Nk201

An Eyeflower, Fleur d’œil, Blomsterøye , or Flor Ojo del Diablo is a fake flower found in The Meadow. They all seem to have the same origin: they are the remains of creature’s corpses that fall from the portal for unknown reasons.

The eyeflower needs to eat to regain strength and return home, i.e. return through the Portal.

There are 4 types of eyeflower, and they have different sizes, colors and ways of hunting. Of these, 3 different types (white, violet and pink) always parasitize from the brain of any living being, but only one, the red one, can parasitize any part of the body, but only human.

The only living things that seem to be unaffected by Eyeflower attacks are plants, fungi, insects and bacteria.

VIOLET

The purple/violet eyeflower, is the largest of the 4, besides being of the group of the 3 that always parasitize from the brain. This eyeflower comes from the remains of the “instinct” of the mentioned creatures. That instinct is the one they had in life and in their world; those demonic monsters only sought to devour their fellows in order to return to being the “original being before exploding” (if that makes sense). This cycle repeats for eternity unless they fall through the portal.

INFECTION

When the violet eyeflower infects a living being of any kind, it destroys it until it is left with the minimum possible mobilility, taking it over in its entirety. It will become permanently aggressive and devour everything in its path until it has enough energy to jump into the portal. If it fails, it will look for another host and start all over again. Fortunately, these eyeflowers tend to stay close to the portal, lurking in the surroundings, never leaving, let alone reaching populated areas.

BEHAVIOR

The victim of a violet eyeflower is permanently aggressive, showing no sign of reasoning and common sense.

The pseudo corpse will mindlessly pounce on its victims regardless of the fact that its body is damaged in the process, as it is semi-regenerate by the eyeflower. However this regeneration is not perfect and it eventually ends up so mangled that it will stop moving. An infected body usually lasts only a few months, and there is no knowledge of what would happen if they lasted longer.

PINK

The pink eyeflower is the third largest of the 4, and is formed from the remnants of emotions of the creatures on the other side of the portal.

The existence of these eyeflowers has helped to understand these living beings, and the reason why they devour living beings, because they not only don’t kill the host, but they leave them in a semi conscious stage, more than enough to let us ask them things about the infection process.

INFECTION

The eyeflower alters the living being with an explosion of negative emotions until the host cannot resist and ends up killing itself, leaving the eyeflower to devour the individual. The more it is negatively charged, the higher its quality as food, and the longer it resists alive, the more negative it will be (maybe that’s why they are sometimes called demons?).

BEHAVIOR

It is common for an infected being to live only from a few minutes to a few hours, but it is not a rule. Something in favor of the infected, is that unlike others, the pink eyeflower does not destroy you directly, nor does it modify your consciousness in the least: you are, as far as possible, in your senses.

So the best thing to do is to ask for help as soon as you can, never be unsupervised, go to an mental hospital?…. Mnh, you won’t really have a good time, but with any luck, they’ll find a cure before you hit yourself to the wall.

WHITE

The white eyeflower, the smallest of the 4 types and also the weakest, is formed by the few living memories of those creatures.

Having a disadvantage over all of them, it is obliged to generate a good plan.

INFECTION

This eyeflower (like the two previous ones) settles in the brain. It then “puts the host to sleep” and causes hallucinations based on random memories of both the victim and the monster. It does not cause the slightest harm, but it is impossible to get the victim out of the hallucinations.

BEHAVIOR

Under normal conditions, the victim ends up dying of thirst/starvation while wandering in memories. 

Once dead, the eyeflower devours the individual and waits right there until another being approaches. But if it is rescued by someone, it is possible to keep it alive indefinitely.

Even so, the person who finds it will probably never know that the sick person has an eyeflower, since white eyeflowers in particular tend to hide from all living things. They only show themselves in the presence of another eyeflower, of any kind. This in particular is a problem, because it allows the eyeflower to get far away from the portal, if the living being is rescued by another one.

It is possible that more than one white eyeflower exists, waiting quietly in cemeteries or hospitals for someone else to come close enough.

RED

The red ones are the remnants of consciousness/ratiocinium of these creatures. Upon finding a useful human, they parasitize it, merging its consciousness with the person consciousness and making the monster and human one and the same. The new beings, neither human nor monster, are called Hosts or Parasitized. They are found in the Meadow and Gateways around the world.

The red eyeflowers only attack “developing” consciousnesses, in other words, babies or small children, less than 6 years old. But how do these children end up in a Gateway? usually:

a) they were abandoned in a Gateway.

b) an entire family was lost in a Gateway.

The eyeflower will make the Host “hungry” in order to devour another individuals for their entire lifespan, but will also leave the Host in control of everything else, being able to live a half-normal life (although they often don’t want to); when the Host has fed enough in their life, the eyeflower will end up killing them by forcing them to cross a portal.

Knowing all this, it only leads to one discouraging but real conclusion: you cannot simply extract the eyeflower. If you extract the eyeflower, not only the tissues die, but also the consciousness, leaving the human in a permanent vegetative state.

