Published October 4, 2026
Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and mature content.
A pretty girl walks through a sea of flowers. She walks under a yellow sun. Swims, sometimes. Mostly, she just walks, and reaches down to snap the stems of pretty blossoms, cradling them in her arms as she goes. She parts the waves of pinks and blues. She parts the ocean.
She does not care, this pretty girl, which flowers to pick or to discard. They are just flowers. It is just the ocean.
She emerges from the sea, petals falling from her hair and her collar and her wrists and she has never felt more beautiful. The flowers are clutched in her hands. She is happy.
That is when they come.
They, the mob, dredge the oceans with their boots, muddy boots from their muddy town. Her muddy town. This mob, who gnash their teeth at the sight of her, drenched and grinning. The petals under their feet are crushed limp.
They surround the bank, boxing her in like a frightened rabbit. She does not feel so happy now.
“Why? Why do you carry such impurity?” The mass chants. “Why? Why? Why?” Their eyes linger on the pink blossoms, as if a home for spiders rather than a conduit of beauty.
The girl flinches at the noise. “They’re just flowers,” she whispers.
She does not have to wonder if the crowd can hear her.
An old woman emerges from the crowd, palms outstretched. “Irresolute girl,” she tuts sympathetically. She holds her hands out to the sky, chin tilted up, as if there is a message obscured behind the clouds. The girl sees nothing.
“Purge this child!” the old woman bellows at the sky. But she sees nothing, the girl sees nothing and nothing and nothing and all she can see is the sky, and the sea.
“They’re just flowers!” she cries out, but her voice cannot be heard over the rush, the vitriol that floods the space around her feet.
“Just flowers,” they mutter, heavy lidded and simmering.
“Just flowers,” they seethe, and steam blows out of their ears.
“Just flowers?” They screech, hair-tearing and violent.
We’ll show the bitch.
With dirty fingers they grab her wrists, and her jaw, prying her lips open as she screams. They push the blossoms down her throat. She cannot scream anymore.
“Make a choice.”
Her knees hit the dry, cracked earth.
She is spitting up blood and petals at their feet, whimpering as she chokes. The sun beats her spine into submission as she kneels, knees and wrists scarlet. She cannot part the ocean now. The ocean is in her throat, resisting. Let me out, it says, let me out.
“Make a choice.” The mob screeches over her sobs.
She will turn the hearts of your children. Carve them out. Eat them, spit them. Lead them over the river to the other side, hell side.
The devil, devil girl in this devil town. She must choose.
“Make a choice.”
Devil girls cannot choose.
No one sinks to the floor where she lies. If they did, they would hear her muttering, in between sobs and gasps and velveteen.
“Make a choice.”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
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141,755 Literary Works • 675,686 Reviews
Heyy! This was honestly such a heavy read, but I really liked it. The contrast between the beginning and the rest of the piece stood out to me a lot. At first, the girl is just walking through this beautiful sea of flowers, picking whatever she wants and feeling happy and beautiful. Everything feels almost peaceful and dreamy, and then the mob arrives and completely destroys that feeling.
I really liked how the flowers seem so innocent to the girl. She keeps saying “They’re just flowers,” while everyone around her keeps trying to turn them into something dirty or wrong. That made the whole thing feel like it was about judgment and people forcing their own ideas of what someone should be onto them.
The repeated “Make a choice” was probably one of the most unsettling parts for me. Especially because it doesn't really feel like she's being given a choice at all. The mob has already decided what they want from her. And the way the flowers are eventually forced down her throat was genuinely disturbing, especially because something that represented beauty and freedom at the beginning becomes something that silences and hurts her.
I also really liked the ocean imagery. At the beginning, she can literally part the ocean, but later “The ocean is in her throat, resisting. Let me out, it says, let me out.” That felt like such a strong change. Something that was once outside and free is suddenly trapped inside her.
One small suggestion would be to maybe look over a few of the repeated sections and see if every repetition is doing something different. Most of them worked for me, but tightening a couple could make the strongest ones hit even harder.
Overall, this was really powerful. It left me thinking about how easily something innocent can be labelled as “wrong” when people are determined to judge it. The ending especially hurt because she isn't actually choosing anything anymore. She's just trapped between what everyone demands from her and who she actually is. Really strong piece.