He cast a quick glance around. A woman with a floral scarf was wrestling a pram onto the bus. A teenager in an oversized hoodie was hunched over a phone, oblivious. Good. He could try to—to *contain* it. Just a little. A delicate touch, a gentle press, a mental suggestion for the pavement to re-knit itself, for the plant to… well, to just be a normal plant. He closed his eyes for a split second, a deep breath tasting of exhaust fumes and damp earth, focusing. He pushed the hum, a warmth from his core, towards the crack.

It flared. Not with the controlled warmth he intended, but with a wild, desperate energy that shot through his arm like a minor electric shock. His eyes flew open. The crack wasn’t just growing; it was *splitting*. With a sound like tearing canvas, the asphalt ripped open, and the single green shoot exploded. Vines, thick as his wrist, burst forth, twisting, coiling, and elongating with terrifying speed. Petals, impossibly vibrant, unfurled in a riot of fuchsia and electric blue, their colours almost painful against the drab grey of the street.

"Oh, for…" Simon muttered, stumbling back, nearly dropping his coffee. The vines snaked outward, already reaching the bus stop sign, its metal post instantly wrapped in a suffocating embrace of new growth. A low, guttural groan escaped the pavement as more asphalt buckled, chunks of it spitting into the air. The smell, initially of damp earth, morphed into something cloying, sweet, and faintly metallic. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. And it was, he realised with a sickening lurch in his stomach, entirely his fault.

### A Spectacle of Bloom

The woman with the pram shrieked, a high, startled sound that cut through the city noise. The teenager looked up from their phone, eyes wide, mouth agape. A few other passersby had stopped, their faces a mixture of confusion and bewildered awe. "What in the name of—" someone started, their voice cut short by a fresh eruption of thorny stems from a sewer grate a few feet away. A fuchsia-coloured bloom, the size of a dinner plate, unfurled with a wet, slurping sound.

Simon felt a flush crawl up his neck, burning his ears. This wasn't a minor, discreet magical mishap. This was a full-blown public spectacle, the kind that got you on local news channels, maybe even the national ones. His face, no doubt, a mask of mortification. He could feel eyes on him, a prickling sensation that made him want to melt into the buckled pavement. The energy thrummed through him, a monstrous echo of his own botched attempt at control, now feeding the ravenous growth.

"It's… it's beautiful!" someone gasped, but Simon only heard the accusation in his own head. He'd tried to mend a tiny crack, to make a little plant *less* magical, and instead he'd unleashed an ecological nightmare. A new, taller sprout, this one with leaves like burnished copper, sprang up directly in front of him, almost touching his nose. It vibrated with a low, insistent hum, mirroring the frantic beat of his own heart. A tiny, luminous seed, the colour of molten amber, dislodged from its stem and fell into his palm.

The seed pulsed, warm against his skin. This wasn't just a misfired plant growth charm. This was… something else entirely. Something ancient and potent, a power far beyond his sporadic, accidental kitchen-table magic. He squeezed his hand around the seed, its warmth seeping into his bones, and without a second thought, he turned and ran. He ducked into the alley between a dry cleaner and a defunct bakery, the cacophony of surprised shouts and the strange, sweet scent of the impossible bloom fading behind him.

---

### The Unasked Question

Simon didn't stop until his lungs burned and his chest ached, leaning against the cold, brick wall of an old warehouse. The alley smelled of stale garbage and a faint, sweet tang of what he now knew was wild magic. He looked at his hand, still clenched around the seed. It glowed faintly, a tiny ember in the dim light of the alley. His jeans were dusted with fine grey concrete, his coffee long forgotten, probably spilled somewhere on Corydon. His breath came in ragged gasps, his mind a jumble of panic and an odd, exhilarating rush.

He'd always thought of his 'gift' as a nuisance, a peculiar quirk he had to keep hidden. A small talent for encouraging stubborn plants, for finding lost keys, for making old machinery hum a little longer. Nothing like… this. This was raw, untamed, magnificent, and terrifying. The incident wasn't just embarrassing; it was a loud, undeniable proclamation that his world, and perhaps the world at large, was far stranger than he’d allowed himself to believe.

The glowing seed felt alive in his palm, vibrating with a silent song. He’d never felt anything like it. Not the faint shimmers, not the gentle hums. This was a core beat, a pulse. He thought of the impossible colours of the vines, the speed of their growth, the sheer, explosive *will* they possessed. It wasn’t just an uncontrolled burst of his own magic; it was like his magic had merely opened a door, or, perhaps, woken something up.

He ran a thumb over the seed’s smooth, warm surface. It had an intricate pattern etched into it, too fine for human handiwork, like tiny veins of light. The embarrassment of Corydon Avenue, the gaping mouths, the bewildered stares, still stung, but it was overshadowed by a burgeoning sense of wonder, an almost childish excitement that made his stomach flutter. This seed. This explosion. It wasn’t an accident. It was a message. Or a key.

He stared at the pulsing light in his palm, then up at the darkening spring sky, a sliver of pale blue visible between the tall buildings. The wind picked up, rustling discarded newspapers, carrying a faint whisper of that sweet, metallic scent from blocks away. It was calling to him, this wild magic, demanding to be understood, to be followed. This wasn't the end of a very humiliating afternoon. This was, he realised, only the beginning. He had to know where this seed came from, what it meant, and why it had chosen him, a quiet archivist with a penchant for accidental magic, to bring a piece of another world into Winnipeg’s mundane reality.

The seed flared brighter, a beacon in the growing twilight, its call undeniable, pulling him towards an unknown path, a new, daunting journey that stretched far beyond the familiar streets of his city.