Chapter 2
With mud nearly covering his face, Wither feels his last breath escape—but instead of darkness, he is pulled into a tunnel made of licorice roots. The crystal flower in his hand now pulses with soft light, like a revived heart. He awakens in an underground garden, where lollipop trees grow inverted, their roots in the air and leaves made of sheets of memories.
This is the Garden of the Forgotten—a forbidden place, hidden beneath the Sweet Kingdom, where all the memories erased by war have been buried. Flowers whisper incomplete sentences. Butterflies carry the faces of those who no longer exist. And in the center, a fountain of black syrup slowly drains what remains of the world's joy.
Before Wither can grasp his location, a striped shadow glides between the elastic gum bushes. Harogder appears—an orange cat with a wide smile and yellowish eyes that glow like lamps in a fog.
He crouches before Wither, his whiskers curled like strands of old wire.
"You should be digested," he says, his voice soft, almost sing-song. "But flowers don't lie. You still taste real."
Harogder isn't a soldier. He's a Memorizer—a deserter from the Matulo regime, hunted for believing that remembering is an act of resistance. His body bears marks: an arm wrapped in strips of carbon paper (where stolen memories are recorded), and a tail that changes color depending on his feelings—now, stripes of dark orange and gray: fear and nostalgia.
He helps Wither to his feet, despite his still-injured leg. **"The mud didn't want you dead. It chose you. This is how the Garden finds those who still feel."**
With feline skill, Harogder guides Wither through secret passages beneath the sweet soil, where the floor is made of broken graham crackers and the ceiling of moldy marshmallows. He says little, but everything he says carries weight:
> "Matulo thinks that erasing sadness erases pain. But he forgot: without sadness, there is no longing. Without longing, there is no love. And without love... there is no reason to live."
They arrive at **Headquarters of the Forgotten**—a shelter hidden inside an **abandoned cake**, with walls of cracked frosting and windows of transparent caramel. There, other creatures live in silence: an eyeless gummy bear, a rag doll with half its face melted away, a paper bird that sings only forgotten songs.
Harogder places Wither on a bed made of medicinal cotton candy.
"You will live. But not by luck. Because the world still needs someone who remembers."
That night, Wither dreams of the past:
— Him, Matulo, Berryno, and a fourth figure—Flores, the golden creature with caramel wings—dancing in a field where the wind smelled of strawberry candy.
— A promise: "We will never forget how to be happy together."
— And then, the fire. The scream. The moment Matulo chose power over pain.
When he wakes, Harogder is sitting on the windowsill, looking at the moon—which, in the Sweet Kingdom, is made of a cracked Easter egg.
"Flores didn't die," Harogder says, not looking at him. "She was sealed. And you... are the only key that still tastes like true friendship."
Wither looks at his leg. The arrow has been removed. In its place, there is a scar shaped like a sugar flower.
The chapter ends with a stolen transmission:
A distorted image shows Matulo standing before a crowd of empty-eyed creatures. He holds his stone heart aloft.
"The past is poison," he announces. "And today, we burn the last remnant."
The camera shakes. In the background, something golden pulses inside a cage of lemon ice.