Phytoremediation

Am I really that bad?

I wish I would just wake up one day and be someone less awful.

Basil shut his eyes, and tried to ignore his headache.

In a matter of minutes...

"Why do you keep coming back?" A voice asked from above Basil.

Basil opened his eyes, to see the monochromatic Sunny from his earlier dream.

"Wh-What?"

"Why do you keep coming back to my room?" Omori asked, crouched over Basil.

"I- I'm not trying to!" Basil replied with anxiety.

Basil looked to the door... or where it used to be.

Omori took notice of Basil's confusion, "The door isn't there, because Sunny already went through it."

"How..? This is my dream!" Basil said, perplexed.

"If that's what you think." Omori got up and walked over to a knife lying on the floor, alarming Basil, causing him to jolt up off the ground.

"W-What are you doing?" Basil asked with fear.

"I want you out of my room, so I'm going to send you away." Omori lifted the knife over his head.

Basil cowered in fear, as Omori stabbed the ground, spreading a black from his knife, quickly transforming the space into darkness.

Omori kept his hand firmly on the knife. "What did you do..?" Basil asked, though the answer followed quickly, as Basil felt his body lift off of the floor. He began falling up.

Omori held onto the knife he stabbed into the ground, staying near to the ground with just one arm.

Basil fell for some time, before landing on his face. It sort of stung.

Basil got up with a grunt, and looked up. Where ever Omori was hanging from, it was too far to see anymore.

Basil looked at his surroundings, an infinite black void, rather than a white one, some black doors sitting in the middle of the ground, just like the one he used before to go to the nice dream space. Basil got up, and checked one of the doors.

Upon opening it, a familiar silhouette appeared, both of its dead eyes staring into Basil's.

Basil slammed the door shut, and began to hyperventilate.

"That wasn't real, Basil. That wasn't real. That wasn't real." Basil spoke to himself, trying not to panic.

He quietly approached a different door, calming his breathing. Basil opened the door with shaky hands, and saw no monster behind it. In fact, he saw nothing at all.

Basil walked through the completely empty doorway confused. Around him, a room suddenly appeared. The door closed behind him with a loud slam, making Basil jump.

A man wearing a butler's outfit stood holding a tray. His head was replaced with a Tigridia, a flower usually only seen in Central America. The man cocked his head towards Basil. A voice came from where his mouth would've been, "Hello young master Basil. You are tasked with killing the subject." He lifted the cover on the tray, revealing a carving knife on top of a napkin.

Basil looked at the table in the center of the room. A boy with aqua blue hair was strapped to the table. Basil walked closer, and saw the boy's face. It was Basil's face.

"C-Can you help me? Please?" The blue-haired Basil frantically requested. Basil fumbled with the straps, definitely not possible to take off with his bare hands. Basil snatched the knife from the flower-headed butler, who repeated "You are tasked with killing the subject."

Basil rolled his eyes, and began trying to cut through the straps. "Do not disappoint us, young master Basil." Basil sawed harder at the straps trapping his dream world self. "I will be forced to warn you, if you do not proceed, young master Basil.

Basil sawed faster, trying to make even a millimeter of progress on the straps, before suddenly, his surroundings faded away, and a memory faded in. One of his caretakers. She always demanded being called "Auntie Nancy." This was a memory Basil didn't remember though, as she watched himself at age 6 crying while she scolded him.

"You have nothing to cry about! You are a boy, not a girl! Flowers are for girls!" Auntie Nancy inhaled, she always made a weird sound when she made a deep breath, like some watery noise. Basil always hated it.

He watched as his old caretaker slapped the younger Basil, and grabbed his flower crown, throwing it on the ground and stomping on it. "Girls wear things like that. You are almost 7, you should act your age, and your gender. Stop crying like a baby, or I'll make sure you stop crying."

Unsurprisingly, the 6 year old Basil continued crying. Auntie Nancy proceeded to leave the room, grabbing a solid wood broom, and watched his crying self get hit across the side of the head with the broom's handle. Everything went black in the memory as soon as he was hit.

Basil was back in the room, clutching the knife again. He rubbed the tiny scar next to his eye.

I guess that explains the origin of that...

Basil felt a lot worse after that, of course, his emotional state didn't matter to the butler. "Now proceed, or you will be warned again, much more severely." Basil felt terrified, not wanting to find out what a more "severe" warning would be. He looked at the straps. Not even a scratch.

Basil looked at his other self. The other Basil made a nervous smile, "I don't know what happened when you were warned... is the first strap almost snapped?" Basil looked down at the strap again. Then, he looked at the other straps.

All of the straps simply bound the Basil to the table, except the ones tied around his wrists. If he could remove the ones around his wrist, he could easily pull him out of the remaining restraints.

I just need to see... if there would be a point..?

Basil headed to the door on the opposite side of the room. It was locked by some kind of retinal scanner.

"You will need to carve out his eye to activate the door. You must kill him, young master Basil." Basil felt like he would punch the butler in the face, if his face weren't a beautiful foreign flower.

Basil looked at his other self, and headed back to the table, clutching the knife nervously.

"Do you have... a sharper knife? I want this to be fast..." Basil asked the butler.

"Yes. Here you go, young master Basil, take your choice."

The butler's tray displayed 3 more knives. A toothy bread knife, that made Basil cringe at the idea of using it, a steak knife with a very sharp point, and a cleaver, exactly what he needed.

Basil picked up the cleaver, and walked over to the terrified Basil on the table.

"Wh-What are you doing..?" He asked, looking Basil in the eyes with terror.

"Sorry." Basil said, raising the knife as terrified tears flew from the other Basil's eyes.

--tee hee cliffhanger--