It is with some trepidation that I recount the events that have led me to my present and all consuming sorrow. The tale that I hold is one of total, unabashed terror and should not be taken lightly, however fantastic it may appear. I’m not entirely certain if there’s enough time left to document all that occurred, so I’ll leave out any extraneous details and get right down to the core of my story.

Ever since I was a youth, gardening and nature had a peculiar attraction for me and often did I commune with the natural wonder of the earth about me. The summer months were spent in serene solitude as I dabbled away in the garden and composed long walks among the familiar trails behind and around my estate. In time I had become an expert on much in nature and could identify virtually any type of plant or animal presented me. Those that knew me had deemed me a child of the earth, one that had sought solace with nature and with that mentality, did I live in relative tranquility.

Horror and grotesquerie were seldom thought of in the idyll world that I had created around me and it is still a tad strange to even return to such times when all was bliss. Certainly, if there were any sort of depression or dark thoughts lingering in my brain, they would never manifest themselves in the growing months of the early spring and summer. It was a most ordinary spring morning when I stumbled across the most peculiar plant that had ever grown in my garden.

This plant was quite unlike any that I had ever encountered, oddly shaped with hanging tendrils that seemed to clasp at the dirt below. It was green in color, as most plants were, but sported an odd hue of another shade that was not familiar to my eye, as well as a strange luminescence when the sun would touch it. The shape of the plant took me time to determine, for it was neither a straight stem nor anything resembling a flower or overgrown weed, but something vaguely familiar. As I tended my garden daily, I would glance over at the new and strange plant and study it for several minutes at a time. Several books were conducted and a few acquaintances consulted, all failed me, for no such plant appeared on record. Believing that I had made, quite by accident, a valuable discovery, I sketched the plant and that’s when I was able to determine its shapely familiarity. The sketch seemed to reveal the very slight form of a man, much to my surprise. The effect was startling and I quickly took my sketch to a local botanist and asked him what he knew of such a plant, even providing a sample from the base of the stem, as I could see it.