The morning sunlight looked softer that day.
It filtered through the curtains in ribbons, golden and delicate, like someone had gently washed the world overnight. The air smelled faintly of flowers — not the usual tea scent that filled the house, but something fresher, almost sweet.
For a long time, I lay in bed just staring at the light, listening to the steady rhythm under the floorboards. It had become almost comforting, that quiet pulse — as if the house itself were breathing beneath me.
I didn't dream that night. Or maybe I did, and the dream simply followed me into waking.
When I sat up, the first thing I noticed was the sprout.
It was still there — at the edge of the floorboard near my bed, where it had pushed through the wood days ago. But it wasn't small anymore. The stem had thickened, the leaves unfurled into soft green ovals, and something that looked like a bud had begun to form at the tip.
It looked fragile — new, alive.
And when the light hit it, I could have sworn it pulsed.
I reached out, hesitating, and brushed it with my fingertip.
Warm.
Not like a plant — more like skin.
---
The kitchen was the same as always. The cup on the table. The shoes by the door. The faint, steady scent of soil.
But there was something else now — a faint hum in the air, low and steady, like the vibration of distant bees. I thought at first it was just the sound of the kettle heating, but when I turned it off, it didn't stop.
It was coming from outside.
I opened the window and froze.
The street beyond the garden wall was alive with color.
Every house, every yard, every fence post — covered in vines and blossoms. Pale white flowers spilled over the rooftops, winding around the telephone poles, curling through open windows. The petals shimmered faintly in the sun, moving as if stirred by something beneath them, not wind.
The village was blooming.
And everyone outside looked so… happy.
The old man who usually swept the street was standing still, his broom lying forgotten beside him. He was staring up at the flowers, smiling faintly, his eyes wide and glassy. Two children ran past him, laughing, their hands full of petals. They threw them into the air like snow, and when they landed, the petals didn't fall — they clung to the ground and began to root.
I closed the window quietly.
The hum grew louder.
---
At school, everything was normal.
Of course it was.
Aya waved at me from the gate, her smile bright as always. "Morning, Mizu! Isn't it beautiful today?"
I hesitated. "You mean the flowers?"
She nodded eagerly. "It's like the whole village came alive overnight! They said it's the blooming season — it only happens once every few years."
"Who said that?" I asked.
Aya blinked. "Everyone."
She laughed softly, like it was a silly question, and then ran ahead toward the building. Her hair glimmered faintly in the light — the same pale tone as the petals outside.
The classrooms smelled faintly sweet, almost too sweet. During lessons, I caught myself staring at the windows, where tiny tendrils of vine were curling along the edges of the glass, thin and white.
No one else seemed to notice.
At lunch, Aya sat beside me as usual. She hummed under her breath while eating, a tune I didn't recognize. Her movements were slow, almost mechanical, but her expression never changed — content, peaceful.
When she looked at me, her pupils reflected green.
"You look tired," she said softly. "You shouldn't fight it so much."
My hand froze halfway to my mouth. "…Fight what?"
She smiled. "It's easier if you let it grow."
Then she took another bite of her rice and said nothing more.
---
After class, I walked home alone.
The sky had turned a strange shade of white, the clouds pale and thin like stretched silk. The air felt heavy, thick with pollen or something that wasn't quite pollen. I could taste it when I breathed — faintly sweet, faintly wrong.
At the edge of the road, I saw the general store clerk again. He was standing perfectly still, staring into the distance. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. His apron was covered in petals.
When I passed him, his head turned slowly, following me without blinking.
"Good evening, Miss Mizu," he said at last, his tone perfectly calm.
I didn't answer.
He tilted his head slightly, that same slow, deliberate movement I'd seen before — like a puppet being adjusted by invisible hands. "It's good to see the garden thriving again."
Then he smiled, and his gums were black.
---
When I reached home, the light had turned orange, and the air shimmered faintly as though the whole village were vibrating.
The sprout in my room had bloomed.
A single flower — white, translucent, its petals faintly veined with green — had opened in the center of the stem. It faced the window, reaching toward the last of the sunset.
I stood there for a long time, staring at it.
It was beautiful. Too beautiful.
When I leaned closer, I realized the petals weren't smooth. They were textured, faintly patterned — and then I saw it.
The pattern was skin.
Tiny ridges, pores, faint traces of lines that looked almost like fingerprints.
I stumbled back.
The flower trembled, almost shyly, and then the petals closed — slowly, gently — as if it were sleeping.
The hum in the air softened, matching the rhythm beneath the floorboards.
Somewhere outside, the church bells began to ring again.
Three short tolls.
Then one long.
And through the walls, through the wood and the soil beneath, I heard it again — that same voice, calm and distant, speaking from somewhere below the house.
> "It's almost ready to bloom."
---
The night came softly — too softly.
