When I opened my eyes, the world was silent.
Not the kind of silence that follows a storm — not recovery. This was the silence of something that had forgotten how to breathe.
The sky above me was gray, the color of unpolished stone. I was lying in the middle of the street, my schoolbag beside me, and the air tasted faintly of metal.
The first thing I noticed was that the ground wasn't dirt or pavement anymore. It was smooth — perfectly smooth — like glass stretched over soil. Beneath it, faint green lines pulsed in slow rhythm, as if the world itself had a heartbeat.
I stood up slowly, the motion echoing faintly in the emptiness.
The village stretched out before me — houses in their right places, signs hanging where they should, smoke curling from chimneys — and yet, everything looked too perfect.
The curtains didn't move. The smoke didn't shift. The wind didn't blow.
And there were no sounds.
No birds.
No cicadas.
Not even the faint hum of electricity.
Just the stillness of something holding its breath.
---
I walked toward the main street. My shoes clicked softly against the smooth ground, each step feeling heavier than the last.
When I passed the general store, I saw the clerk inside — standing behind the counter, hands folded neatly. His face was calm, peaceful.
I pushed the door open.
It swung inward without sound.
"Hello?" I called.
He didn't move.
For a moment, I thought he was dead — but when I looked closer, I saw the faintest movement beneath his skin. A slow ripple, as if something inside him were breathing instead.
His eyes turned toward me — not sharply, not with surprise. Just shifted, like a flower turning to the sun.
"Mizu," he said, voice perfectly even. "Welcome back."
My throat tightened. "Where is everyone?"
"Here," he said. "Always here."
I took a step back. The movement made the air shimmer slightly — faint dust motes floating upward, glowing green before fading.
"What happened?" I whispered.
He smiled. Not cruelly, but softly — like someone remembering a lullaby.
"The garden bloomed," he said. "Now everything is still."
---
Outside, the air grew heavier.
I walked down the street, calling names I half-remembered — classmates, neighbors, Aya. Every door I opened revealed the same thing: people frozen mid-motion, caught in gestures of life.
An old woman pouring tea, the liquid suspended mid-pour, the cup half full.
Two children playing, a ball hovering between them.
A man lighting a cigarette, the flame motionless above the match.
All of them breathing. None of them moving.
I felt the rhythm of their pulse in the air, the same as mine — slow, steady, too even to be human.
And then I realized something else.
The sky was pulsing too.
Every few seconds, the gray brightened faintly — a soft expansion, like a lung inhaling light.
---
I reached the school gates by noon — or what I thought was noon, because the sun hadn't moved since I'd woken.
The building looked normal, but the ivy that used to climb the outer walls was gone. In its place, faint white flowers had sprouted directly from the concrete, growing upward in thin, perfect lines.
I walked inside.
The hallways smelled faintly of dust and something sweet. My footsteps echoed too loudly.
When I passed the classroom doors, I saw the students sitting at their desks — silent, smiling faintly. The teacher stood at the front, chalk mid-air, as if about to write something that would never appear.
I backed away slowly.
The silence felt alive here — not absence, but containment. Like sound wasn't gone, just held somewhere, waiting.
Then, behind me — a whisper.
> "You're late for class."
I froze.
When I turned, the teacher was looking at me. Her eyes were open — bright, calm, the same dull green hue I'd seen beneath the earth.
Her voice didn't echo. It just existed.
"Sit down, Mizu," she said.
---
I didn't move.
The rest of the class turned toward me in perfect unison. Their eyes reflected light that wasn't there.
"Sit," the teacher repeated.
Her tone wasn't threatening — it was kind, maternal even — but something in it pressed against my skull like pressure underwater.
I stepped backward.
"Don't you want to learn?" she asked softly. "It's what you came here for, isn't it?"
I shook my head. "You're not real."
She smiled faintly. "Neither are you."
The words sank into the air like stones dropped in still water.
Then the students began to stand.
Their movements were smooth, fluid — synchronized, without hesitation. They didn't blink. They didn't breathe. They just began to walk toward me, each step perfectly timed.
