Work Text:
“Spring is the season of horrible changes.” - Mariam Petrosyan, The Grey House
-
Gwendolyn Bouchard is doing fine.
At least, that’s what she’ll tell you. Hunched over her work, scanning statements and researching content needed for her analyses. She has been working more than usual. As much as she hates to admit it, the statements loom in her mind and make dread build up in her heart. But that’s just a side effect of her job. It has to be.
She tries to dismiss it, but there is something very, very wrong. She can feel it. It is not a sensation, it is something that burrows deep inside of her and changes everything it touches. Even in the dank, dimly-lit room where she works, it does not cease. Gwen feels-
It feels like something is about to metamorphose.
-
Her hands are the first to change.
Stiff skin, slightly uncomfortable, but not painful. They form callus-like sores on her joints. She traces her finger over one. It feels thick and papery. As if the skin is shedding. Stop, Gwen. She gets back to work. Filing statements and organising their whereabouts. One tape collection about ants, the fear of being miniscule, the fear of the colony. No. It’s not just a colony. It’s an entire world. A world where only itself exists in its being. They live and die working together as tiny creatures that dig. That dig and dig and dig. That expand and grow into something monstrous. Lines of insects that follow each other in agonisingly single-file lines because there is nothing they can do to escape.
One line sort of hurts. Sends a pang through her stomach. A gruff, Northern voice cuts through as she rewinds the tape to hear it.
“When you are in their world, there is nothing but the colony, and there is nothing to feed except the Queen.”
Gwen clicks to restart the recording, to listen from the beginning. “What people often don’t realise, is that the ant queens usually aren’t in control of their own nests.”
“They start off in control. But when she is ready to discard her wings, the queen will never fly again, will never escape. She finds a way to birth her colony after a nuptial flight. Perhaps she tricks an existing colony into letting her rule, then killing off the enemy-species ants and replacing it with her own brood. Occasionally, the queen might find a suitable location to lay her eggs. During this process, she consumes a part of her brain to stay alive, so as not to leave and risk unnecessary danger.”
Gwen is no stranger to insect statements. They’re relatively common, especially in formats like internet threads, social media posts, and the occasional academic research recordings or studies.
The man coughs. “The queen ant seals herself into her chosen nest, after swiftly excavating a cosy burrow. After that point, she will never see the sunlight again. A Queen’s life is to stay in total pitch darkness from thereforth.”
The man’s grin is audible in his words and sounds slightly manic. Gwen does not know if she feels disgusted or curious.
“When the colony hatches, the workers begin to dig out tunnels and emerge at the surface to find food for the queen. Now, her job is to stay stationary in her burrow and lay more eggs, until she inevitably dies. Her brain deteriorates. She does not need the navigation parts of her brain anymore, she doesn’t use the strategic skills. Her only job is to lay eggs and keep the colony churning out workers to feed her. The brain is rendered useless.”
Gwen finds herself smirking slightly, thinking of Lena. A queen ant. Suits her. She fits the job qualifications, alright. Useless. Doesn’t do any of the work. Limits her worker ants just because she thinks they’re not ready.
“The ant queen-” Static fills the recording -it cuts out- then it’s back. “-There’s no control in it. The queen has no control. From then on, the workers have every say. The scouts decide if they want to relocate their colony. The guards decide which insects to maim. What people don’t understand, really don’t understand, is that the queen has no control, yes. But when an ant works, there is nothing but the Queen. Nothing but the mouth to feed, so that they can-” Loud, piercing static cuts the rest of the sentence. Gwen presses her hand to her ear and winces. It hurts.
The recording settles. It continues. “-No queen means no eggs, and it all goes kaput-”
There is an interruption.
Her hands begin to ache. It does not ache like a hand does. Sharp pain spreads through her fingers and palm as if it is inhabiting a material yet unknown to human flesh. Her skin hurts. There are no words to convey the spiralling pain that runs from deep bone to surface skin. She lets out a cry of agony.
Then it stops abruptly.
A full stop. But a full stop only means a pause until the next sentence begins.
A groan. Quickly. Come to your senses.
Her hands- they look fine. Nothing is wrong. Gwen stares at her skin and sees nothing strange. It is not bleeding. Not broken. Not discoloured. And yet, there is something terribly wrong. Before she can stop herself, Gwen is calling her GP and booking an appointment. Perhaps her mystery pain and calluses are just to do with- with something they can fix. Gwen doesn’t know how to fix it. Gwen wishes she knew.
But there is a deep sense of dread nestled in her chest and she does not know why it aches to be fed.
