Exhaustion, sweet and heavy, finally settled into my bones. The frantic joy of exploration ebbed, leaving me weary and strangely homesick in the middle of my vast, alien domain. The eight rice-grain beacons pulsed their steady, golden watch from the floor. The distant ceiling hummed. The silence was no longer exciting; it was deep, and it listened.
I trudged back to the only familiar spot—my little nest of sand, my writhing memory-foam pillow, and my folded shrimp pajamas. Proti oozed along beside me, a silent, gelatinous shadow. I collapsed onto the pillow, which molded to my shape with a soft sigh, its screaming cephalopod faces murmuring wave-like nothings. I pulled the strange, warm shadow-veil Mr. Fin had given me over my shoulders. It still smelled of volcanic silt and safe, dark places.
My gaze found Mr. Fin. He was a distant monument of obsidian and starlight, positioned near one of the weeping judge-scars, as if guarding the leak. I saw the faint, rapid pulse of his gills. He was… nibbling. Snacking on the very air, on the drifting motes of crystallized nostalgia my run had kicked up.
"Mr. Fin?" I called out, my voice small in the expanse.
His jaw froze mid-snap. A droplet of brine, caught between two needle-teeth, detached and fell. It didn't splash. It crystallized in mid-air, transforming into a tiny, complex glyph that tinked against the floor:
[CONSUMPTION LOG: 0 CALORIES ABSORBED. NUTRITIONAL VALUE: NEGATIVE.]
His dorsal fin gave a series of irregular, irritable twitches. Across his dark flank, STAUST projected a ghostly readout that warped around the still-angry pits left by NightSnack's feeding:
[GASTRIC BYPRODUCT ANALYSIS: 92% UNPROCESSED VANILLA POLYPS. 8% AMBIENT REGRET PARTICULATES.]
"Land-grub." His voice reached me, not as a boom, but as a vibration that traveled through the rocky floor and up the legs of my bed, making my teeth hum. It sounded strained, like a detuned cello string played in a sunken ship. "Gardens require seeds."
The statement hung in the thick air, simple and devastating. It was suspended in a new, perfect droplet of brine that had welled from the ceiling. The droplet didn't fall; it hung, reflecting the entire scene: Proti, now extruding thin, root-like pseudopods into the sockets of the embedded rice grains with wet, probing schlucks; my lonely bed; the vast, barren grey.
The droplet smelled, poignantly, of a kindergarten's broken terrarium—of damp peat moss, spilled water, and the quiet sadness of a failed project.
He was right. I had soil—sort of. I had space. I had light from my rice-grains. But I had nothing to plant. The beautiful glass urchins didn't count; they were guests, and I was apparently a terrible host.
The homesickness swelled. It wasn't for a place, but for a feeling. For noise. For other people's noise.
I curled up on my pillow, hugging my knees. "Mr. Fin," I said, not looking at him, my voice muffled by the shadow-veil. "Did I ever tell you about the other orphans?"
The hum of the bubble seemed to soften. Proti's probing pseudopods stilled. The hanging brine droplet quivered.
"I wasn't the only one," I began, talking to the warmth of my own breath. "There was a boy, Koji. He could fold paper cranes so tiny they'd fit on a fingernail. He said he was making an army to fly him away. He gave me one once. A red one." I held up my thumb and forefinger, showing the impossible size. "I put it in my shoe for good luck. It washed away in the rain the next day when I had to run an errand. I cried more about that crane than about dinner that night."
I paused, listening to the memory. The bubble listened too. The weeping from the judge-scars seemed to slow, the brine forming more intricate, delicate fractal patterns in their shallow pools.
"There was also Mrs. Hana, who ran the dorm. She had a voice like gravel in a tin can, and she always smelled of old tea and mothballs. She wasn't nice. But sometimes, if you were quiet and didn't look at her directly, she'd tell you about the cherry tree that used to grow in the courtyard. She said it bloomed pink like cotton candy. I never saw it. They cut it down before I got there. She said the blossoms would fall and cover the ground like a pink snow. I tried to imagine pink snow. I still can't."
