The spores stuck to Sam's skin like ash.
They crawled into the cracks of her lips, her ears, her eyes.
She scrubbed until she bled.
But the feeling remained.
They weren't just on her.
They were inside her.
And she could feel them.
Whispering.
They tried to bury her memories.
Twisting them.
Replacing them.
Showing her false versions of herself—a happy girl with friends, family, a life untouched by nightmares.
But Sam clenched her fists and clawed the visions away.
She wouldn't forget.
She wouldn't give them that.
Not yet.
She wandered through the hollow world, days blending into nights that never came.
Cities were forests now.
Skyscrapers overgrown with vines.
Cars devoured by moss.
Billboards sprouting flowers that oozed golden sap, whispering promises of dreams without pain.
Sam avoided them.
She learned.
The spores weren't meant to kill you.
They eroded you.
They gnawed at your memories until you forgot who you were.
And once you forgot…
You belonged to them.
Weeks passed.
Or maybe hours.
Time was useless now.
Sam barely slept.
When she did, she tied herself to concrete poles and stuffed her ears with dirt.
Anything to block the whispers.
But they always found cracks.
Always.
Then she found them.
A group of survivors.
But not like her.
They called themselves The Thorned.
They wore masks made of thorns and bark, cutting into their own flesh, bleeding constantly.
"It's the only way to stay human," their leader rasped.
A woman missing half her face, covered in scars that never healed.
"The pain keeps the spores out."
Sam didn't want to believe them.
But when she saw their camps—lined with spikes, bloodstains, and ancient symbols—she understood.
They were right.
The Bloom fed on comfort.
It used your peace against you.
So you had to suffer.
Stay sharp.
Stay awake.
Stay broken.
Only then did the Bloom fear you.
Sam stayed with them.
For a while.
She learned their ways.
They taught her how to make masks of thorns, how to lace her body with sharp cords that snapped her awake if she drifted too deep into the Bloom's embrace.
But Sam noticed something else, too.
The Thorned were losing themselves in the pain.
They didn't talk about memories anymore.
They only spoke of survival.
Pain became their religion.
And Sam feared they had already lost the war inside their minds.
They weren't fighting to live.
They were fighting to hurt.
To feel anything.
One night, one of The Thorned broke.
He took off his mask.
Let the spores in.
Sam saw him smile as the vines wrapped around his face.
He sighed like someone slipping into a warm bath.
They found him later—rooted into the ground, eyes wide open.
Sam burned him.
The others cursed her.
Said she showed mercy where there should only be suffering.
Sam didn't care.
She left that night.
Alone.
Again.
Because now she understood.
Pain alone wasn't enough.
You had to fight for something.
Or the Bloom would win.
No matter how much you bled.
She walked deeper into the wastelands.
Alone.
Her mind fraying.
But she clung to one image.
Wang.
She had to find him.
Even if he wasn't Wang anymore.
Because she knew he held answers.
Maybe the only way to stop this wasn't to fight the Bloom.
Maybe it was to understand it.
To face its core.
Not with violence.
But with the one thing it couldn't digest.
Human will.
Sam would walk into the Bloom itself.
And if she couldn't bring Wang back…
She would at least bring herself back.
Whole.
Unbroken.
Remembering.
And so she walked.
Toward the whispers.
Toward the impossible garden growing at the heart of the world.
Toward the end.
Or… the beginning.