-
In the waiting room, Gwen is thinking over the statement.
To be an ant queen is to be powerless. That is essentially the message. But that isn’t the part which scares her. It’s the gradual process, the deterioration. The loss of control, the change of turning from something independent and strong, into something weak and malleable that will live its life in eternal darkness.
Gwen hates the idea. She silently thanks the universe that she was not born an ant queen, regardless of the stupidity of that idea. She- she isn’t the Queen of this place, is she? She’s a worker ant for the OICR, she supposes. Lena would be the queen, if anything. But Gwen- she has control. She can work and travel and she is not the powerless one.
At least that’s what she wants to believe.
Footsteps enter. “Gwendolyn Bouchard?” A nurse calls.
She enters. The room is painfully blue and cold. It feels sterile. Tiles that appear far too clean to have been simply mopped with water.
Her GP reassures her as she sits in the chair opposite him. “Gwen, I know that you might be a little… overanxious for these sorts of things. You come from an affluent family, of course, and maybe you haven’t really experienced a large amount of-”
Gwen cuts him off, frustrated. “Please. I know what I’m feeling.”
Her GP stifles a scoff and Gwen doesn’t notice. “Well, it would be useful to think twice about coming to us whenever anything-”
Gwen sighs sharply. “... Isn’t an innate sense of doom a symptom of heart attack?”
“An innate sense of- Gwen. If you feel a sense of doom, then maybe I should be referring you to a psychologist instead of a medical practitioner. Are you feeling okay? I believe you’re physically fine, from what I can see.”
Gwen blurts out. “What about what you can’t see?”
“Gwen. All that I was going to say was that it seems like RSI and just overall health anxiety. If you take time away from using a computer and you go on more walks, then I’m sure you’ll feel better.” The GP leans on his arm as he stares at the files open on his computer.
Gwen feels irritation boil in her stomach. “I’ve felt pain before, you know. I’m not some… naive child who has just been thrown out of the nest and is crying about a tiny scrape on their knee, I’m not just-”
“The door is to your right.” He says as he points dismissively to the exit.
-
Gwen notices her skin in the shower.
It seems to have… spread. The papery consistency to it. From her fingers, it has spread. She feels her legs. They don’t feel soft. Her skin feels layered, and almost- loose? Gwen scratches a patch of her skin, and it peels painlessly. It is not red or fleshy. It’s a beige that makes it seem like dead skin, though it’s a wide strip that couldn’t possibly be dead. What lies beneath, however, is what horrifies her.
Bark. Birch bark directly underneath the layer of skin.
Is this a dream?
This cannot be real.
Skin does not change like this. It cannot just transform into wood.
Humans aren’t built that way.
Gwen.
Stop panicking.
Let the calmness overcome you.
You are tired. This is only your imagination.
Wood does not grow under skin. It cannot be real.
The shower is too warm. It feels unnatural against her body. Water hitting something stiff, something that feels like wet paper. But it is her skin, it has to be. It’s not wood. She’s only tired. And then, in one swift movement, she gazes down. Her legs. Her legs are covered in bark.
Not everywhere. It is sporadic. But the water must have rubbed the skin off. Patches of birch line her legs. Gwen lets out a dry retch and her hands hurt in the cramping position of disgust. She can’t feel her legs. Her hands are numb.
She closes her eyes and wraps the towel around her shoulders. It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine. Just go to bed, you’re tired, Gwen.
As soon as her head meets the pillow, sleep grasps her brain and fatigue overcomes her.
-
The office is dimly lit and despite Lena’s usual neatness, seems to be cluttered with files and folders laid out across her desk and in scattered piles on the floor. Gwen has sat in this chair many times before. The green thick fabric of its covering doesn’t stop feeling uncomfortable beneath her. She can’t help but feel that this entire office is meant to make a worker uncomfortable, to intimidate them and let them know they’re below Lena in every conceivable way. Lena is searching in her desk drawers, rummaging around and moving what sound like paper files, bound in plastic folders and each stacked on top of the last.
She peers up. “So, Gwen. There’s a statement I was thinking you should take a look at.” Lena says, handing her the code for the recording from across the desk.
It’s a rather large sheet of paper for such a short code, but she takes it anyway. When she’s given statements, she has to analyse them in detail. The last one wasn’t very useful, so perhaps this one will have more insight to the work she does. Maybe she’ll get answers.
“Oh, you’ll get answers, alright.” Lena says, as if she knew what Gwen was thinking. No. It’s only a coincidence. It must be. “There’s no deadline for that one, Gwen. Just listen. Preferably soon. It’s- ah, only for you to see. You don’t have to log it.”