I took a shaky breath. The confession was bubbling up, drawn out by the immense, non-judgmental listening of the abyss.
"And once… once I got placed. A foster family. They had a real house, with a blue door. The woman had a smile that didn't reach her eyes. The man called me 'the new project.' They had rules. So many rules. Don't touch the walls. Don't speak at meals. Don't look out the windows after dark." My voice dropped to a whisper. "They had a cat. A fat, orange cat. It would sleep on the sofa. I just wanted to pet it. Just once."
I fell silent. The memory of that longing—for simple, warm, living contact—was sharper than any hunger.
"I lasted two weeks. I took a rice ball from the kitchen one night. Just one. They said I was stealing. That I was ungrateful. That I had 'boundary issues.'" The words felt alien in my mouth, labels applied by people who saw a problem, not a person. "So I ran. Back to the orphanage in the rain. The blue door shut behind me, and it was the best sound I'd ever heard."
The story ended, leaving a different kind of quiet in its wake. Not empty, but full of echoes.
Mr. Fin had not moved. But the frantic twitching of his dorsal fin had ceased. It stood rigid, a black sail against the invisible currents. The hovering brine droplet finally fell, shattering on the floor into a spray of tiny, perfect replicas of a folded paper crane, which dissolved into mist.
STAUST, ever the archivist, displayed a gentle, pearly line at the edge of my vision:
[EMOTIONAL NARRATIVE LOGGED. CATEGORY: TERRAFORMING SUBSTRATE - 'LONELINESS' & 'RESILIENCE'. POTENTIAL BIO-AVAILABILITY: UNDER REVIEW.]
Proti oozed closer, pressing a cool, smooth pseudopod against my arm. It didn't form words, just a steady, soothing pressure. It was listening too.
I looked at the vast, grey expanse of my Brine-Seeded Expansion. It wasn't just empty space anymore. It was filled with my stories now. With Koji' lost crane, with Mrs. Hana's phantom cherry blossoms, with the memory of a blue door closing.
"I have seeds," I said quietly, with newfound certainty. I looked at Mr. Fin. "Just not the kind you can hold."
His starry eye rotated slowly in its socket to regard me. He said nothing. But the judgmental, carved words on the ceiling—
[BRINE-SEEDED EXPANSE]
—seemed to glow just a fraction brighter.
Chapter 20: The Catalog & The Sapling
The silence after my stories was companionable. But the practical problem remained. Stories weren't enough. I needed something to grow. Something to care for. A project.
I sat up, cross-legged on my bouncy, murmuring pillow. "Staust," I announced. "Show me what we can buy for the garden. For our 110,000 Bubblepoints."
The blue pane materialized before me, serene and official. A menu unfolded, pearly text scrolling.
[AVAILABLE PURCHASES - HABITAT ENRICHMENT TIER 1]
[AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED: OWNER (C'THULLUS THE EVER-HUNGERING)]
I scowled. Right. Mr. Fin held the purse strings. I turned my best pleading look on the distant shark. "Mr. Fiiin? Can we look? Pleeease? Just looking!"
His dorsal fin gave one definitive twitch: No.
I pouted. "But it's our garden! I did the cooking! I got the grade! Well, the D-minus. But I got the points!"
A low rumble traveled through the floor. It wasn't a word, but a sensation of profound, cosmic reluctance. Then, with a sound like a great, rusty lock turning, STAUST's display changed. The
[AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED]
line blinked out. In its place appeared:
[TEMPORARY BROWSING PERMISSION GRANTED. USER: CHIARI. DURATION: 10 MINUTES.]
"Thank you!" I chirped, diving into the catalog.
It was bewildering. The items weren't just listed; they were demonstrated in tiny, holographic simulations.
[BASIC SOIL LAYER (NON-NUTRITIVE): 10,000 BP]
"Adds minimal loft. Will not sustain carbon-based life. Primarily aesthetic."
The holo showed grey dust settling over a patch of floor. It looked… like slightly finer grey dust.
[PRIMORDIAL WATER CYCLE: 5,000 BP]
"Recirculates existing ambient brine. Does not purify. May increase local humidity by up to 3%."