I ran.
---
The hallway stretched endlessly. Every door I passed opened on its own — each classroom filled with more unmoving faces, more soft smiles.
The sound of footsteps behind me grew louder — not chaotic, but rhythmic, like a heartbeat made of motion.
When I reached the end of the corridor, the windows exploded inward — not with sound, but with light. Green, blinding, swallowing the air.
I stumbled into it and fell through.
The sensation was like sinking into water — soft, thick, weightless.
Then I landed on grass.
---
I was in the garden again.
Or something pretending to be it.
The trees were taller, glowing faintly. The sky was still gray, but veins of green light ran through it like cracks. Flowers covered the ground in neat spirals, all facing inward toward the well.
And from the well came the faint sound of breathing.
Slow, deep, steady.
I walked toward it, each step sinking slightly into the soft soil. The petals brushed against my skin, leaving faint trails of warmth.
When I reached the edge, I looked down.
The water reflected not the sky, but my face — pale, tired, and marked by the same veins that ran through the earth.
Then my reflection smiled.
---
It didn't move like me.
When I blinked, it didn't.
Its smile widened slowly, too wide, stretching until the skin at the corners cracked.
Then it spoke — but not through sound. The words bloomed inside my head, pulsing with my heartbeat.
> "Don't look away this time."
I tried to step back, but the ground held my feet. The soil rose around my shoes, gripping tightly, almost lovingly.
The reflection's voice filled the air now, echoing through the petals.
> "You asked what it wanted. It only wants to remember."
"Remember what?" I whispered.
> "Everything that was forgotten."
The well began to glow brighter. The reflection leaned closer, until its face filled the surface completely.
> "Do you remember too, Mizu?"
I stared into its eyes — and for a moment, I saw my aunt. Then Aya. Then the teacher. Then faces I didn't know.
Thousands of them, overlapping, blooming, decaying, reborn.
> "We're all the same root," it whispered. "You just grew last."
---
I jerked backward — or tried to.
But the ground beneath me wasn't soil anymore. It was skin. Warm, pulsing, shifting with breath.
The flowers bent toward me, petals brushing my face like fingers.
The air was thick with that same sweet scent I'd first smelled when I arrived at the village.
> "Stop fighting," the reflection said gently. "It's quieter this way."
The voice wasn't cruel. It sounded almost… tired.
> "The earth is tired, Mizu. Let it rest. Let us rest."
I shook my head violently. "No— I'm not—"
But my words dissolved before I could finish.
The sound didn't vanish — it simply refused to exist.
I looked down. The veins beneath my skin glowed faintly, pulsing with the same rhythm as the ground.
Then, from the silence, a single voice rose — faint, distant, but human:
> "Mizu!"
---
I turned.
Aya stood at the edge of the field, her form flickering slightly — not entirely solid, like an image in shallow water.
"Mizu, don't listen!" she shouted. "It's not memory — it's hunger!"
Her voice fractured, splitting into echoes that twisted in the air.
The reflection's smile faltered.
> "She doesn't belong here anymore," it whispered. "She's a fragment. Let her fade."
Aya stepped forward, and the world trembled. The flowers bent away from her feet.
"Mizu, please—"
Before she could finish, the ground split between us. Roots surged upward, forming a wall of twisting vines.
Her scream was swallowed by silence.
And in that silence, I felt the ground pulse once more — slower, deeper, heavier than before.
The well glowed brighter.
And something began to climb out.
---
The rain fell like needles, soft but constant, turning the dirt beneath my boots into a dark mire. I had walked for what felt like hours, following the faint glimmer of the lantern that hung from my belt. The forest around me had become unfamiliar — the trees seemed taller, their silhouettes warped, bending as if the weight of the night itself crushed them.
I should have gone back when the path disappeared, but something inside me — the same quiet pull that had been guiding me since I arrived here — kept urging me forward. I didn't know if it was instinct or madness anymore.
The air grew colder. Every breath came out white, and the mist coiled around my legs like it wanted to hold me still. Then, through the veil of fog, I saw it — the church.