BIRTH OF A HOST

Parasitization is not an easy process. The seconds following the infection by red eyeflower will consist of a subconscious struggle between the future Host and the parasite. This process is known as the Lapse. During the Lapse, the body acts for a few minutes like a wild, violent being with absolutely no reasoning. In addition, the eyeflower will deform them, seeking the appearance of the original monster.

The future Host will only seek to fill their appetite, devouring every living being they can reach, in the same way that a violet eyeflower would act. However, the difference between these two flowers is clear: the red eyeflower will not kill the human part.

When the body passes out, the Conformation begins. During this stage, the eyeflower roots enclose the future Host in order to protect them. The eyeflower will repair both new and pre-existing damage by creating “mimics” of tissues produced by the flower.

After several hours, a newborn Host awakens and breaks the roots on their own, to begin their new life.

LIFE CYCLE OF A HOST

A Host or Parasitized, in contrast to the other 3, is free to do whatever they want, as they eat individuals on a regular basis. The eyeflower part will serve to facilitate whatever strategy the Parasitized adopts. For example, if a Parasitized needs to attack, the eyeflower will exchange human parts for those of the monster. If a Parasitized decides to eat an entire human, the eyeflower will replace their digestive system so that they can assimilate it without worry.

BEHAVIOR OF A HOST

A Host can have a “normal” life if they want to, but it is rarely the case, I mean, why will you go to work if you can’t buy souls. They tend to stay in the Meadow, sometimes leaving for food. The Parasitized also have a common personality, probably influenced by the monsters’ original behavior: They are noisy,  extrovert, mischievous, egocentric, but also extremely curious, fast-learning and fearless. They are often territorial with other Parasitized, coming into conflict with them. 

Some Parasitized come to treat the eyeflower as another being external to them, but in reality, the eyeflower has literally become just a reflection of their consciousness, making them even unable to lie if the eyeflower is visible, as it will reflect their direct emotions.

Also, as a fun fact, a Host have an almost perfect memory since the moment of their “birth”. No matter if they were infected as almost newborn babies or at age 6, they’ll perfectly remember anything after their Lapse. This means that, probably, the original creatures also had that type of “memory save”.

HEALTH OF A HOST

A typical question is: can a Host get sick? To which the answer is: the Host is ALREADY sick. So the correct question would be “can a Host have any other diseases?”, to which the answer is: yes.

A Host is still a living being: they need to eat, they need to breathe, they can get hurt, they can catch a cold… But it will depend on how much of “human” they still have.

The Parasitized must always be well fed if they want to stand on their own, just like any other living being.

Depending on the percentage of “human” left in their body, they may need also normal food to a certain extent. 

A healthy Host is remarkable for having empty eyes. One might think that the change in eyes would imply an evolutionary or visual advantage, but it is just the opposite: the eyeflower blocks its Host’s vision to such an extent that their quality is worse than human eyesight. They are almost blind. Empty eyes have another adaptive function: a Parasitized has the ability to detect other infected beings (regardless of the eyeflower type) and other living beings throughout a given area no matter how hidden they are.

Another outstanding feature of a healthy Host is the ability to suppress pain. Thus, they can receive damage and be “repaired” by the eyeflower without complications due to an incident.

In general, a healthy Parasitized, usually loses things that makes them “sensitive” when they’re devouring individuals. They can lose their sense of taste, the sence of smell… they can even lose the need to have social bonds, typical of a human.

Now, as you can imagine, the effects of parasitization alone are a problem for a mortal being, as they can get worsen if the Host does not get feed enough.

WEAKENED HOST

A weakened Host will present the following list of symptoms:

• Detachment: if the Parasitized isn’t well feed from their very first years, their individual may not unionize with the red eyeflower’s soul. That doesn’t mean they are not the same, but on a psychological level, this can make them feel like they have “two personalities” when the human and the flower collides in their thoughts.
• Pain: the placement of eyeflower replacements is an extremely painful process for a weakened Host, to such an extent that they may prefer to be healed as a human.
• Appearance of petals: bandages that appear when the eyeflower is unable to generate enough tissue to heal wounds.
• Body temperature: spontaneously drops below the minimum , becoming fatal if not treated in time. The Parasitized can prevent this by exposing the eyeflower to constant sunlight, but this means they need to go outside of the meadow.
• Portal sickness: the eyeflower needs exposure to the Portal’s radiation. If their host spends a lot of time outside the Meadow, it will start to get agressive, making the host hungrier or even starting to eat their own host. This can be letal.
• Loss of consciousness: if a Host overexerts themself without sufficient nourishment, they may suddenly faint. The eyeflower will go into “autopilot” mode and attack the first weak living thing it encounters in order to revive its Host, similar to a Lapse.
• Living eyes: Eyes can return to human’s while they’re extremely weak, and, while it means they can see, they can also encounter another Host by accident and start an accidental fight.
• Insomnia: hunger can prevent the Parasitized from sleeping, forcing them to search for food in desperation.
• Hemorrhaging: a red eyeflower without food may begin to feed on the parasitized themselves like the other 3 eyeflowers would do, causing internal hemorrhaging that results in puking blood. This is only a thing that happens to the Hosts that eat a lot regularly and they suddenly stop.