---
Silence.
That was the first thing I noticed when I woke.
Not the kind of silence that follows sleep, but the kind that seems to breathe on its own — a silence too full, too aware.
When I opened my eyes, there was no ceiling. Only white.
A soft, endless white, like mist made solid.
I sat up slowly. The air felt heavier here — like every breath pulled through water. My movements left faint ripples in the air, spreading outward and fading into nothing.
I looked down. My hands were pale, but not the way they used to be. Beneath the skin, faint green lines glowed — slow, pulsing, breathing. When I moved my fingers, the light shifted with them, like something alive watching from beneath.
My reflection appeared in the ground — not a mirror, but the surface itself reflecting what I was. My eyes were no longer brown. They were colorless — like light caught in dew.
I spoke softly.
"Hello?"
The sound didn't travel far.
Instead, it folded back into me — absorbed, as if the air itself was listening.
---
I stood up, and the world rippled again.
Beneath my feet, faint veins of light stretched outward — thin and branching, spreading in all directions. I followed one, unsure why, only knowing that I had to move.
The white slowly began to darken. Faint shadows took shape — outlines of trees, buildings, fragments of streets. They weren't solid. They flickered, like images projected on fog.
The more I walked, the clearer they became.
The village.
The same houses, the same road, the same shrine — but everything glowed faintly, pulsing with that soft green light.
The air smelled like wet grass and candle wax.
"Am I back?" I whispered.
A voice answered — faint, distant, but familiar.
> "You never left."
I froze.
It came from somewhere behind me — a woman's voice, calm and almost kind.
I turned slowly.
Aya stood at the edge of the mist.
Her form was transparent now, her hair floating like strands of silk in water.
"Aya…" I breathed.
She smiled faintly. "You remember me."
I took a step forward. "What is this place?"
She tilted her head, the same way she always did. "A garden needs a root. You're standing inside it."
My heart — if it was still a heart — beat faster. "Then this is…"
"The memory of everything the bloom has touched," she said. "Dreams, fears, people, time. It's all here now. Growing."
---
We walked together through the quiet streets.
Each house we passed flickered between what it had been and what it was becoming — walls of wood melting into vines, roofs made of woven petals, windows that blinked softly like eyes.
In one of them, I saw a face — the shopkeeper's, smiling, his eyes half open, his mouth moving in silence. His features dissolved into leaves, then reformed, then melted again.
Aya didn't stop walking.
"They're at peace," she said. "The garden remembers them gently."
I frowned. "Peace doesn't look like that."
"It's only frightening from the outside," she replied. "From within, it feels like warmth."
I touched the side of one house. The surface was soft — not wood, but something closer to skin. It pulsed faintly beneath my fingertips.
A heartbeat.
I stepped back. "This isn't peace," I whispered. "It's still alive."
Aya looked at me with a kind of sorrow. "Everything that grows is alive, Mizu. Even what's buried."
---
We reached the shrine.
It stood taller than before, its torii gate covered in vines. The paper charms hanging from it glowed with faint green script that moved when I tried to read it.
The bell was gone. In its place hung a single white flower — larger than my hand, its petals trembling as though breathing.
Aya stopped beside it. "Do you know what this is?"
I shook my head.
"The first bloom," she said. "The one you planted."
"I never planted this."
Her eyes met mine. "You did. You just don't remember what you called it."
I stared at the flower. Its center pulsed slowly, like the rhythm of a sleeping heart. When I reached out, the air hummed — not warning me away, but waiting.
I touched it.
The world shifted.
---
Suddenly I was standing in rain.
Not real rain — memory rain, falling in perfect rhythm.
The village was gone. The earth was barren. The air smelled of ash.
A younger voice — mine — whispered in the wind:
> "If I plant something here, will it forgive me?"
I saw myself kneeling in the dirt. My hands were small, trembling, covered in soil and blood. Something glimmered in my palm — a seed, white as bone.
Aya's voice echoed faintly beside me, though she wasn't there.
> "It wasn't a prayer. It was a promise."
I watched as the younger me pressed the seed into the ground. The soil accepted it greedily, swallowing the light until nothing remained.
And then, silence again.
The rain stopped.
The memory faded.
---
When I opened my eyes, I was back at the shrine. Aya stood a few steps away, watching quietly.
"I didn't mean to do this," I said softly.
"I know," she replied. "But wishes grow whether you want them to or not."
The petals of the white flower began to close, curling inward. The glow dimmed.
"The dream is stable now," Aya murmured. "The garden will keep growing. But it needs a voice to guide it — a memory that won't fade."
I stared at her. "You mean me."
She nodded.
I wanted to protest, but deep down, I already knew. The hum beneath my skin — the pulse that matched the earth — it was part of me now.
I couldn't leave.
Aya smiled faintly, as if reading my thoughts. "You don't have to be afraid, Mizu. Roots don't forget their flowers."
Her voice softened. "And even if they fall asleep, they keep dreaming."
---
The air shimmered.
Aya's form began to dissolve again — tiny motes of light drifting upward, like dust caught in sunlight.
"Wait," I said. "Where are you going?"