Gwen turns the sheet of paper in her hands. It’s peculiar. Usually she logs every statement she reads as a way to keep track of her progress and upload her findings on their analyses. “I… don’t have to log it?” She asks. She always has to log it. She logs everything. What is so special about this statement that-
Lena shifts in her seat, but it does not seem nervous. It seems almost like she is excited. Full of anticipation. “No. Just think of it as,” Lena pauses slightly to decide on her word choice, “background information for your work here.”
Gwen nods slowly. She’s not about to give this back. She wants all the knowledge she can get. Even though it was… awfully suspicious, she wants to listen to it. If Lena gave it to her, it must be somewhat significant. She stands up and exits the room, the paper in her hand. Gwen feels Lena’s eyes on her.
-
Alice peeks over Gwen’s shoulder as she logs data on her computer. “Are… you doing okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Just busy.” Gwen turns to face her, a little irritated. It’s work hours. Gwen is trying to organise the insect-related statements, and Alice is interrupting what little working time she has.
Alice retreats slightly at the sight of Gwen's expression, nervously smiling as she takes her hand off the back of Gwen’s chair. “Well, it’s just that your skin looks a little… erm, dry, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“...Dry?” Gwen asks, pulling her jumper down to cover her hands. She wore a scarf to work for exactly this reason. It’s not a good sign that someone noticed her skin.
“Have… you been drinking enough? Staying hydrated?” Alice says, seemingly a little concerned.
Gwen peers at her skin. It does not look like normal skin. It’s thin and papery, and she swears the veins beneath her epidermis are not made of tissue. “I… yes. I’m fine. I have to go.”
She stands up and rushes out of the room. Alice calls after her.
Her skin. Her skin. Her skin.
It more closely resembles a tree than human flesh.
There must be an explanation.
Take your hand, Gwen.
Take your arms.
Breathe.
You’re home now.
Step inside.
Turn on the light.
Breathe again. Calm.
Gwen.
Take your tallit.
Say the blessing.
Familiar vowels falling off your tongue.
Wrap it around you.
It’s all going to be okay.
Gwen, it’s only trying to scare you.
It can’t hurt you if you’re not scared, is what she wants to believe.
She is wrong, of course.
-
Gwen rummages in her bag for the code, and she types it into her computer, her tallit still wrapped around her. The passwords are annoying, but from days working at home secretly, she already has them in her database. It never hurts to work a bit extra. Get closer to that promotion.
The file is downloaded. Gwen opens it. The small triangular button that signifies the beginning.
The statement clicks without Gwen clicking it herself, and so it begins.
“I don’t know if anyone will hear this. It’s dark. Midnight, maybe. I can’t tell how many nights it’s been. In this room, they just blur together. I can’t move anymore. This recorder is all I can get my hands on. Well- this must be reaching some sort of audience. If you’re listening, it means I’m probably dead now. My stuff must have been given away, and maybe you’ve got your hands on this recording somehow. I wouldn’t be surprised if it landed somewhere in a charity shop. My family won’t care enough to keep most of my things. Fair enough, I’d say. Most of it’s junk. But not this. Not this.”
“Well. I better get on with it. My name is Andrea Cummings and I live alone. I am twenty eight years old, but I don’t think it matters anymore. Not long left to go, I think. Anyways, the house is old. It’s a cottage in the Midlands. Close to Birmingham, but not close enough to be commutable. So, not a great house. Small, cramped, rustic, everything you’d expect of a normal cottage, but it had a mould problem. Mould isn’t entirely unfamiliar in old houses, especially those before the Victorian period. But this mould was different.”
“I would wake up sometimes and see that the mould had grown at an alarming rate through the night. All across my ceiling, or into my floor, or the corner where it had infiltrated my books. I didn’t think much of it. Only called some cleaners. They tried to get rid of it, but industrial-grade cleaning supplies weren’t working and my dwindling supply of cash meant I had to either sell the house- not like anyone would buy it like this- or learn to live in its presence. Friends were a bit of an issue. If they came over, they’d see the mould and they would think the house was dirty or didn’t clean. But- But I did.”
“I did clean. For hours. Every day after work, I came home and I cleaned the entire house just to keep the mould in some sort of stasis. If I couldn’t vanquish it, I had to keep it at bay somehow. Leave it in a stalemate so it would just stop growing for a few days. My house stank. A mixture of wet fungal spores and sterile cleaning supplies for months.”
