Give Me a Reason

[Lochrath]

Some time later, the box would be opened. It measured a foot and a half on all sides, wrapped in blue paper with a red ribbon bow taped to the top.

Tearing it open reveals a small shipping box generally used in the transportation of organic materials such as foodstuffs or the like. It was a matte grey metal alloy with cornered pieces sticking out to prevent damage to the contents. The sides were a transparent polymer, allowing the viewer a gaze inwards. Currently, the viewports were frosted over. The bottom of the box was a touch longer to house the cryo-pump and batteries that kept the device functioning. Someone had clearly tampered with this device to change their original settings, denoting whatever content was inside was not the normal cargo it delivered.

On the top was a yellowed sticky note.

Removing the note reveals the release lever. Pulling it allows it to neatly slot into a groove as the container hisses and weezes frosted air and preserve gasses out. Inside is a simple looking plant in a dish of soil. Being of the Bromeliaceae family, the plant has long stiff leaves which edges curve inwards, allowing the plant to make a tube that opens out to leave endings. The center of this tube, where one may expect the stem to be, is in fact an opening full of sweet smelling liquid that slowly thaws. It is reasonable to assume that the sweet smelling liquid is where this plant traps insects and rodents where they eventually drown and are absorbed, like an open stomach.

Should the plant be put out of the container, the plant would steadily over a year grow outwards horizontally, as if the plant acted like a floor trap for animals who would then slide on the smooth leaves to the center, to their fate. Interestingly the plant's leaves never seemed to remain in the same location. Leaving the plant for a day or so and one comes back with a new configuration and lay out of the plant. Occasionally, one may ever swear it was actively moving, though to catch such a thing seems rare or simply impossible, for it does not move. It is a plant after all. Right?

If the sticky note is flipped over, it reads simply "DO NOT PLANT IN NATURAL BIOMES ON PLANETS OR GARDENS. IF NO LONGER DESIRING TO TAKE CARE OF THE PLANT, BURN IT."