5 Creepy crawlies!

Damn it. This is not good. I've been looking for shelter for hours and I still haven't found any! No caves, no conveniently shaped tree roots. Nothing! Whats a plant to do when they can't find shelter? Seriously what should I even do!? I'm not about to risk sleeping in the open! All the worst things come out at night and I do not want to see what horrors come out in this place.

But with that said I still need to find some form of shelter or I will be forced to stay out in the open during the night… I suppose I could try climbing a tree to find some safety up there? But I'm not sure if I can actually climb with my flimsy roots. I have slowly gotten more control of my roots but even now sometimes they don't move the way I want them. Or I accidentally move three roots in different directions when I only wanted to move one root in one direction.

These are trying times. Very trying times indeed. With that said there may be another option which is more… feasible with my current resources. It'll just be a bit more nerve-wracking and extremely dangerous. Scratch that nerve-wracking part. It will be testing just how strong my willpower truly is!

The plan relies mainly on one thing. The fact that I'm a plant and with the exception of my flower bud of unknown color, I'm sure I don't look too different from the other plants here. At least when it comes to color. So maybe if I hide in some really dense foliage and keep my bud tucked away I could avoid getting stomped, eaten, and otherwise killed. I have heard plants can be really tough to kill but I don't want to test that theory out.

I need a name for these two plans… plan big tree and plan veggie camo. Man, I'm bad at coming up with names, but it's calming to do something other than fret over the possibility of brutal death at the hands of who knows what.

Like I said. Calming.

Anyways I think I'll go with the veggie plan. And since I'm in a rainforest I'm sure I'll be able to find a suitable place to hide in. I mean I��m in a fucking rainforest for crying out loud! Everywhere I look there's green!

Now, where can I hide… Oh! That spot looks like a dandy spot to hide!

I walked over and hopped into a particularly dense spot of undergrowth. I nestled into the vegetation to make sure I was comfortable before taking a look around. Nothing particularly strange popped out to me in my surroundings, but in the end, my eyesight isn't very reliable so I'd still need to be on my toes. Or I guess roots in this case.

Now time to wait this night out and find out whether or not plants sleep!

…

Come on I'm waiting! Can I please sleep? Maybe? Dang. And I thought for sure I could sleep-

Just as I was finishing my sentence everything blacked out.

~~~~~~~~

Woah! What the fuck just happened? Did I just black out…? I don't remember falling asleep like that in my past life... Not that I remember much at all. But now I know plants do sleep! But there's even better news than that.

I'M STILL ALIVE!

Hahaha! Another day, another chance to escape this green hell! But first, let's take a look at myself for any injuries. Gotta stay in tip-top shape after all!

A quick look at my stem and roots confirmed that nothing seemed to be out of place and I was fit as a fiddle! With that over with I then snuck a lookout of the dense vegetation for any danger. And nothing! Nothing but a picturesque view of walking shrubbery and the green backdrop of the forest.

How perfect! For a foreign monster-filled forest that is.

A faint pain rose up in my body distracting me from the view in front of me.

Hm? Could it be? Am I actually hungry!? I thought plants ate light and oxygen for food! So why am I hungry? Well, I guess plants here can move around and some plants do eat bugs… So it does make sense if I do eat stuff. The question is what do I eat?

Now that's an excellent question! A question which raises some interesting points! I mean why would plants even need to move at all? Especially with how slow I am. Maybe I eat slugs? Those things are slow. Gross looking too but this is a survival situation…

Enough thinking! This is the real world man, you can't just space out and think on every little thing! Gotta search for any possible food no matter how unappealing it looks!

…

But first a little hype me up. You got this flower guy! You have got this survival thing handled! Ain't nothing gonna keep you from surviving! Woo hoo!

I feel so much better now.

With my confidence meter restored I slowly crept out of the plants and started searching around for any non-plant creatures. I didn't have to look long as I soon stumbled upon a strange beetle…?

It wasn't that big and looked to be the size of any old average rock I came across. Not only that but it was jet black and looked fairly ordinary if not for one thing. It had glowing dots on its back… Three glowing cyan dots on both sides of its carapace. But it wasn't that simple. Every once in awhile a glowing tentacle would slither out of the dot and poke the dirt around the beetle before retreating back inside it!

This beetle has glowing dots and tentacles and that alone is already freaking me out. While this… thing is a bug I don't think it's safe to eat… Maybe it's poisonous or something? Or worse those tentacles are like jellyfish tentacles! Jellybeetles. As if those things weren't freaky enough! Well, beetles off the menu tonight! Let's see what other… delicacies I can find.

Now that I was actively looking for bugs and the likes I was starting to notice that these Jellybeetles were actually pretty common. Just a quick glance around offered up a couple dozen of the disturbing little critters.

I can't believe I never noticed this before! This is starting to become a pattern. I guess that means I'm not very perceptive. THat's not good, especially in a survival situation. Well, at least I'm starting to become more aware of my surroundings. As the saying goes better late than never! That is how it went, right?

While my head was stuck in the clouds I finally spotted what I was looking for! A slug. A disgusting slimy slug! This creature just like the beetle at first glance looked pretty average with its slimy dark orange body. But it soon revealed a far more reviling side to its already disgusting nature. The slugs mouth gaped open revealing tentacles sliding out and licking the plants in front of it. As it did this the parts of the plant that was licked began to shrivel and dry up in mere moments!

This is getting ridiculous! Tentacle beetles slug mouth tentacles that dehydrate plants! I didn't think slugs even had mouths until now! What am I even supposed to eat when this forest has such ridiculous things wandering around? I mean these bugs are smaller than me! And why are the first two creepy crawlies I come across armed with tentacles! Whatever depraved tentacle loving god made this horrid place should go and see a doctor. This is some fucked up shit man. Fucked up!

Maybe I'm better off eating other plants… Would it be cannibalism if I ate another plant? I mean vines suck out the nutrients in trees all the time like plant vampires. So why can't I? It would be easier than eating the freakish bugs in this place. Or maybe I'm looking for the wrong prey? Maybe I should be after the mammals…

Now that I think about it how do I eat? That's a really good question. A question I do not have the answer to. One I probably should have answered before trying to find something to eat. Being a plant is surprisingly difficult… Looks like the search must begin anew!

New game plan. First, figure out how I eat then figure out what I eat! Then eat and face this new day head-on! Nothing can go wrong with a plan as basic and flexible as this. Nothing!