No crickets, no wind. Only that low, endless hum.
It seemed to rise from the earth itself now, vibrating faintly through the walls, through my chest, through the thin bones in my wrist when I pressed it to the floorboards. The pulse had changed. It was faster.
Something beneath the house was awake.
I couldn't sleep, so I sat by the window, watching the village in the dark.
The blossoms glowed faintly — a white phosphorescence that ran along the vines like veins of light. The rooftops shimmered. The streets looked like rivers of petals.
And the people…
They weren't sleeping either.
I saw silhouettes walking aimlessly in the distance — slow, steady, moving like they were being led somewhere unseen. Some held flowers to their chests. Others just followed the vines as they crawled along the ground, tracing them deeper into the valley.
The church bell rang again.
One long toll.
The hum answered it — like a chorus from the roots below.
I closed the curtains.
---
By morning, I'd convinced myself it was exhaustion — that the sleepless nights, the strange air, the endless sweetness in the scent of the village were all playing tricks on me.
But then I opened the door.
And the world wasn't the same.
The sky was white — not cloudy, just white, like blank paper stretched forever. The sun wasn't visible, but the light hurt my eyes. The air shimmered with faint motes, and every surface — the path, the fence, the stones, even the old mailbox — was covered in creeping green veins.
The vines had thickened overnight, coiling around the railings and stretching toward every window like searching fingers.
The hum was no longer distant. It was everywhere.
I stepped back inside.
The floorboards were warm.
The sprout by my bed — the flower that had closed the night before — was now completely open again. Larger than my hand. The petals were breathing, expanding and contracting in a slow rhythm.
Something pale shimmered in the center — like a heartbeat.
I reached out again before I could stop myself.
When my fingertip brushed it, my vision flashed.
Not white, not dark — just somewhere else.
---
A field.
Endless white flowers.
Skyless, horizonless, infinite.
I was standing barefoot on soft earth that pulsed like skin, and before me stood the church — but not the church from the village. This one was broken, half-buried in roots. The bell tower was wrapped tightly by a massive vine, thick as a tree trunk, pulsing faintly.
And from the open doors came a sound — the same hum, but deeper, layered with whispers.
When I stepped forward, the flowers moved with me, parting in waves. Each petal that brushed my leg left a faint mark on my skin — faint green, faintly glowing.
Inside the church, the pews were gone. The floor was gone. Only the roots remained, twisting downward into the earth.
And in the center stood Aya.
Her back was to me, her hair pale and flowing down her dress, blending into the vines around her.
When she turned, her smile was soft.
"You finally came."
I tried to speak, but the sound died in my throat.
She raised her hand. There was a flower blooming in her palm — the same white one, only this one pulsed in perfect sync with the hum.
"It's okay," she said gently. "You don't have to resist anymore. It's part of you too."
I took a step back. "What… are you talking about?"
"The blooming," she whispered. "It's not spreading. It's awakening. This is the garden. And you've been here all along."
The world flickered.
For an instant, I saw her face split — petals blooming where her eyes had been. Then it all went white.
---
I woke on the floor of my room.
My hands were shaking. The flower by my bed had wilted — not naturally, but like it had dried out all at once, curling in on itself. The hum was gone.
Only silence.
The air smelled stale.
Outside, the light had changed again — softer, gray, almost normal. I stepped onto the porch and froze.
The vines were dead.
Everywhere I looked, the petals had turned black and fallen. The streets were littered with them, the air heavy with decay. The houses stood still and empty.
No voices. No movement.
I walked to the end of the road.
The general store was closed. The sign outside the church hung crooked, the bell silent. The ground beneath the vines was cracked, dry, and hollow.
And then I saw them — the people.
Still standing where I had last seen them.
The same smiles. The same glassy eyes. Only now, their skin was paper-thin, dried and gray. From their mouths, thin green stems grew, curling toward the sky.
I turned and ran.
---
By the time I reached home, the sun was gone. The hum had returned, faint, beneath the floor.
I locked the door and sat in the corner, knees against my chest. The flower beside my bed — the dead one — had crumbled to dust. Beneath it, a small crack had opened in the floorboard.
From the darkness below, faint light pulsed — slow, steady, familiar.
And I heard the voice again.
> "It's not over. You can't stop a season."
My breath caught. "What do you want from me?"
The voice was calm. Kind, even.
> "To remember."
> "You planted the first seed."
---
That night, I didn't sleep. I didn't move. I just stared at that faint glow beneath the boards, feeling it match my heartbeat.
I tried to count the seconds between each pulse, but they began to blend — time folding and stretching like fabric. I blinked, and the dawn light was already there.
The hum stopped.
I crawled toward the window and looked outside.
The village was gone.
Only a sea of white flowers remained.
Endless. Shimmering. Breathing.