She looked at me one last time. "To rest. Until the next season."
Her smile lingered. "You'll know when it begins."
And then she was gone.
Only the hum remained — low, deep, infinite.
---
I stood alone before the closed flower.
The ground beneath me pulsed softly, matching my heartbeat.
For the first time, I felt the world breathe through me. The soil inhaled. The roots whispered. The petals opened somewhere in the dark, miles away.
Every sound, every breath, every living thing — connected.
And beneath it all, a voice — faint, patient, familiar — spoke within the rhythm:
> "Grow."
The word echoed through me long after it faded.
Grow.
It wasn't a command. It wasn't even language, not really — it was a pulse, a vibration that resonated with everything beneath my skin. It came from everywhere and nowhere, rising from the roots that threaded through the world and sinking again into the quiet beneath.
I didn't know how long I stood there. Time didn't move the same way in this place. The air didn't change. The light never dimmed. Even when I blinked, the world didn't follow the rhythm of my eyes — it breathed at its own pace, independent of me.
Eventually, I began to walk.
The path that formed ahead wasn't stone or dirt. It was soft, like stepping on the inside of a lung. With each step, faint ripples spread through the surface, glowing briefly before fading back to white.
The veins beneath my feet pulsed faintly — slow, methodical, alive.
---
The mist thickened again the farther I went. Shapes drifted in and out of the haze — outlines of people, familiar and not. Their voices whispered faintly, fragments of lives I barely recognized.
> "Dinner's ready, Mizu."
"Don't stay out too late."
"Do you think the flowers bloom for us, or for themselves?"
The voices came from nowhere and everywhere at once. I couldn't tell if they were memories or dreams, or if they even belonged to me at all.
Sometimes I saw faces — my classmates, the villagers, Aya — flickering in and out of the fog. They smiled, spoke, laughed, then dissolved like smoke.
Each time I tried to follow, the path shifted, guiding me somewhere else.
---
The mist opened suddenly into a clearing.
It was circular, perfectly symmetrical, surrounded by roots that rose like columns. The air vibrated with a low hum — steady, almost mechanical.
In the center stood something that looked like a mirror.
But when I approached it, I realized it wasn't reflecting me at all.
It showed a world above — the real one.
The village. The school. The streets.
All covered in flowers.
Petals spilled from windows and doors. Vines wrapped around rooftops. The river shimmered green under the morning sun. People moved through it all — calmly, peacefully — their eyes glowing faintly, their movements slow and synchronized.
They were alive. But not entirely.
I reached out to touch the surface, and it rippled. For a brief second, I saw my reflection overlaying the image — my faintly glowing skin, the green veins pulsing beneath it.
> Are they dreaming of me, I thought, or am I dreaming of them?
The mirror pulsed.
And then something inside it blinked.
---
At first, I thought it was a trick of the light. But then the motion came again — subtle, deliberate.
The reflection of the school shimmered. The windows darkened. The air in the image began to distort, as though heat were rising from the ground.
And then I saw her.
A girl standing by the gate.
Her uniform. Her hair. Her face.
Me.
But her eyes were empty. Hollow.
She turned her head, looking directly at me through the surface.
And when she smiled, the mirror cracked.
The sound wasn't sharp — it was soft, wet, like a stem snapping under pressure.
---
The clearing pulsed violently.
The ground shivered. The roots groaned. I stumbled back as the mirror began to warp, its surface bubbling outward like something underneath was trying to push through.
Aya's voice came faintly from somewhere above — distant, almost drowned by the noise.
> "Don't let it take shape."
But the reflection kept twisting, forming something human from the light. Hands, face, eyes — all blooming like petals unfolding in reverse.
The other me stepped out from the surface.
Her movements were slow, graceful, almost serene. Her skin shimmered faintly, her veins glowing brighter than mine.
When she spoke, her voice sounded like mine but layered — a dozen tones echoing inside it.
"I remember you," she said.
I stepped back. "You're not—"
She smiled faintly. "I'm the part that stayed behind. The dream you left unfinished."
Her fingers brushed the side of her neck — the same place my green mark pulsed. "You wanted to grow. I wanted to bloom. We're the same root, Mizu."
---
The air thickened.
Every vein on the ground lit up, forming a web of green light beneath us. The hum grew louder, deeper — resonating inside my chest.
"What do you want?" I asked.
She tilted her head. "To finish what you started."
Before I could move, she reached forward. Her hand passed through my chest like water. I gasped — not from pain, but from the sudden rush of memory.
Images poured through me — the garden swallowing the village, the faces of the people who'd disappeared, the first seed, the grave, Aya's smile.
The other me's voice whispered inside the torrent:
> "You can't guide the garden if you still fear what it remembers."
Her face softened. "Let me take it from you."
I shook my head, pushing her away. "No. You're not real."
She laughed — quietly, almost kindly. "Neither are you."
---
The clearing shuddered again. Roots rose from the ground, curling upward, wrapping around both of us. The light intensified, pulsing faster and faster.
The other me's expression shifted — from calm to something feral. Her smile widened. Her pupils dilated until her eyes were completely black.
She whispered against my ear, her voice trembling with hunger:
> "The garden doesn't need two stems."
