Challenge #04533-L149: Sweet-scented Poison

I got these new flowers today. They whisper to me, while I sleep; whisper secrets nobody can know. -- Anon Guest

They look like nice flowers, don't they? The way they gleam in the light. They're so pretty. I received them in an opalescent vase three months ago and they haven't wilted. They only need fresh water once a day. They're beautiful... and they're driving me mad.

They whisper to me whenever it's quiet. Soft words that I can barely understand. They're altering my dreams.

I can not keep them elsewhere. I've tried. I've taken the pot and the flowers and locked them in a safe that was locked into my treasury, that was behind three different guarded and locked doors. They followed me. I swear. When I changed for bed? They were right at my bedside.

Nobody had moved them. My guards had not left their posts nor allowed the doors to be opened. Even a Master of the Shadow Arts could not have moved them.

I found one to ask. I challenged them to try it. Not even their shadow could retrieve anything from my vault. It's too dark. I paid them handsomely to try and... they could not do it.

I tried letting them dry and die. It... started to hurt. Until I gave it water.

There has to be a limit. There has to be a way to be rid of them.

I care naught about offending whoever gifted them to me. I cannot stand the dreams they make. I cannot stand the whispers... the things they say.

The things they tell me... no mortal mind should know.

Please. Take them. Keep them watered. Do not let go and do not sleep. Not until you find some way to make them stop...

I just... need... to sleep.

[Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash]

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