And far in the center, where the church had been, stood a single figure — unmoving, hands clasped, her hair flowing in the wind.
Aya.
The hum began again.
And the petals nearest the house started to rise.
---
I stepped outside.
The ground wasn't solid anymore — it moved softly, like stepping on the surface of a living lung. Each motion sent faint ripples through the petals, carrying the vibration outward in waves.
The air smelled of dew, rot, and something faintly sweet — the scent of a flower that shouldn't exist.
Every time I took a breath, I could feel the same rhythm inside me — that pulse beneath my skin, matching the one flowing through the earth.
The closer I walked toward the center, the heavier the air became. The petals brushed my legs as I moved, clinging, whispering faintly as if sighing words I couldn't quite hear.
> "Welcome back."
"You've come home."
"It's time."
The voice wasn't singular anymore — it was a choir.
Every bloom. Every root. Every seed.
---
I saw Aya waiting at the heart of the field.
Her feet didn't touch the ground — the vines lifted her gently, coiling around her legs, her arms, her waist. Her hair was white now, glowing faintly, spreading like strands of silk into the wind.
The closer I came, the more she seemed to blur — not in shape, but in definition, as though she was becoming part of everything around her.
"Aya…"
She turned, and the faintest smile crossed her lips — gentle, serene, full of something ancient.
"You finally remembered," she said softly. "I was beginning to think you'd stay asleep forever."
My throat tightened. "Remembered what?"
"The beginning," she whispered. "When the world was still quiet."
Her eyes — pale green, almost translucent — reflected something I couldn't see.
"You were the first," she said. "You brought life to this valley. You gave it its name."
I shook my head. "No. That's not— I was just—"
But I couldn't finish the sentence. Because deep inside, something shifted.
The memories I'd buried — not from my life, but from something older — began to stir.
A field. The same one I stood in now. Only empty. Desolate.
And a voice — mine — whispering into the void:
> "If I plant something here, will the world forgive me?"
---
Aya stepped closer. "You planted the seed," she said. "Not out of hope. Out of loneliness. The garden grew to fill that emptiness. It remembered you. It waited."
"I—" My voice cracked. "I didn't mean to—"
She reached out her hand. A petal landed in her palm, pulsing faintly with light. "Intent doesn't matter anymore. The bloom doesn't ask why it grows. It only follows the rhythm of what was given to it."
Her tone softened. "It was never meant to destroy. Only to remember. To preserve what would be forgotten."
The petals around us began to rise again, swirling gently in circles. Each one carried faint shapes within it — faces, outlines, fragments of the villagers' smiles.
"They're not gone," Aya said. "They've just changed form. The garden keeps them. Keeps you. Keeps everything."
I shook my head, tears stinging. "That's not life. That's not remembering. That's—"
"Peace," she said simply.
The vines beneath her pulsed. The hum deepened. The ground shuddered.
> "You can't unmake it now," she whispered. "But you can guide it."
---
The light shifted — white turning green, then blue, then something beyond color.
The petals rose higher, forming spirals around us, weaving into symbols, veins, constellations. My chest burned. The line on my neck glowed, pulsing in perfect sync with the field.
I dropped to my knees. "What do you want me to do?"
Aya smiled again — and for the first time, I saw something human in it. Sadness. Regret.
"Remember what you wished for when you planted the first seed."
The memory came back like a flood:
Rain. Empty hands. A grave. My voice whispering through cracked lips —
> "Let something beautiful grow here, so I won't be alone."
Aya placed her palm over mine. "Then don't resist it. Become it."
The hum surged. The earth opened.
Vines wrapped around my wrists, my legs, my chest — not painfully, but with a kind of terrible gentleness.
The warmth spread through me, and I felt it connect — every root, every petal, every heartbeat of the world.
It wasn't destruction. It wasn't rebirth. It was continuity.
And as the vines pulled me downward, Aya's voice echoed in my mind:
> "The bloom is not death. It's memory taking shape."
---
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in the same field.
The sky was no longer white — it was filled with stars.
The wind carried voices — laughter, music, fragments of a world that once was.
The village was there again, faint and spectral. The houses glowed like lanterns beneath the night. The people moved through the streets, their faces peaceful, their eyes bright.
Aya stood beside me.
"You see?" she said. "You didn't lose them. You joined them."
I looked down at my hands — they shimmered faintly, translucent, veins of green light pulsing through the skin.
I wasn't entirely human anymore. But I wasn't afraid.
The hum was my heartbeat now.
And as the petals fell from the sky, glowing softly before vanishing into the soil, I felt something close — not like an ending, but like a pause.
Aya smiled at me one last time. "Every season begins again."
Her body dissolved into light, scattering like pollen in the wind.
And as the world shifted, fading to white once more, I heard her final whisper:
> "Sleep for now, Mizu. The next bloom will remember you."