The Garden of Rewritten Dreams was still new, still raw, its colors pulsing like a fresh heartbeat. But as the wind passed through its leaves and ink-lit petals, it carried with it voices.
They were faint at first barely more than murmurs.
"Do you remember me?"
"I was left behind."
"I had a name once… didn't I?"
Oscar froze. His gaze drifted toward the horizon, where a shadowed mist rolled closer, thick with unspoken longing. Lyra felt it too her hand instinctively tightened around his.
Origin's voice was calm but sharp, like steel wrapped in silk.
"They are coming. The forgotten ones. Stories that were cast aside. Characters erased by gods who thought they were mistakes."
The mist parted like a curtain, and figures began to emerge.
They were strange and unsteady at first some still shaped like scraps of torn parchment, others like fragments of dreams that had never solidified.
But then, the mist breathed them fully into form.
A girl with half a face, smiling shyly.
A knight with no sword, carrying only a memory of courage.
A child who existed only because someone once whispered a bedtime story and never finished it.
They gathered at the edge of the garden, unsure, like refugees approaching a place they didn't dare believe was real.
"Do We Belong Here?"
One of the forgotten stepped forward a young man with ink-stained tears running down his cheeks. His voice was trembling.
"We were left behind. Our stories were cut short. Do we… do we deserve to bloom here?"
Oscar's throat tightened. He saw in them all the faces of those he had failed to save, those whose stories ended too soon.
Lyra stepped closer, her presence warm, unafraid.
"You're not mistakes. You're the pieces that make the song whole."
Origin extended her hand, and the garden itself responded. Flowers opened along the path, glowing softly like lanterns.
"This place was made for you. Every story deserves a second breath."
Oscar walked among them, kneeling to meet their uncertain eyes.
"Tell me your names. Even if they're broken. Even if they've been forgotten."
And one by one, they spoke.
Some names were like whispers of wind.
Some like the crackle of fire.
Others were so faint, Oscar had to press his hand against their hearts just to feel the shape of the word.
For each name spoken, a seed appeared tiny and glimmering and planted itself into the soil of the garden. From it grew flowers that shimmered like memory.
"Your name," Oscar told them, "is your story's first heartbeat. And here, nothing that breathes will ever be erased again."
That night, the forgotten camped under the ink-streaked stars.
The garden hummed softly, as if welcoming its new guardians.
Oscar sat with Lyra and Origin by a small fire.
"This place… It's no longer just ours," Lyra said.
"It was never meant to be," Oscar replied. "The garden belongs to every voice that needs to be heIt's"
Origin looked at the fire, her expression unreadable.
"And if the gods come?"
Oscar smiled faintly.
"Then let them come. This time, we won't fight them with swords. We'll fight them with stories that refuse to die."
As the dawn approached, the first forgotten souls began tending to the garden.
One shaped the streams into music.
Another painted constellations into the night.
A third began writing messages into the petals of the flowers, so that anyone who touched them would feel a memory of kindness.
Oscar watched them work and felt something deep inside shift.
For the first time since the fall of the System, he truly believed they weren't just rebuilding a world.
They were creating something better.
---
The Garden's First Challenge
The Garden of Rewritten Dreams thrived with quiet hope.
Flowers hummed, rivers glistened with liquid moonlight, and the forgotten were beginning to find purpose.
But beyond the garden's edge, the mist remained.
It had grown thicker, heavier no longer carrying whispers of longing, but something darker. The wind was no longer gentle. It hissed.
Oscar stood at the boundary where the garden's glowing roots met the gray fog.
"Something is watching," he murmured.
Lyra stepped up beside him, her expression tightening.
"Not all who were forgotten will seek peace."
From the mist came a sound low, fractured, like a hundred voices speaking at once.
"You built this place for the ones left behind… but what about us? The ones you abandoned?"
Oscar felt the words cut through him. He recognized the weight of that voice. It wasn't a single soul it was all the pain of every story he'd ever failed to finish.
"You promised us endings… and left us to rot in silence."
The mist swirled, shaping itself into a towering figure with no face, only jagged lines like torn pages.
Origin's presence flared with tension.
"This is the Grievance. A story that no one dared claim. It is made of bitterness."
The Grievance's voice shook the garden.
"You speak of hope. You speak of second chances. But what of justice? We were discarded. Why should your garden grow while we remain ash?"
The flowers wilted where its shadow passed.
The forgotten trembled.
Oscar stepped forward, his heart pounding.
"You're right."
The Grievance paused.
"What?"
"I did leave stories unfinished. I did let dreams die. But I'm here now… not to erase what happened, but to listen. If you have pain to share, I'll bear it with you."
The Grievance's jagged form leaned closer.
"Then prove it. If you wish to keep this garden alive, tell me a story that cannot be broken. One that doesn't end in failure."
Oscar's breath hitched. His stories had always been born of struggle. What if all his tales were fragile?
Lyra placed a hand on his back.
"Tell them the story of us."
Origin's voice was softer but firm.
"Tell the story of now. The one we are living."
Oscar closed his eyes, feeling the garden's pulse through the soles of his feet. He began to speak:
"Once, there was a broken world. And three souls who refused to stop dreaming, even when all else was lost…"
As Oscar spoke, the garden itself reacted flowers opened wider, vines climbed higher, and the forgotten gathered closer, listening.
His voice carried not just words, but the weight of everything he had learned.
"…and though they feared, they still planted seeds. Even if those seeds would never grow in their lifetime, they planted them because someone must."
The Grievance trembled, its jagged lines flickering as if his words were undoing it.
"What is this… warmth?"
"Hope," Oscar said. "It's not a weapon. It's an invitation. You can take it, too, if you want."
But even as Oscar's words reached the Grievance, a thorned vine shot out from the mist, lashing toward the garden.
Lyra drew her blade not of steel, but of woven light, forged from memories of their past battles and cut it down.
"It's listening, but it's not ready to forgive," she said.
Origin's eyes glimmered.
"Then we must keep telling the story. Together."