A tiny, shimmering loop appeared—a droplet forming from mist, falling, evaporating. It was pretty.
[PHOTOSYNTHETIC LICHEN COLONY (GLOW-VARIANT): 8,000 BP]
"Derives energy from ambient regret-spectrum light. Inedible. Possibly mildly hypnotic."
A patch of eerie, blue-white lichen spread across a rock, glowing faintly.
I scrolled, my nose almost touching the hologram. Then I saw it.
[ENGINEERED ABYSSAL WHEAT SAPLING: 7,500 BP]
"Low-yield. Grains require significant emotional processing to be rendered digestible. Drought-tolerant (brine-based)."
The simulation showed a single, slender stalk pushing up from the grey. It was black, etched with silver veins, and its single seed head pulsed with a soft, platinum light.
My heart leapt. "Wheat! We can make bread! Mr. Fin, look! Wheat!"
His only response was a deeper, more resonant hum from the floor. A warning.
I kept scrolling, faster now. Melons. I wanted melons. Sweet, juicy…
[FRUIT-BEARING FLORA: UNAVAILABLE.]
[REASON: INSUFFICIENT PHOTOSYNTHETIC INFRASTRUCTURE. INCOMPATIBLE SUBSTRATE.... no... no!]
I glared at the STAUST pane. "Melons," I stated.
The text glitched.
[MELON-TREE SYNTHESIS PACKAGE: 55,000 BP]
"Advanced purchase. Requires Basic Soil Layer & Primordial Water Cycle as prerequisites. Fruit is hyper-saturated with nostalgic sugars. Consumption may cause vivid, non-linear time perception."
The holo that appeared was… bizarre. It showed a gnarled, mangrove-like trunk growing directly out of a brine pool. From its branches hung not leaves, but small, shimmering, translucent orbs that looked like trapped bubbles of honeydew.
A melon tree. I giggled. That was perfect. Impossible and perfect.
I tapped my foot on the floor, thinking. The math danced in my head. Soil, Water, Wheat, Melon-Tree… it was a lot. I looked over my shoulder at Mr. Fin's immense shadow, cast long by the rice-grain light.
"Mr. Fin," I said, my voice shifting to a tone of serious negotiation I didn't know I had. "We need to invest. In our future. In better ingredients."
I saw the reflection of STAUST's screen in his obsidian scales. The numbers glimmered there. I saw his dorsal fin tilt, just a degree. A calculation was happening in that cosmic mind.
A new line appeared on STAUST, in a font that seemed heavier, final:
[PURCHASE ORDER QUEUED. AWAITING OWNER CONFIRMATION.]
[ITEMS: BASIC SOIL LAYER (10,000 BP), PRIMORDIAL WATER CYCLE (5,000 BP), ENGINEERED ABYSSAL WHEAT SAPLING (7,500 BP), MANGROVE MELON-TREE SYNTHESIS (55,000 BP)]
[TOTAL: 77,500 BP]
I held my breath. The bubble hummed. Proti quivered.
From the darkness, a single, sharp click echoed, like the sound of a vault closing in reverse.
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED.]
[DEBITTING ACCOUNT...]
[REMAINING BP: 32,500]
And then, the Brine-Seeded Expansion began to change.
It started with a deep, grinding tremble. The grey, rocky floor in a wide circle around my nest began to shimmer. It wasn't an light—it was the surface becoming unstable, granular. Then, from nowhere and everywhere, a fine, ochre-tinted dust began to sift down, a silent, perpetual rain. It settled over the jagged membrane, softening its edges, filling its pores. The Basic Soil Layer. It didn't smell like earth. It smelled like powdered pottery and forgotten attics.
Next, the air itself thickened. The fine mist rising from the brine puddles began to move, caught in an invisible current. It streamed toward the center of the newly soiled area, coalescing into a shimmering, vertical ring of mist—a ghostly, miniature weather system about as tall as I was. The Primordial Water Cycle. A single, heavy droplet condensed at its top and fell with a soft plink into a small, newly formed depression in the soil. The droplet didn't soak in; it beaded, rolling like mercury before slowly evaporating back into the mist. The humidity ticked up, tasting of stale rain on concrete.
