Green Surge

Lucie’s breath hitched, not from exertion but the sheer, blinding chlorophyll saturation of the air. Everything vibrated. The street, or what was left of it, pulsed with an internal, humming green, a colour that felt both ancient and entirely too new. Emerald vines, thick as an adult’s arm, had swallowed entire buildings, their aggressive growth twisting steel and shattering concrete. Above, fuchsia blooms, each the size of a dinner plate, opened and closed with a slow, hypnotic rhythm, casting the claustrophobic canyon in a shifting, almost painful glow. This was it. Or, it *should* be it. Unless it wasn’t. What if Zach was right? God, her hair always smelled like old books, even when she was covered in pollen.

"Are we sure this is the right way?" Kenny’s voice, a little too loud, bounced off the newly organic walls, his denim hoodie snagged on a thorny tendril. He yanked it free, a small rip appearing in the worn fabric. "Because, last time, 'right way' meant we ended up covered in, well, I don't even know what that was. Sticky, definitely purple." He shuddered, rubbing his arm. "Still find bits of it in my boots sometimes."

Lucie didn't spare him a glance, her gaze fixed on the shimmering haze ahead, the air thinning out into a strange, almost liquid distortion. "Zach says it’s the only way, Kenny. And she’s usually not wrong about the temporal stuff. Just… the exact exit points." Her trainers squelched in a patch of luminous moss, the sticky substance clinging to the soles. A faint, almost bitter scent, like damp earth mixed with an industrial cleaning product, rose from it.

Behind them, Zach finally spoke, her voice calm, a stark contrast to the chaotic surroundings. "The predictive models show a 93.7% probability of this alley leading directly to the Core Blossom. The previous attempts were… outliers." Her comms device, a sleek, almost invisible disc on her wrist, glowed with complex schematics. Her glasses, slightly askew, caught the fuchsia light, making her eyes seem even larger, more observant. She adjusted them with a careful finger, pushing a loose strand of dark hair from her face. "The temporal decay rate is accelerating. We don't have time for a scenic detour, Kenny."

"Right, right, no detours," Kenny muttered, trying to keep pace with Lucie, who was practically burrowing through the dense plant life. He stumbled over a twisted root, catching himself on a wall of moss that felt unexpectedly fibrous, like a damp sponge. "Just trying to keep the mood light. You know, before we all get absorbed by giant carnivorous spring flowers. Which, for the record, is not how I pictured my Tuesday."

A tendril, thick and rope-like, swung down from above, brushing against Lucie’s face. She flinched, batting it away. The rough texture scratched her cheek, leaving a faint red line. "They’re not carnivorous, Kenny. They’re just… overenthusiastic. Too much, too fast. That's the problem. The timeline’s bleeding."

The concept of a 'bleeding timeline' was abstract, theoretical, until it wasn't. Until the city park became a jungle overnight, until the river ran neon, until the very air hummed with an unstable energy that made your teeth ache. This was their spring now, a beautiful, horrifying explosion of green that threatened to swallow everything. Their mission: reset the local temporal anomaly, the 'blip' that had allowed this hyper-growth to take root.

Lucie pushed through a curtain of shimmering leaves, her heart thumping against her ribs. Every muscle in her body screamed for caution, but Zach’s urgent data pulsed in her earpiece, a relentless countdown. The air here was thicker, heavy with the saccharine scent of the giant blossoms, almost dizzying. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, feeling the grime of pollen and damp earth on her skin. Her hand brushed against a metal sign, half-devoured by a vine. The rust tasted sharp, like old blood and salt.

"My readings are spiking," Zach reported, her voice losing some of its usual detached calm. "The field distortion is intensifying. We’re getting close to the Core Blossom. And… something else." Her voice trailed off, a rare hesitation.

Kenny, who had been lagging a moment, suddenly lurched forward, bumping into Lucie. "Whoa! What was that?" He rubbed his eyes, blinking furiously. "Felt like… a skipping record. Or when your phone glitches out, but in my head?"

"Temporal stutter," Zach’s voice was clipped now. "A micro-disruption. The field is actively pushing back. It's trying to maintain its altered state. This confirms our hypothesis: the anomaly isn't just a passive error; it's a self-sustaining paradox."

"Great," Lucie muttered, pushing harder. "So, the thing we're trying to fix is actively *trying* to stay broken. Fantastic. Just what we needed. Another layer of impossible."

She remembered the old photos, the ones from before. The city was grey, sure, sometimes bleak, but it was *theirs*. Not this wild, vibrant monstrosity. This wasn't renewal; it was consumption. The thought made her stomach churn. But also, a strange, undeniable thrill. This chaos, this disruption… it was a canvas for something new. If they could just guide it, bend it back. Or maybe, let it be, but differently.

The Core Blossom's Hum

They emerged into a small clearing, or what passed for one. Overhead, the fuchsia canopy opened slightly, allowing a shaft of watery spring light to pierce through, illuminating the heart of the anomaly. It wasn't a single plant, but a nexus of intertwined growths, a colossal, glowing structure that spiralled upwards, pulsating with a deep, resonant hum that vibrated in Lucie's bones. The Core Blossom. It looked less like a plant and more like a living, breathing cathedral of light and chlorophyll.

Small motes of light, like displaced fireflies, danced around its base, each one a tiny temporal ripple. The air here shimmered, making their vision slightly blurry, as if looking through heat haze. Lucie felt a prickling sensation on her skin, like static electricity. Her ears popped. She reached out, almost unconsciously, wanting to touch the glowing surface, to feel the impossible energy.

