The word clung to him like frost.
Everything.
Eren Vale lay awake long after the whisper faded, his ceiling painted silver by the moon. The house was silent, but he felt it pressing at the edges of his mind, the Garden waiting—hungry. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the vines twitching, the silver bloom opening, Lyra's gaze fixed on him as if she were both a prisoner and a judge.
Sleep never came. When dawn broke, his reflection in the bathroom mirror startled him. Hollow eyes, pallid skin, the kind of face people avoided asking questions about.
At breakfast, his mother fussed over burnt toast and a cracked coffee mug, trying to ignore the weight in the air. "You're quiet again, Eren. Is it school?"
He forced a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Just tired."
She studied him, worry lines deepening. "You need rest."
If only it were that simple.
---
Across the town, black vans rolled in under the cover of morning fog. Men in unmarked uniforms moved with precision, surveying the cordoned-off square. Their voices were curt, efficient.
A name passed among them in whispers: Taskforce Viridian.
Inside the lead van, a woman in a pressed suit and mirrored glasses clicked through satellite images. One showed the greenhouse, circled in red. Another displayed a branching heat signature beneath the soil, like roots spreading far beyond the property line.
She tapped her pen against the screen. "It's growing faster than projected. We'll need containment before public suspicion becomes unmanageable."
"And the boy?" an agent asked from the shadows.
Her lips curved into something not quite a smile. "Eren Vale. He's… interesting. Keep him under observation. If he resists, bring him in."
---
At school, Eren Vale felt the weight of unseen eyes.
Every step down the hallway echoed too loudly. Students passed him with sidelong glances, whispering rumors of the explosion downtown, of vines sprouting from cracked pavement. A few dared to suggest Eren was cursed. Others said he'd been seen near the square the night it happened.
He ducked into the library, where Talia was already waiting. Her notebook was spread across the table, filled with frantic scrawls of theories, diagrams, and possible explanations.
"You look like a zombie," she said without looking up.
"Thanks."
"You hear about the vans? No plates, tinted windows, parked near the square since morning."
Eren sat heavily, rubbing his temples. "Government."
"Who else?" She slid the notebook toward him. "If they're here, they know. Which means your little plant girlfriend isn't just your problem anymore."
Eren's jaw tightened. "She's not—"
"She's not what? Dangerous? Evil?" Talia leaned closer, her voice a whisper. "Vale, wake up. People are scared. Agencies don't show up for fairy tales—they show up for threats."
Before he could answer, the fluorescent lights above them flickered. The bookshelves creaked. A subtle vibration hummed through the floor, like roots shifting beneath the foundation.
Eren's breath caught. Talia froze, wide-eyed.
The hum ceased. Silence reclaimed the library.
"Tell me you felt that," she whispered.
"I did."
And worse, he knew what it meant: the Garden was spreading.
---
That night, Taskforce Viridian's command center lit up with intercepted chatter.
A CIA handler in Virginia patched into a secure call. "The Indian RAW team is already moving. They don't believe it's just a U.S. incident anymore. Beijing has flagged it too—biological weapon theory."
"What about Moscow?"
A pause. "They sent a field operative. Black ops. No insignia."
The woman in mirrored glasses removed her headset slowly. "So the whole world wants a piece of the Garden."
"Ma'am, with respect—shouldn't we neutralize the source immediately?"
She glanced at the satellite feed. The greenhouse glowed faintly in infrared, pulsing like a heart.
"Neutralize?" She shook her head. "No. We study it. Whoever controls this… controls evolution."
---
Back in his room, Eren sat cross-legged on the floor, the journal spread before him. His hands trembled as he traced his grandmother's words.
The Garden does not choose lightly. It binds only those it cannot break.
The fern on his windowsill leaned toward him, shadow long across the desk.
"Why me?" His voice cracked. "What do you want from me?"
The air grew heavy. Then, faint as the rustle of leaves:
"You."
The lightbulb above him burst. Darkness swallowed the room.
Eren Vale didn't scream, but his heart pounded so loud it drowned the silence.
---
Across the street, in a black van with tinted windows, two agents watched the glow flicker and die in Eren's window.
One lowered his binoculars. "Sir, activity confirmed."
The radio crackled: "Maintain observation. Do not engage. The boy belongs to us now."