Serena was the human equivalent of a marigold – bright and always heralding the dead. She tended her roses tenderly, until one day is a vortex of hurt she approached her violated wrists with a long thorn, sliding it deep into cuts trying desperately to heal. As her elegant friend ripped open her tortured flesh, she quieted. Her blood fell upon the sleeping soil, awakening it

The next morning, the rose bush was covered in fresh blooms, some as large as Serena’s head. Amazed, she watered them carefully. But the water sat in top of the soil, useless. Serena looked at her wrist and picked the corner of a developing scab. A delicate drop of blood fell in the soil, and from somewhere deep, the sound of slurping.

Day by day the roses grew taller, the blooms prouder. Serena grew weaker until one day, her husband came home to find her head rolled back, her arms and body drained, and roses wrapping around her corpse.