It wasn't the same as before. The walls were cracked, the roof half-collapsed, the windows black and hollow. The bell tower leaned slightly to one side, its cross broken, half-swallowed by vines. I could still recognize its outline from the first night I arrived — but now it looked like something that had been left to die centuries ago.
I stepped closer, my boots squelching in the mud.
Inside, the pews were overturned, the altar shattered, and the faint smell of mold and rot lingered in the air. The faint sound of dripping echoed — water, or maybe something else. I moved my lantern forward, casting the light on the far wall.
Someone had written words in black, uneven strokes. Not paint. Not ink.
It read: "He is not gone. He is waiting."
I felt the back of my neck crawl.
Before I could move, a sound came from behind me — slow footsteps on soaked wood. I turned.
Nothing.
But the door was closed.
I didn't remember closing it.
The lantern flickered.
A whisper — faint, almost like the wind.
Then again, closer.
Then, from the back of the church, where the light didn't reach, something moved.
It wasn't a shadow — it was darker than one.
I took a step back, the boards creaking under me.
The air turned heavy. My lungs burned.
Then I heard it — a voice, low, broken, and familiar.
"...you shouldn't have come back."
My heart froze. I knew that voice.
"Uncle…?"
A faint shape leaned into the edge of the lantern light.
He looked the same — or rather, almost the same. His face was pale, his eyes black, like ink bleeding through white paper. His mouth hung half-open, and his breath came out cold.
"You were supposed to stay asleep," he said, his tone flat, almost mechanical.
I stumbled back, nearly dropping the lantern. "Where have you been?"
He didn't answer. He only tilted his head slowly, unnaturally, the bones of his neck cracking.
Behind him, I noticed something glimmering. The altar. The shards of the broken cross — rearranged. Into a circle.
My uncle — or whatever was left of him — took one step forward. The floor groaned beneath him.
I backed away until my heel hit the threshold. "You're not—"
His eyes twitched.
And he smiled.
"Neither are you."
The lantern went out.
---
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the floor of my room. The morning light seeped through the curtains.
My clothes were dry.
The lantern was gone.
I sat up, staring at my hands, covered in faint marks, like something had held me too tightly.
It was all just a dream — that's what I told myself. But when I looked at the window, the forest outside looked different. The trees were gray, the leaves pale, and the horizon had turned the color of ash.
Then, from the street below, came the sound of bells.
The same church bells.
The same pattern.
Three tolls. Silence. Then one long, slow ring that didn't end.
I looked up.
And the sky —
The sky was hollow.
---
The sound of the bell didn't stop.
It echoed endlessly, a single vibration that seemed to stretch across the horizon, bending time itself.
I stood by the window, frozen, watching the faint outline of the forest. The trees swayed, but the wind didn't move. The leaves didn't fall. It was like the world had been caught in the middle of a breath.
Then — the bell cracked.
The sound broke into fragments, scattering into whispers that crawled beneath my skin. I turned away, pressing my hands over my ears, but the noise wasn't coming from outside anymore. It was inside.
"Wake up," a voice said.
Not loud. Not commanding. Just near.
I looked behind me.
The mirror by the bed reflected only half the room — the other half, where I stood, was missing. The sheets, the floor, the lamp — all visible. But I wasn't.
I stepped closer, the boards creaking. My reflection didn't appear.
Instead, in the glass, I saw a door — a door that didn't exist in the room itself.
Its surface was black, rippling slightly like it was made of smoke.
The whisper again: "Wake up."
This time, it wasn't behind me. It was from inside the mirror.
I don't know what pulled me closer — fear, curiosity, or something deeper. My fingertips grazed the glass, and for a second, it was warm. Then, it gave way like liquid.
I stumbled through.
—
Darkness.
A low hum.
And the smell of rain, old and sour.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in a hallway I had never seen before — narrow, walls lined with peeling wallpaper, flickering lights that buzzed faintly above. The floor beneath me was warped and uneven, covered in black water that reflected dim light like oil.