“Then one day I saw a mushroom. Peeking its moist brown cap out from under my carpet. I plucked it and went along with my day. By- by the time I got back, it had spread. My whole floor was covered in that horrible fungus. I took time off work. Tried to clean it. But at the end, my skin began to turn like some sort of fungal infection. I thought it was from the mushrooms. I was right, I know I was right. What else could it have been?. But the antifungal medication didn’t help. My doctor was useless. He didn’t understand what was going on. He didn’t- didn’t believe me”
“I- I began to change. Mushrooms started sprouting from me, and it was then I realised something.”
“Mushrooms are like the flowers of fungi. They grow from the massive underground root formations of their fungal railroads. And that meant that the mould had grown so numerous and vast across my homestead it was beginning to grow what could be considered its flowers. Blooming. Brown gilled shapes appearing everywhere in that forsaken house. They felt- they feel wet under my touch. They relish the darkness, after all. Bathe in the wet depths of the carpet. That- that reminds me. I once heard my GCSE biology teacher say that mushrooms are more similar to humans than plants are. I didn’t then, but I believe it now. They have ravaged my life, and my skin is tearing with them. It hurts. It hurts atrociously. They peek through my skin and bloom there like they know exactly what they’re doing. Perhaps I’m more mushroom than flesh now. It just seems like- like…”
“All flesh is grass.”
A sudden, horrible noise comes from the recording. It tears. Ripping at the seams. Agonised painful groans. Gwen bites the inside of her lip and it bleeds. The inside of her mouth feels wet and it tastes of iron.
She sits through it. She can’t turn it off.
“... Shit. Just- please. If anyone hears this, please believe me. It hurts so much. I know this sounds fucking insane but I am changing and there isn’t much time left for me. Maybe there’s enough time for someone else. Don’t let this happen again, whoever you are. The house- the house on Greenhill road, number 3, don’t buy it. Demolish it. Please- just get rid of it. It’s full of them. It’s writhing with their slick forms, and it smells atrocious, at least, back when I could smell. I can’t smell anything anymore. My nose is not one of flesh, but please. Don’t let it grow. Don’t be subject to my fate. I doubt anyone is listening to this, my WiFi cut out days ago, but-.”
Her piercing voice cuts through again. “Don’t let me die here.”
“Don’t let me die here, God, not like this.”
The recording has a final sentence, spoken in a shaky tone as if she’s gripping the recorder with all of her might.
“Don’t let them take me.”
One final click.
Gwen feels a weight in her chest. Rock-like. Heavy and solemn.
Maybe this will be her end, too.
She opens a tab and looks up Andrea’s former address. Sure enough, the house was not demolished. It seems either no one listened to this recording, or no one cared enough to do anything about it. Gwen silently wonders if the house was ever successfully cleaned. Maybe- maybe it was. Maybe after Andrea died, the mushrooms receded. Perhaps Andrea was their target, and when she was… completed, they found it fit to disperse.
Gwen groans, a pained noise of inner turmoil. It disgusts her. Everything disgusts her.
She just wants to sleep.
-
Gwen opens her eyes.
She can’t move her limbs. They’re stuck in place. Her body is so entirely stiff that she can’t get up.
There’s a small movement in her peripheral vision.
A familiar voice. Lena. “Ah, Gwen. You’re awake.”
Gwen struggles. She still can’t move. Look down.
Her skin is wood. It feels wrong. It feels like something is very, very wrong. Papery bark peels from another layer of skin as Lena reaches to touch her, and Gwen hates that she can feel every sensation of it. Being peeled is not pleasant. Having wood for skin is not pleasant.
“Hmm. You listened to that statement, didn't you?”
Gwen tries to speak. Her mouth barely moves. Her voice is throaty and sounds like she’s relying almost entirely on her voice box and tongue. “Yes.”
Lena smiles, as if she’s thrilled. “I’m surprised you can speak while you’re like this. Perhaps it will take longer than I thought.”
Gwen feels her skin splitting. She does not look down. Her eyes do not want to be greeted with that eternal wrongness.
Lena peers up at her. Gwen meets her eyes. Lena then touches something close to Gwen’s ear.
It feels soft. New.
Ah.
It’s a leaf.
Gwen would scream, if she had the energy to.
Lena just smiles as she runs her fingers across Gwen’s growth of leaves. “Look how nicely you’re blooming.”
Lena rummages around in a drawer. Gwen’s drawer. If this was any other moment, Gwen would be furious, but she finds herself feeling vaguely calm. Docile. Her skin, her new leaves, her stillness. It feels wrong. But it doesn’t only feel wrong.
It feels like a delicious wholeness.