"Don't!" Zach snapped, her rare moment of alarm cutting through the hum. "The temporal flux here is immense. Touching it could… well, could splinter your existence across three different Tuesdays, for starters." She was already setting up her portable scanner, unfolding it with practiced movements, her brow furrowed in concentration. The small device whirred to life, projecting a complex holographic map onto the air between them, showing swirling energy patterns.

Kenny whistled, a low, impressed sound. "Okay, that's… actually pretty cool. And terrifying. Like a giant, angry Christmas tree on steroids. Do we hug it or hit it?"

"Neither, Kenny. We recalibrate it," Lucie said, shaking her head. The light from the Core Blossom was so intense it made her eyes water. "Zach, what’s the read? Can we initiate the frequency inversion?"

Zach’s fingers flew across her device, her usually composed face taut with strain. "The core resonance is… unstable. Stronger than predicted. The paradox feedback loop is accelerating. The spring growth isn’t just local; it’s radiating. We're getting readings from two districts over. If this isn’t contained, the entire quadrant could be swallowed by… this."

She gestured vaguely at the botanical monstrosity around them. The ground under Lucie's feet felt soft, spongy, covered in a carpet of glowing, iridescent fungi. It squelched faintly with every step. A particularly large fuchsia bloom, directly in front of them, seemed to *inhale* slowly, its petals contracting then expanding, releasing a wave of hot, sweet air. The air was thick, humid, almost suffocating, despite the light breeze that sometimes stirred the leaves.

Lucie swallowed. "Two districts? That's… a problem. We need to go faster. Give me the primary frequency, Zach. I’ll start the manual override on the field generator. Kenny, keep an eye out for… anything. Any fluctuations. Any angry vine attacks."

Kenny saluted mockingly. "Aye aye, captain. Just tell me if I need to sacrifice myself to a giant daisy. I'm prepared. Mostly." He pulled a small, battered energy pistol from his belt, its casing scuffed and paint chipped. It looked more like a toy, but Lucie knew its output. It could cut through almost anything, if they were careful. He tapped the barrel absently against his thigh, a nervous habit.

Lucie moved towards the Core Blossom, each step deliberate. The closer she got, the more intense the hum became, a low thrum that resonated not just in her bones, but in her very thoughts, making it hard to concentrate. It felt like the air itself was trying to push her back. She could feel the faint tremor in her hands as she pulled her own field generator, a cylindrical device, from her pack. Its sleek, black surface felt cold against her clammy palm.

"Primary frequency, Zach!" she called out, trying to keep her voice steady, despite the way it wanted to crack. Her mind raced, a tangled mess of fear and exhilarating urgency. This was it. The chance to make a real difference, to carve out a patch of calm from the chaos. Or to completely screw it up, which was also a distinct possibility. Her brother used to say she always chose chaos, for better or worse.

"Got it," Zach replied, her voice strained. "Transmitting now. Manual override initiated. The resonance frequency is 7.42 gigahertz. Oscillate to stabilise. You need to hit the central node. It's that crystalline growth, just above the main root mass."

Lucie squinted. The 'central node' was almost completely obscured by layers of pulsating green. It looked like a cluster of jagged, glowing amethyst crystals, partially embedded in the core of the largest fuchsia blossom. She took a deep breath, the sweet, cloying air filling her lungs. This was not going to be easy. Her fingers, still sticky from the moss, fumbled with the controls on her generator, adjusting the output.

"Oscillation set," she reported, her voice a little shaky. "Aiming for the node." She raised the generator, its tip glowing faintly, like a charged pen. Her arm was steady, surprisingly so, despite the tremors that ran through her body from the Core Blossom’s incessant hum. She felt the pressure in her head building, a dull ache behind her eyes, the edges of her vision seeming to blur and sharpen in rapid succession.

Just as she was about to activate it, aiming for the glowing crystal, Kenny let out a sudden, startled yell. "Lucie! Behind you!"

She spun around, but it was too late. A new wave of growth, faster and more violent than anything they had seen, erupted from the very ground, tearing upwards with an audible shriek. Giant, thorny tendrils, thicker than her waist, burst from the earth, slamming into the walls of their small clearing, sending showers of glowing dust and debris into the air. One particularly aggressive vine, impossibly fast, snaked towards Zach, who was still hunched over her device.

"Zach!" Lucie screamed, but her voice was lost as Kenny fired his energy pistol, a crackling blue beam slicing through one of the attacking vines. It recoiled, sizzling, but others took its place, coiling around his legs, pulling him down. He cried out, dropping the pistol, his hands struggling against the plant's surprisingly strong grip. The air filled with a sound like tearing fabric, the rustle of a thousand leaves, and the groan of ancient stone giving way.

Lucie hesitated for only a fraction of a second, torn between the Core Blossom and her friends. The paradox was escalating, threatening to consume them all. Then, the ground beneath her feet, the soft, fungal carpet that had seemed so stable, gave a sickening groan. A deep fissure, glowing with the same emerald light as the vines, cracked open directly in front of her, yawning wide.

"Run!" Zach shrieked, her own device now sparking, overwhelmed by the surging energy. But there was nowhere to run. The tremor intensified, a violent shake that buckled the very earth.

Lucie felt the ground tilt, her feet sliding on the iridescent fungi. She stumbled, trying to regain her balance, her field generator clattering to the ground, its light dying. Her gaze shot to Kenny, tangled in the vines, and Zach, desperately trying to stabilise her tech. Their faces were etched with raw terror, reflecting her own.

The entire street shuddered, a deep, resonant rumble tearing through the ground beneath their feet, and then the world simply dropped away, leaving only the sickening lurch of falling, the frantic screams of Lucie, Kenny, and Zach swallowed by the overwhelming green.