Somewhere ahead, I heard footsteps.
I walked slowly, the sound of my breathing loud in the silence. The corridor seemed to twist the farther I went — the doors along the walls changing shape, some tall, some short, some opening slightly before shutting again on their own.
One of them was halfway open. Light spilled out.
I peered inside.
The room was small — a table, a chair, and a single candle. Papers scattered across the surface, all covered in the same handwriting. My handwriting.
I picked one up. The words bled together, smeared by dampness, but I could make out fragments:
> "The house remembers."
"He never left."
"Don't forget the mirror."
And one, written across the bottom of a torn page in thick, almost violent strokes:
> "If you see him, don't speak."
The door behind me creaked.
I turned, but there was no one there.
Only the faint reflection of the candlelight on the water — rippling.
Then the footsteps came again. Closer.
Not one set — two.
I backed away from the doorway. The lights above flickered, buzzing louder, faster, until they burst, plunging the hall into darkness.
A faint glow came from behind me — the candle.
It flickered. Then went out.
Silence.
Then — breathing.
Slow. Heavy. Right behind my ear.
I turned, swinging the lantern I didn't remember picking up — but there was nothing. Only the long, empty hallway, stretching infinitely in both directions.
I began to walk again, faster this time. The air felt thicker. The walls began to move — or maybe it was me.
At the end of the hall, a figure stood, head tilted downward.
It looked human. Barefoot. Wearing the same clothes I had on.
I froze. "Who are you?"
The figure lifted its head.
It was me.
But the face was wrong. The eyes were hollow sockets, leaking black fluid, and the mouth hung open far wider than it should have.
Then it spoke in my voice:
> "You stayed too long."
The floor beneath me cracked. Water gushed upward, swallowing my legs, my waist, pulling me down. I tried to move, but the liquid was thick, heavy, clinging to my skin like tar. The last thing I saw before the darkness rose over my head was my other self, standing still, watching me drown without expression.
—
When I came to, I was lying in the field near the house. The rain had stopped. The air smelled of earth and decay.
The church stood in the distance again — whole this time. Its windows glowed faintly, though no light came from inside.
I sat up, coughing, my lungs burning. The mud beneath me was cold and slick, and the distant toll of the bell returned — slower, softer.
This time, I didn't run.
I walked toward it.
Every step felt heavier, as though gravity itself fought against me. The sound of the bell grew clearer, but so did something else beneath it — a low hum, rhythmic, like a heartbeat beneath the world.
As I approached the church doors, I noticed faint carvings etched into the wood. Words again. The same hand.
> "He is still watching."
"He knows your name now."
I reached out, pressing my palm against the door. The surface was warm. Alive.
I pushed.
The door opened silently, revealing not the ruined interior I expected — but the same hallway from before. The same flickering lights. The same black water.
Only this time, at the far end, he was waiting.
My uncle — or whatever wore his skin — stood beneath the faint light, smiling faintly, his hand raised as though greeting an old friend.
"Welcome home," he said.
And the bell tolled once more.
---
The word home echoed in the hollow air, and for a moment, I almost believed him.
The way he said it — quiet, calm, like nothing in the world was wrong — carried a strange familiarity.
I had heard that voice before. Not just in memory. Not just in dreams.
It was the same tone that used to call me in for dinner. The same one that said you're safe now.
But it wasn't his face. Not anymore.
The man standing at the end of the corridor wore my uncle's features like a mask — perfectly shaped, but stretched too tight. His eyes didn't blink. His chest didn't move when he spoke. His smile was frozen in place, thin and precise, as if drawn with a blade.
He took a step forward.
The water rippled under his feet, spreading outward in slow, silent waves.
"Uncle," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Where… where have you been?"
His smile deepened. "I told you, didn't I? Traveling."
I swallowed hard. "Traveling where?"
His head tilted slightly, like he was considering how to answer — or pretending to.
Then he said, softly:
> "Underneath."
The lights flickered. The word underneath hung in the air like smoke, heavy and shapeless.
