The garden's perimeter had grown denser.
What once had been a loosely scattered boundary of overgrowth and improvised markers was now a living wall. Thornlash Vines coiled in patient loops, shifting ever so slightly with each passing breeze. Hearthroots pulsed gently underground, a heartbeat of warmth just under the surface. Sentiblooms watched like quiet sentries, humming when anyone drew too near. The land remembered.
Elliot stood at the outer ring, peering past the warded fence where the ash-covered plains still stretched out. He wasn't alone this time. Lyra stood beside him, arms crossed, her eyes narrowed with unusual focus.
"Something's moving underneath," she murmured.
He tilted his head. "Ashlurkers again?"
"No," she said. "Something older. Slower. It's not coming at us. It's searching for something."
They'd begun to notice small sinkholes appearing in the soil. First near the western crop beds, then along the north slope where the Buffblooms were just starting to bud. At first, they'd blamed soil instability from the last Blight Rain. But the patterns were too precise, and they only appeared at night.
Lyra bent down, pressing her fingers into the dark earth. A quiet vibration met her fingertips—like breath held in the soil.
"Still alive," she whispered. "But not awake. Not yet."
They called it The Burrower, though none had seen it clearly. Only echoes in the roots, disturbed layers of heat and decay, and the faintest chittering that sometimes floated up during moonless nights. It didn't behave like a Blightbeast—there was intelligence in its rhythm. Purpose.
In response, the garden had begun its own shift. The Glowshrooms clustered tightly, forming strange spirals at night. The Mistferns refused to deploy their concealment mist, even when Elliot triggered them. And Lyra's own connection to the plants had begun to fray.
"Something's making them nervous," she said aloud. "Like they're holding their breath."
That night, Elliot stayed up in the small observatory dome atop their greenhouse. From the glass roof, he could track the faint luminescence of each planted sector. But his eyes were drawn to one dark patch in the far east.
A field that had recently been cleared for new seeds was now littered with holes.
By dawn, when he and Lyra reached it, half the soil had collapsed into itself. No bodies. No burrows. Just a thin trail of ash leading outwards.
Lyra crouched, touching the disturbed ground. "It went through the garden."
"And left without harming anything."
"Not exactly." She plucked a tiny leaf from the collapsed soil. The Buffbloom had withered. Not from decay, but from something else. Drained.
Back inside the main dome, they pored over old notes. The Withered, the Ashlurkers, the Blight Rain—all had cycles and weaknesses. But this new force didn't seem to want destruction. It was curious. Testing.
"What if it's not an enemy?" Elliot finally said. "What if it's... a remnant?"
Lyra stared at him. "Of what?"
"Something before Stillfall. Something that was beneath the world. Maybe it just woke up because everything above collapsed."
She didn't answer. Her gaze drifted to the glass, where the ash plains rippled like a slow tide.
That night, the soil beneath the main path hummed.
And something far below turned its head toward the warmth above.