Spooky
Spooky
[Image description: a cartoon image of a translucent sheet draped over a potted plant, with text that says "the ghost of the plant I killed"]
It comes back as a fungus that drifts deep into your lungs causing a permanent infection and scarring.
That escalated quickly
It actually escalates over months or years ... my wife had it and since then we've learned that any lung infection you get - fungal, bacterial, viral, chemical, mineral - is all like playing a disease lottery. Chances are pretty high for everyone to not get anything and no after effects when you recover. However every once in a while, you get lucky and whatever infection completely screws the immune response in your lungs and it turns into a permanent infection. When that happens, it may or may not be the original infection but it could just be your own immune system that has just lost balance and is now fighting against your own body. Whatever it is, it causes permanent scarring and the scarring grows over time until you lose the ability to breathe and drown to death.
All because of a chance infection in an unlucky lottery you happen to win.
people (like me) who only have abuse-tolerant plants are like druids who failed to keep their creatures alive and thus turn to necromancy so they won't be responsible for further deaths