I took a step back. "What does that mean?"
He didn't answer. His eyes followed me, glowing faintly now — pale green, like the mark on my neck.
The air between us vibrated. The smell of soil grew stronger.
"It's been lonely here," he said finally. "She kept it alive, but she couldn't hold it together without help."
"She?" I asked.
He blinked slowly — the first real motion I'd seen him make.
"The roots," he said. "The ones that remember. You've felt them, haven't you? They breathe through you now."
I wanted to deny it, to scream that I didn't understand — but I did.
Every night since the garden, something inside me pulsed, faint and steady, like a second heart.
He stepped closer. The water barely rippled now, as if holding its breath.
"You were chosen," he whispered. "Just like me."
"I don't want this."
"You already do."
I took another step back — but there was no more hallway. The floor behind me ended abruptly in a black abyss. The air around us pulsed, alive.
The mark on my neck burned.
"You've seen it," he said. "The hollow sky. The world beneath this one. Everything that grows here came from there."
He gestured around him — the warped corridor, the water, the darkness above.
"This is what's left when memory dies. Roots without soil. Souls without bodies. You belong to it now."
I shook my head, my breath trembling. "You're lying."
He smiled.
"Then look."
The walls began to peel.
The wallpaper split, tearing in long, wet strips, revealing not wood or plaster underneath — but flesh. Pale, pulsing veins spread like cracks through the surface, twitching faintly with each toll of the bell. The ceiling swelled as if breathing. The light bulbs above burst one by one, raining shards into the water below.
And from the floor — from the black water — something began to rise.
Roots.
Thousands of them.
Thin, white, trembling like the fingers of a buried hand reaching toward light.
They crawled up the walls, the ceiling, wrapping around my uncle's body. He didn't resist. He opened his arms like a man welcoming the tide.
The roots slid under his skin, bulging outward in writhing patterns. His face split open along the smile — slowly, cleanly — revealing soil beneath instead of bone. From that wound, a faint green glow poured out, the same shade as the mark on my neck.
He spoke again, but now his voice came from everywhere.
> "It remembers you, Mizu. The garden never forgets what it grows."
The light filled the corridor, blinding and soft. The roots reached toward me now — gentle at first, brushing against my ankles like grass, then tightening.
I tried to pull away, but my body wouldn't move. The air was thick with that familiar scent — dew and tea and soil.
And beneath the noise of the roots, I heard her voice again. My aunt's.
> "Don't run. It'll only hurt more."
I looked up.
For a brief, impossible second, I saw her face among the roots — calm, smiling faintly, eyes empty.
Then everything broke.
The walls collapsed inward, and the floor gave way. I fell, through light and dark, through whisper and silence. The last thing I saw before the world vanished completely was my uncle — or what he had become — standing at the edge of the chasm, hands clasped, the roots blooming around him like a crown.
He mouthed something I couldn't hear.
And then —
—
I woke up in my bed.
Morning again.
Sunlight through the window. The sound of sweeping outside. Birds.
Everything was normal.
The cup on the table. The shoes by the door. The air smelled of dew and tea.
For a long time, I just sat there, listening.
But then I noticed it.
The faint hum beneath the floorboards.
Steady. Rhythmic.
I stood, crossed the room, and pressed my ear against the wooden floor.
Something was moving down there. Slowly. Patiently.
A faint whisper followed — muffled but clear enough to understand.
> "Keep watering it."
I jerked back, breath caught in my throat.
The floorboards shivered. A thin crack formed near the bed, and from it, a single green sprout emerged — small, fragile, swaying toward the light.
It was beautiful.
And then it pulsed. Once.
Like a heartbeat.
—
Outside, the bell rang again.
But this time, I didn't cover my ears.
Because I could feel it now — the rhythm, the warmth spreading through the walls, through me. The air shimmered faintly, alive with unseen movement.
Something deep beneath the village was awake.
And in that moment, standing barefoot on the wooden floor, I realized something quietly, horribly true.
The world hadn't gone back to normal.
I had.