And then she lunged.
---
I fell backward into the light.
The roots closed around us, twisting, constricting, fusing skin to soil, thought to memory.
For a moment, everything went silent again.
And in that silence, I heard one voice — not Aya's, not mine — something older, deeper.
> "Choose which one of you will bloom."
The light shattered.
---
The shattering light left behind no sound, only the dull throb of blood — or sap — in my ears. My body hit something soft, then hard, then nothing at all.
When my eyes opened, I was lying in water. Shallow, perfectly still. The surface glowed faintly green, reflecting branches that stretched across an invisible ceiling. I tried to move, but my arms felt heavy, my fingers stiff — like they were trying to remember if they still belonged to me.
Across the water stood her.
My other self.
She didn't move. She only watched, head tilted slightly, her hair drifting weightlessly around her. The cracks from the mirror now ran across her body like veins of glass, filled with light that pulsed in rhythm with mine.
For a moment, I couldn't tell which of us was real anymore.
---
"Where is this?" I asked.
She smiled faintly. "Where you planted the first seed."
Her voice carried no echo, yet it filled the space entirely.
The water trembled beneath her feet as she stepped closer. "You remember, don't you? The night it all began. You buried it beneath the tree, thinking it was a prayer."
I remembered the cold soil beneath my nails. The smell of rain. Aya's laughter in the distance.
"It wasn't a prayer," she continued, "it was a wish."
I stood slowly. "And what was I wishing for?"
"To never be forgotten."
The words hit harder than they should have. Because she was right — I hadn't wished for peace, or beauty, or love. I just didn't want to disappear.
That was the seed. That was the truth.
---
The reflection of the branches above started to twist. The shapes of flowers formed and dissolved like breath on glass.
She walked closer, and as she did, I saw that her reflection wasn't mirrored — it moved opposite mine. Every step I took backward, she took forward, matching perfectly.
"The garden gave you what you wanted," she said. "You became part of everything. You grew roots deep enough to touch every soul that remembered you."
Her expression darkened. "But you were afraid to bloom. You kept hiding in dreams. You wanted eternity, but not the weight that came with it."
"I didn't ask for this," I said, my voice trembling.
She smiled gently, almost sadly. "Of course you did. You just don't remember the price."
---
A sound rose beneath the water — faint at first, then swelling into a low hum that vibrated through the ground. The surface split like glass, and from below, hands emerged — dozens of them, pale and half-formed, reaching, searching.
I stumbled back. "What are those?"
She looked down at them tenderly. "The ones who dreamed of you. The ones you kept alive in memory."
The hands grasped at her ankles, her waist, her wrists — not pulling her down, but holding her up, as if presenting her to the world.
"You became their god," she whispered. "And gods can't wake up."
---
Her eyes glowed white, the cracks on her skin flaring with light.
Then, in one motion, she raised her arm — and the water exploded upward, forming towering columns that spiraled like vines.
I shielded my face as shards of liquid light cut through the air. The world around us shifted again — water became soil, sky became roots, and gravity ceased to matter.
I found myself suspended in the middle of a vast, pulsating heart — the core of the garden itself.
The other me floated opposite, her arms spread like a saint in a painting.
"You can't kill me," she said softly. "You'd only be killing yourself."
"I know."
I didn't move closer. Instead, I reached into the pulse that beat inside my chest. The same green light that had haunted me from the beginning shimmered faintly under my palm.
"You're right," I said. "But maybe I don't have to kill you."
Her eyes flickered. "Then what will you do?"
"Let you rest."
---
The words weren't magic, but the garden reacted as if they were.
The roots around us writhed violently, the hum deepening into a tremor. The light within me and within her began to pulse faster, syncing — and for the first time, not in opposition.
She looked at me, and for a moment, her face softened.
"Rest…" she whispered, as though testing the word. "I've forgotten what that feels like."
I floated closer until we were face to face. The reflection shimmered — we were perfectly aligned now, like two halves of the same petal folding inward.
"You were never my enemy," I said. "You were just the part of me that didn't know when to stop growing."
Her eyes filled with tears — clear, luminous, falling upward into the roots above.
Then she smiled. "Then… let's wither together."
---
We reached out, our hands touching in the space between.
The instant our fingers met, the garden screamed.
Not in pain — in release.
The roots convulsed, the soil split open, the light poured out in waves. Every hand, every voice, every whisper that had lingered beneath the dream rose like pollen into the air.
The other me's form began to dissolve, fragmenting into petals that shimmered faintly before fading into the mist.
"You'll remember, won't you?" she said softly.
"Yes."
Her smile lingered for a second longer, then vanished completely.
---
When the light faded, I was alone again.
The water beneath me was still. The air smelled of earth and rain.
I looked down at my reflection — just one face this time. My eyes no longer glowed. The veins beneath my skin were faint, almost gone.
The garden around me was quiet. Peaceful.
And for the first time, I felt no need to wake up.
---
But before the silence could settle completely, I heard it — faint, familiar, real.
Aya's voice.
> "Mizu… come back."
The world trembled.
The light around me shifted.
The dream began to break again.