Chapter 117 – "Day Two: The Fire Behind Silence"
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Scene 1 – "Rootlings No More"
154 Rootlings collapse overnight. Quietly. Their vines snap like old thread, their bodies shrivel into bark and dust.
A whisper:
"We are too many, or maybe not enough."
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Scene 2 – "Precipice"
The crew surveys the dying grove in silence. Even the children are quiet now. No one knows Levi's plan.
Jakku: "Is he abandoning us?"
Gift: "No. He's choosing something. That's worse."
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Scene 3 – "Preparations"
Levi builds something—a funnel of reinforced memoryglass, spiraling downward like a flower stem. At the bottom: the shoot—a single-use escape chamber.
His hands tremble, but his eyes are calm.
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Scene 4 – "The Merge Begins"
The Root Body lifts Seed gently. Like a father cradling a fevered child. Tendrils crawl across her skin.
80% complete. The merge has begun.
Her eyes glow faintly. She whispers:
Seed: "I remember... the River Garden—the blue flowers."
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Scene 5 – "The Missing Equation"
The Root Body pauses. A vine recoils.
There's a flaw in its formula:
The final merge only works with acceptance.
Forced merges decay. He must eat her if she says no.
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Scene 6 – "The Descent"
Levi steps into the Root Temple. His boots echo in the silence. The air is thick with sap and regret.
A rootling ghost (whispers):
"He is alone. But not quiet."
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Scene 7 – "Soft Rebellion"
Seed's body trembles under the Root Body's grip.
Root Body:"Will you merge with me?"
Seed: (softly)
"I wanted to... but not like this. No."
She refuses. Her voice doesn't shake.
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Scene 8 – "The Roar"
For the first time in centuries, the Root Body screams. It shatters birds in the trees. Glass windows crack.
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Scene 9 – "Cut Through the Divine"
The Root Body opens it's mouth. Ready to end her life.
Then.....
Levi leaps.
SLICE!!!
Four of the Root Body's massive fingers fall like pillars. Bloodless. Bark and light.
Seed falls—spiraling into the funnel.
Levi catches her. He smiles at her.
He strokes her hair back.
Levi(softly): "Thank you."
He kisses her... She kisses back.
The atmosphere feels soft. But it's short lived.
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Scene 10 – "Containment"
Levi places her in the shoot.
The glass closes over her.
It takes 11 seconds to activate.
Levi counts in his head. Doesn't blink.
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Scene 11 – "Titan and Thorn"
Levi faces the 300-foot tall Root Body.
It bellows, but Levi doesn't flinch.
He activates the Root Avatar shell—a skeletal exosuit formed from sacred bark.
It hums to life.
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Scene 12 – "Clash of Worlds"
They fight.
A god vs a man-in-wrathform.
Levi is fast. Clever.
Levi strikes like a bolt of lightning.
He uses vine-whips to slice the Root Body's leg and left eye.
The Root Body tries to grab him.
Too slow.
Levi cleaves his hand off.
The Root Body creates thorns from it's fingers. They pierce the armor but not Levi.
To Levi, Every strike is a poem. Every weave is a cry of hope for Seed's life.
But the Root Body adapts now. Its body twists with new algorithms.
It summons trees and hurts them at Levi. While he dodges, the Root Body sends out thousands of thorns.
Levi is cut.
The Root Body with its colossal hand punches Levi and breaks the armor.
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Scene 13 – "Witness"
Inside the shoot, Seed watches from a single translucent window. Her hands press to the glass. She whispers:
Seed: "Don't die... not for me."
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Scene 14 – "The Final Blow"
The Root Body sends thousands of vines dropping Levi to the ground.
The Root Body pierces the Root Avatar further.
Crack.
It's breaks fully.
Levi's spine bends like sapling in storm.
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Scene 15 – "Launch"
A vine lashes toward Seed.
FWOOOOM.
The shoot activates. A burst of bio-energy launches her into the sky—away from the grove.
She screams Levi's name but it's lost in the roar.
