Eren Vale sat in darkness, the broken lightbulb swinging faintly above him, casting jittering shadows across his room. The fern on his windowsill was still, almost statuesque, but he could feel its presence as if it breathed alongside him. Every nerve in his body hummed with tension.
He swallowed hard, glancing at the journal. Pages yellowed with his grandmother's ink offered no comfort. Only warnings. Only instructions. The Garden tests the chosen.
It was no longer a metaphor.
Footsteps echoed outside the house. Not the casual patter of a neighbor, but deliberate. Heavy. Controlled. Eren froze. The voice from before lingered in his mind: You.
The door handle rattled.
"Vale," a low, clipped voice said. "We know you're in there."
Eren pressed himself against the wall, eyes darting to the window. The street was dark, but the shadows beneath the trees seemed to twist and pulse with unnatural rhythm.
"Who—who's there?" His voice betrayed him, barely more than a whisper.
Another voice, colder, harder: "No games, Vale. Open the door, and you might walk out of here."
Talia appeared behind him suddenly, eyes wide. "They're here."
"They?" Eren whispered. The word felt wrong, heavy. He didn't need to guess. Taskforce Viridian. CIA. RAW. Every covert eye trained on him.
"They're not human anymore," she said, voice trembling. "At least, not completely."
Eren's pulse spiked. "Explain."
She shook her head. "I don't know exactly. But something—something touched the streets last night. I saw it near the square. The concrete… it moved."
A faint glow began under the blinds. The fern's fronds quivered. The air thickened. The humming rose in pitch until it felt like a physical weight pressing on his chest.
"Closer," the voice whispered again.
Eren didn't move. He couldn't. Not with the strangers outside. Not with the Garden stirring around him.
Then the window cracked. Not shattered glass, but split in perfect, curling lines like ice on a pond. The fern leaned forward as if drawn by some invisible tether.
Talia grabbed his arm. "We need to go. Now."
He hesitated. His mind screamed that leaving would be dangerous. That staying might be worse.
Before he could decide, the front door exploded inward.
Two men in black tactical gear stormed the room, masks reflecting the swinging light. Weapons raised. One of them froze, mouth opening in a silent scream. The other stumbled backward, flung across the floor by invisible force.
The fern surged forward, roots twisting through the floorboards, lifting the heavier man off his feet. Vines wrapped around him like living chains, coiling until the mask cracked. A scream tore through the room, then silence.
Eren's hands shook. "It… it's protecting me?"
Talia didn't answer. She was too busy dragging him to the window. They vaulted over the sill, hitting the damp grass outside. Behind them, the house groaned, the front door twisted and splintered, and a soft, lilting hum echoed through the air like a heartbeat.
Down the street, the glow from the greenhouse pulsed, a beacon in the dark. It was no longer just a place—it was a signal, a call, a warning.
"Vale," Talia panted, pulling him behind a parked car. "Do you have any idea what you're dealing with?"
"I have an idea," he admitted. "And it's bigger than us… bigger than the town."
The streetlight above flickered, casting long shadows. In each shadow, the faintest trace of movement—roots sliding under asphalt, fronds curling in the dark. The Garden was awake. And the world was watching.
From the van across the street, agents observed through infrared. Their radios crackled.
"Subject engaged."
"Containment failed."
"Repeat—containment failed. Standby for extraction orders."
Eren Vale swallowed. His grandmother's journal was in his backpack. The warnings, the sketches, the name Lyra—everything he had ignored until now—pressed down on him like the weight of a storm.
"Closer," the voice whispered again, louder this time, carried on the wind.
Talia tightened her grip on his arm. "We have to move before more of them arrive."
He nodded. But the pulsing light from the greenhouse drew his gaze. Something inside called to him—an urgency that was more than curiosity. It was destiny.
And for the first time, he understood the meaning of the last line in his grandmother's journal:
If they endure, it obeys.
Eren Vale took a deep breath, fists clenching, eyes fixed on the pulsing glow ahead. The night was alive. The world was awake. And he would not run.
---
Across continents, in the cold, sterile halls of a secure facility in Geneva, agents monitored satellite feeds. The spread of the anomalous energy—bioluminescent traces, impossible movement patterns, pulses of unknown frequency—was recorded, analyzed, and classified. Red lights blinked in warning. Phones rang in silent offices. Governments whispered in secure channels.
The Garden was no longer a local phenomenon.
It was global.
---
Back in the town, Eren Vale and Talia crouched behind the car, breath ragged. The fern on his windowsill had disappeared. But he could feel it. The Garden's presence threaded through the streets, the walls, the air around him, whispering, pulling, testing.
"We can't stay here," Talia said.
"No," Eren agreed. "But we can't run either. Not yet."
From the darkness, the softest, most chilling whisper echoed again:
Everything.
Eren Vale's jaw tightened. He had no choice now. The world was awake, the Garden was alive, and the game had only just begun.
And for the first time, he welcomed it.