The city was gone.
Or perhaps it had been swallowed.
Sam stood at the edge of what used to be downtown—a sprawling metropolis of glass towers and neon dreams.
Now, it was a carcass.
Skyscrapers wrapped in vines thick as building themselves. Windows oozed with sticky , amber sap. The streets pulsed, alive, like breathing flesh beneath her feet
And watching her, always watching her…
Were the Eyes of the Bloom.
Not real eyes.
But masses of petals shaped into grotesque faces, twisting to mimic human expressions.
They smiled as she walked.
They whispered.
"Closer, closer, child of decay…""He waits for you…""Bloom with us…"
Sam ignored them.
Mostly.
But even ignoring them took everything she had left.
Her mask of thorns was wearing thin.
Her skin blistered from spores.
Her memories frayed at the edges.
She spoke aloud constantly, reciting her name, her past, the names of people she once loved.
"Sam Parkour.Daughter of June Parkour.Friend of Wang Siam.Age sixteen.Not food.Not a vessel.Not a flower."
The Bloom didn't like that.
It retaliated by twisting the streets.
Making them loop endlessly.
She walked for hours, days—she couldn't tell—always ending up back at the same vine-choked plaza, where an enormous, cracked fountain now served as the Heart Chamber of the Bloom's infection.
At its center, a human figure stood, encased in a cocoon of translucent petals.
Sam's heart shattered.
It was Wang.
Or… what was left of him.
His body pulsed with veins of glowing blue light.
His face was peaceful.
Empty.
The Bloom had made him its prophet.
Sam approached slowly.
Her legs shook.
Her instincts screamed at her to run.
But she knew there was no running now.
This was the end of the road.
She stepped onto the soft, living floor of the plaza.
And the Bloom reacted.
Vines rose like sentries.
Petals opened like mouths.
The air grew thick with pheromones designed to sedate, to lure.
She felt her knees buckle.
Memories flooded in, not hers.
Ancient.
Of civilizations long dead, who worshipped the Bloom as a god of rebirth.
Of planets devoured by its endless cycle.
It wasn't just here.
It was everywhere.
It always had been.
And now Earth was simply the next to bloom and rot.
Sam reached Wang's prison.
She pressed her hand to the cocoon.
Warmth radiated through her fingers.
She heard his voice.
"Sam…You don't have to fight anymore.I've seen it now.The peace.The endless dream.You can join me.No more pain.No more fear.Just… bloom."
Tears filled Sam's eyes.
Her grip on reality trembled.
She wanted to say yes.
To let it end.
But…
She saw the faces of the lost students.
Their smiles.
Their hollow eyes.
Trapped.
Forever.
It was not peace.
It was suffocation dressed as serenity.
Sam screamed.
"No."
She drove the knife into the cocoon.
It screamed with her.
The plaza exploded in a wave of colorless spores.
Sam clung to herself, screaming Wang's name, trying to pull him free.
But his body resisted.
It wasn't his anymore.
The Bloom had rewritten him.
Turned him into a vessel.
And from his mouth, the Bloom spoke directly now.
In a voice layered with billions of voices.
"You cannot fight us, little seedling.We are the truth behind life.We are the bloom that watches.And you will join us."
Sam staggered back.
Her knife slipped from her hand.
The Bloom lashed at her, vines like snakes, petals like blades.
But Sam laughed.
Broken.Desperate.
"You think you've won, huh?"She screamed into the rotting sky."You forgot one thing. I'm human.I'm stubborn.And I'm not alone."
Behind her, in the haze of spores and madness, she heard something.
A voice.
Others.
The Thorned had followed her.
But they were… different.
Changed.
Some twisted.
Some still human.
But all ready to die fighting.
Led by the scarred woman.
"You're not special, girl," the woman grunted, bleeding from dozens of self-inflicted cuts."We all want to burn this lie."
They charged.
Sam smiled.
It was war now.
The Bloom's heart pulsed violently, vines erupting from Wang's cocoon.
The streets writhed like snakes.
And the Endless Bloom unleashed its final wave.
But Sam, broken, bloodied, and furious, charged with them.
Because even if they lost…
Even if they died…
They would die remembering.
They would not forget who they were.
And the Bloom feared that most of all.