I probably shouldn’t be telling people this. Especially Reddit, but I need to tell someone to put my mind at ease.
I use to work in an all female lab, a section of the lab was reserved for us botanists, or phytologists if you want to get technical. Most of our funding came from female rights movements who supported the idea of all female labs I was the head of the botanical department which also meant I controlled the finance for our sector, we never got much funding as it mainly went to the medical or field sector so our experiments and discoveries were very limited, that was until we got a huge anonymous tip off. The possible experiments and discoveries ran through my head at 100 miles an hour, but there was one request attached from the tip off. The request shocked me and somewhat disturbed me, why would anyone want this?
‘I want you to grow babies from trees.’
I thought ‘what?!’ It’s impossible, if it was possible then it would have been discovered already by some pervert masturbating into a tree, but then it struck me. Genetic engineering could be done on animals, heck even humans- so why not plants?
I know. Its sick, twisted, disgusting even- but think about it. Being able to conceive children through plants? That would be revolutionary for women all across the world, especially lesbian and gay couples or even infertile and NO ONE would have to carry them.
So the experiments began, and so did the nightmare.
We have 3 different plant pots, we stuck with smaller vascular plants as our main focus but also experimented on a tree. The challenging part was that a typical plant is never 1 gender, it is a mix of both. The male sex organ is called the ‘stamen’ which produces pollen that needs to move towards the female sex organ called ‘pistil’ which contains the ovary of the plant the ‘stigma.’ So how were we going to do this? We would convince the pistil that the sperm is the pollen by forcing sperm into the plant however we could.
Plant 1: Mix sperm into the plants water supply and water daily with the sperm/water mix.
Plant 2: Inject pure sperm with the sperm count of 50 million-200 million per ml directly into the seedling/root. Gradually injecting closer to the ovary as it grows.
Plant 3: Insert sperm into the ‘stamen’ of the parent plant within a contained environment.
Tree 1: All of the above.
We kept the control plants the same species to keep it fair, other than the tree. Each plant was within their contained and controlled environment. A hive placed in each contained environment to pollinate.
Week 1.
Plant 1 began to bloom at an extraordinary rate, almost supernatural. It had practically skipped the germination stage and went straight to leaf growth. It’s too early to tell yet but the stem is a yellowy green in colour.
Plant 2 has already hit its germination stage and is showing amazing growth already. Nothing out of the ordinary otherwise.
Plant 3, practically nothing. The seed is still in its original state, slight discolouration.
Tree 1 nothing.
Week 5.
Plant 1, colour is normal, height is slightly taller for its species, but the smell is horrendous like curdled milk or blue cheese. Whoever pulls the shortest straw must water the plant, most wear hazmat suits. Plant 1, failed.
Plant 2, beginning stage of leaf growth. Root is thick and ‘veiny’ splotched with different shades of green and yellow. Leaves are too small to identify any abnormalities, so far no weird smells.
Plant 3, reached germination stage. No real sign of abnormalities.
Tree 1, nothing.
Week 20
Plant 2, fully grown. Flowers hold small sacks filled with a yellow liquid and a small limp stem in the centre. Leaves drip the liquid into the soil, bleaching the soil white. Stem occasionally pulses when watered. Plant 2, failed.
Plant 3, stem is forming. It’s skin coloured, matching the tone of the sperm donor. Root is red. Weird sounds in contained environment.
Tree 1, rapid growth, beginning stages of maturity.
As odd as everything was, it was extraordinary. That’s what we all thought, until the 30th week.
Week 30.
Plant 3. Was it even a plant anymore. It was like skin, veiny, pulsing, it was horrifying to look at the 6ft tall plant that towered over me- its flowers drooping as it held what looked like a thumb sized red bean in each head. Weird muffled sounds. Rounded thorns on the base of the stem.
Tree 1, unit has been shut off as it has produced a luminous green gas.
Week 38.
Horror. The horror we saw as we entered the greenhouse for plant 3. The sounds of loud suckling was what we first heard as we entered, I wish I trusted my gut and didnt look further. My eyes, landed on the piles of bee stingers, wings and fuzzy skin cocoons, the insides hollowed. I slowly looked towards the plants and thats when I see it, the little red sacks that I thought were beans. Alive. They were suckling the plant dry. Withered plants lay limp and loud whining came from the red beans, but they weren’t red beans. They were fetuses.
We had to get rid of them all quickly, the entire lab came together in the green house and stomped on them one by one, ripping up the roots of the plants as they screamed. It was like 100s of banshees as each one exploded into a thick red goo, the last stragglers trying to scoot away but we managed to catch them. At this point, I had gone crazy. This experiment had kept me up for weeks, the nightmares, the smells, the noises haunted me. Now this. I was done.
I suited and booted myself up as fast as I could, grabbing a chainsaw we kept in the shed in which we threw unused items. I was against cutting down trees, but this time I could make an exception.
I opened the greenhouse to Tree 1, shutting it behind me. I could barely see through the thick green fog but when I could make out the shapes in the distance my stomach churned my and eyes bulged. I held back last nights dinner as I observed the horror. Cocoons. Atleast 8 of them. They were al around 4ft tall and they… pulsed. Soft breathing sounds coming from the breathing tree. I couldnt take it, I needed to end this- they were at the edge of eclosion and God knows what they’re capable of if those little monsters in plant 3 were able to kill an entire eco system in 2 months. I started up the chainsaw and began to cut into the tree, my eyes pratically bled from the screaming as I did but I kept on. The cocoons violently shake and vibrated, as if what was inside them was violently thrusting about. Blood gushed from the trees core and soaked me almost down to the bone in its blood even through the hazmat suit. It felt like eternity, but finally it fell. The cocoons swiftly shriveled up and the tree liquidated into the soil. The same day I pratically saved humanity is the same day I resigned. I never heard a single complaint. Infact, I never heard anything again. I’m deaf. The only thing I hear now, is the broken record in my brain that constantly played the screams of my mistake.
I wish I never tried. I wish I never took the money. I was living in dreamland, the recognition, the money… it all blinded me. Or you could say, deafened me.