Then, from the spot where the droplet had fallen, something pushed up.
A crack in the soft soil. A sliver of darkness. It grew, rising in a slow, deliberate curl. The Engineered Abyssal Wheat Sapling. It was a whip of deepest black, its surface not smooth but etched with a filigree of glowing silver lines, like circuitry or frozen lightning. At its tip, a single, slender seed head formed, a cluster of tiny, obsidian kernels each capped with a point of platinum light. It stood alone, a solemn, beautiful alien sentinel in the ochre dust.
Finally, the grand event. At the edge of the soil circle, where a larger brine puddle lay, the liquid began to churn. The fractal patterns on its surface shattered. From the depths, a shape erupted. Not with a splash, but with a wet, woody groan.
The Mangrove Melon-Tree.
It was a mess of thick, corkscrewing roots, pale and slick like bone, that clawed their way out of the brine and dug into the soft soil. The trunk that followed was twisted, covered in a bark that looked like layers of compressed, fossilized seaweed. It grew to about twice my height and stopped. From its few, stunted branches, no leaves sprouted. Instead, delicate, vein-like filaments extended, and at their tips, they began to inflate.
Round, translucent sacs swelled into being. They were the size of my fist, glowing with a soft, internal, honey-colored light. Inside each, shadowy seeds floated lazily. They looked less like fruit and more like lanterns containing captured summer evenings. They were beautiful and deeply, deeply wrong.
I was on my feet, breathless, spinning in a circle. "We have a garden! A real garden!"
I ran to the wheat sapling first, my feet leaving deep prints in the strange soil. I reached out, my finger hovering just before touching one of the platinum-tipped kernels.
Flicker.
The sapling… wasn't there. My finger poked empty air.
I blinked. It was back. Solid. Real.
I tried again, slower.
Flicker-flicker. It vanished and reappeared two feet to the left, then back in its original spot. It wasn't moving. It was phasing, its existence uncertain, tied to some unstable metric of the new soil.
Giggling nervously, I turned to the melon-tree. I counted the glowing orbs. One, two, three… seven… twelve… thirty? I blinked, my eyes losing focus. The number wouldn't hold. Sometimes the branches seemed sparse with a dozen fruit. Sometimes they were thickly clustered with hundreds, the tree groaning under a luminous, impossible weight. It made me dizzy. I stopped counting.
Instead, I went to the strange, misty ring of the water cycle. I reached in. The mist was cold and left a gritty, saline residue on my skin. The single droplet forming at the top plinked onto my forehead. It was so cold it burned for a second.
Everything was new. Everything was unstable. Everything was mine.
I ran back to my jellyfish-bed and flopped onto it. It jiggled wildly, the screaming faces in the foam churning. "It's bouncy!" I laughed, bouncing deliberately. "Mr. Fin! Look! We have trees! And wheat! Next we'll grow… potatoes! And carrots! And a big pumpkin!"
STAUST's pane, hovering nearby, flickered politely.
[BOTANICAL NOTE: ROOT VEGETABLES ARE NOT ADVISED. SUBSTRATE LACKS BIOLOGICAL DECOMPOSERS. RESULTS WOULD BE… GEOMETRIC.]
I stuck my tongue out at it. STAUST didn't understand vision.
I lay back, looking at my impossible garden. The black wheat flickered in and out of reality. The melon-tree's fruit count refused to be pinned down. The mist cycled its single, eternal drop. The soil was dust that remembered being something else.
It was the most beautiful, terrifying, hopeful thing I had ever seen.
Proti oozed over to the wheat sapling and gently wrapped a pseudopod around its base, as if to steady it. The flickering slowed, but didn't stop.
Mr. Fin, from his distant post, let out a long, slow exhalation of bubbles that drifted across the chamber, each one reflecting the faint, honey-glow of the melons before popping with a sound like a sigh.
We had spent our wealth. We had changed our world.
Now, we waited to see what would grow.