Like this is what she’s meant to be. What she’s meant to become.
Lena caresses Gwen’s skin, running her fingers up and down Gwen’s body.
Gwen should find this horrific.
She knows she should.
But it feels almost calming. Like being eased into her next state of being.
And it feels wholly wrong.
Gwen isn’t used to touch.
It feels warm and comfortable and disgusting and wrong.
She doesn’t want Lena to touch her at all.
Does she?
Her brain is a little scrambled.
Gwen. You can’t move.
There’s no choice.
Just enjoy it.
You always wanted touch, didn’t you?
Lena’s fingers feel like fire.
“I don’t understand.” Gwen speaks, not says, because ‘says’ implies a fundamental humanness that Gwen no longer possesses. Her voice is low. She does not move her lips.
Lena brings a finger to Gwen’s lips. Her voice is soft and deceivingly kind. “Shh. Gwen. Don’t waste your energy on speaking.”
Gwen feels her form differently than she used to. She is aware of her branches. Each leaf that emerges from the bark. As strange as this is, it is less painful now. Her skin hurts a little. The new textures feel unfamiliar, but they make their home soon enough.
Lena runs her fingers along Gwen’s skin. Gwen can ignore it to the best of her ability. The touch isn’t rough, not particularly firm, though it does disgust her a little at the idea that Lena is experiencing some sort of sick pleasure from this. Gwen feels every motion of her fingers and all she can do is lay there.
Tie your limbs together with string.
Peel back your paper skin.
It curls inside of itself and is shed.
The sound of falling to your knees is
Wood against wood.
The scars remain.
Darkened forms against pristine white bark.
The bark wraps around your skin and
You tear at it.
Rip the paper bark off your flesh and scratch aimlessly.
There are branches beginning to grow.
Small entropied sprouts that split your skin.
They grow and do not stop growing.
The forms struggle against themselves and entangle their branches.
Splitting paper skin gives way to the ringed insides of your wooden flesh.
If only you could count the rings that adorn you.
Worn knees from kneeling, torn string.
Calloused hands from digging at your flesh in vapid terror.
Birch curls tearing apart at the seams.
Thin wood splitting at its source.
New branches emerge from your torn skin.
Ripping through wooden flesh and growing outwards in all directions.
A fatal obscuring of foliage.
They sprout within.
The waxy forms of leaves emerge and leave your branches flowered.
They bring a horrific beauty to your form.
Altered and hideously inhuman but blooming.
Leaves tearing from your skin.
They adorn you like embroidery that is stitched
Deep into your flesh.
Thin strips of bark curl back into themselves.
Your face is not your face.
It is something entirely different.
A creature of its own design. Torn apart and unbridled to emerge as an atrocity.
Even nature can be visceral.
Lena stops. “You will be a valiant sacrifice, Gwen.”
Gwen has no voice to cry out with.
A sacrifice. A lamb on a silver altar, groomed and persuaded to lead itself to its death. A selfless hero at the edge of a cliff, dying in agony so all can be saved. An act of courage. An act of redemption. An act of fear.
Which one are you?
You are not a sacrificial person. You would not die to save anything.
Perhaps that is the most grotesque thing of all.
You are forced. Dragged kicking and screaming from your workpost and fundamentally altered. Perhaps this is because you would never change on your own. You are selfish. It’s a fact. You will not be the one to die, of course not, you think. You -immensely stupidly- always think that someone will be there to save you. Something else will die. An Eye for an Eye.
So what happens when all the eyes are lost?
There is simply nothing left to see.
You have destroyed yourself, you think. You have sacrificed all you wanted to. Now the only sacrifice left is you.
Lena -you can still feel Lena staring at you- is right there. She looks happy. Possibly ecstatic.
You remember. An end does not exist. There is only change. Nothing can end, but therefore nothing can begin.
You start to wonder if this is your end.
Then you wonder if you ever really began.
It’s premature. Hideously untimely. You did not want to die now. You did not want to die in these hands, whatever hands they may be. But it is not something you can escape.
There is something you feel, before you are different.
Lena’s hand is on your face.
Warm. It feels comforting.
That is the last human touch you will ever feel.
And then, everything feels numb.
Branches hang over the windows and leaves flourish beneath its stretch.
This is a new beginning.
The roots dig deep into the house’s foundations. Old wood breaking apart easily, letting the roots tunnel deeper. The wet ground nurtures.
You let it.
Lena exits the room, leaving Gwen to a moment of peace.
Gwen does not know if she misses her embrace.
There is something monstrous about being a monster yourself, but there is something equally monstrous about loving one.