The Greenthumb

The rover skids to a stop. Hommus tears off his black cotton tunic and punctures two holes in it with the short blade strapped to his calf. He wraps the tunic around his face and ties a knot to keep it tight. His head snaps toward his comrade sitting next to him in the vehicle.

“Murderer!” Hommus points above the alloy structures across the way from the intersection where he skidded to a halt. Against the high stratus clouds, a silhouette of a black raven sits atop the gable of the structure.

He leaps from the rover, leaving his comrade strapped into the idle vehicle.

“You’re only a Greenthumb, Hommus! Wait!” His comrade yells after him and remains seated in a state of disbelief.

Sprinting down the dirt road, he tears the glove from his left hand, pointing his digits to the ground beneath him. They harden and discolor into a dark grey like a stone column just before brown vines spew forth.

Hommus maintains perfect control as he shoots into the sky like a growth-enhanced sapling. Straight up to the rooftops with a brown trunk rooting beneath him. The strength of his upper body carries and balances his weight until he gains enough elevation to slice the vines where his fingertips should be. He falls onto the sloped rooftop.

It isn’t painful. Flora don’t have the same pain receptors as humans. It’s like cutting hair. The remnants of the vines attached to his hand retract and reform into fingertips. And his fingernails slowly regrow. Shirtless and masked, standing atop the roofline of the Crimson Capital, he looks like a crazed lunatic. Unfortunately, it’s not far from the norm in this world anymore.