Seed(scared): "Leviiiiiii!"
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Scene 16 – "He's Still Breathing"
Levi lies broken—but his eyes are still open.
He tries to speak. Blood leaks from his mouth like ink.
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Scene 17 – "Sacrament of Flesh"
The Root Body lifts him. Gently again. Always gently.
Root Body: "You refused me too. So now... you become me."
He performs the ritual. He doesn't ask. He just acts.
And then it bites down. Once. Swallows.
The Merge completes—with Levi.
> Narrator: "It's the Voice and The Body. Now only the Soul remains."
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Scene 18 – "Silence Returns"
The grove stills. Even the trees stop rustling.
No birds. No breath.
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Scene 19 – "Glass Capsule Landing"
The shoot crashes into the crew's base. Seed stumbles out, disoriented. Bleeding from the nose. Her voice is gone.
Jakku catches her.
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Scene 20 – "Did He Make It?"
Maiku (ask): "Did he make it?"
Seed shakes her head. Can't speak.
Only one word forms on her lips:
Seed: "Eaten."
She sobs her heart out.
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Scene 21 – "The Afterburn"
Back in the grove, the Root Body now glows faintly with blue veins—Levi's mind, soul, and fragments of memory fused into its core.
It stands silent. Digesting... changing.
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Scene 22 – "Crew in Collapse"
Reen and Matthew break down. Some don't believe it.
Gift rips bark from a wall.
Gift: "Why didn't he tell us?"
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Scene 23 – "The Girl Who Refused God"
Seed sits on the floor. Hair matted, eyes vacant.
Jakku (whispers to her):
"You stopped it. You said no."
Seed (shakes her head): "I said no. But he said yes to save me."
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Scene 24 – "Beginning of the End"
The Root Body walks—slowly—toward the northern horizon.
Each step alters the terrain beneath it.
Peace is no longer the goal.
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Scene 25 – "Day Two Ends"
Scene ends with a field of dead petals falling from a massive Rootling Tree.
Voiceover (Levi's memory):
"Some fires aren't loud. Some just wait. And then… they consume."
To Be Continued....
Narrator (Closing Monologue):
> "On the second day, no one screamed.
The world broke quietly.
Not with thunder — but with choice, teeth, and flame beneath a whisper."
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"They die without sound.
As if the trees themselves no longer believe in blooming."
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"Hope hesitates.
And that hesitation is where grief finds its way in."
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"Levi builds an escape, not a plan.
The shape of survival is never symmetrical."
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"Seed remembers blue flowers.
The mind clings to color, even as the soul begins to dim."
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"The Root Body can calculate everything—
except consent."
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"Levi steps downward, toward something older than gods.
Not with hope. Just weight."
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"A 'no' whispered in gentleness
can cut deeper than swords."
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"Even divinity has tantrums."
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"His blade is not vengeance.
It's a thank-you."
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"He counts seconds instead of prayers.
That's how you protect someone."
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"A god looms.
But Levi wears resolve like armor."
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"Hope fights fury.
Love dodges logic.
Even trees can bleed, if they're forced to harm."
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"Seed watches her rescue
like a dream she can't hold."
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"The body bends.
But the will has already been given."
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"Escape is not flight.
It's exile with purpose."
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"Words fail him.
But pain still speaks."
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> "The god devours.
Not out of rage.
But out of design."
And Levi gives himself—
not as sacrifice,
but as resistance clothed in surrender.
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"Even grief holds its breath now."
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"She returns alone.
But not empty."
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"Her lips say one word.
And the world hears its own hunger."
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"Levi lingers—
not in body,
but in the god's flickering glow."
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"There are no answers.
Only the weight of what wasn't said."
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"Seed said no.
But Levi said yes.
And in that tension—
a new god is born."
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"It walks now.
Each step a sermon.
Not of peace.
But of inevitability."
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> "Petals fall like ash.
The fire burns on, behind the silence.
And the world watches,
too stunned to pray."