The house no longer felt like his own. Eren Vale lay awake in his room long past midnight, watching the faint shimmer that traced itself across the ceiling. The fern on his windowsill hadn't stopped twitching for hours. Every so often, one of its fronds would stretch too far, scrape faintly against the glass, and then pull back as though embarrassed at being caught.
He pressed his palms against his eyes until stars burst in the dark. None of it was normal. None of it could be hidden much longer. And yet, the rest of the world still pretended.
Closer. The whisper was softer now, not a demand but a promise. Lyra's voice always came when the silence stretched too long, like a tide sneaking in.
"Stop it," he muttered, shoving the blanket aside. His voice sounded too loud in the room. He wasn't sure if he was talking to Lyra, or the Garden, or himself.
Downstairs, the refrigerator hummed. Ordinary life. But when Eren passed the hallway mirror, he froze.
The glass rippled. Just faintly, like water disturbed by a fingertip. For the briefest instant, he thought he saw her — Lyra's pale reflection standing behind his, eyes brimming with quiet urgency. Then it was gone. Just him again. Just Eren Vale, with the hollow look of someone who hadn't slept in days.
He backed away slowly, heart hammering. The Garden wasn't waiting for him anymore. It was reaching out.
---
Across the ocean, in a fluorescent-lit conference room buried beneath Langley, Virginia, the tone was far less uncertain.
"Call it a gas explosion all you want, but that's no gas line," said Director Hale of the CIA, tossing a folder onto the table. Inside were grainy photos of the town square — pavement cracked open, vine-wrapped streetlamp gleaming under flashbulbs. "This is structured growth. Organized. We're looking at a living system moving with purpose."
Opposite him, a British agent from MI6 tapped his pen. "Are you suggesting an attack? Biological weaponry? Because London hasn't seen evidence of dispersal vectors."
"It's not chemical," Hale snapped. "It's…something else."
A silence fell. The Indian attaché from RAW broke it with a dry laugh. "Your scientists have run out of vocabulary, so now you're whispering fairy tales?"
"Fairy tales don't put three civilians in the ICU," Hale shot back. He leaned across the table, voice dropping low. "And fairy tales don't leave traces of chlorophyll in human bloodstreams."
That shut them up. For a moment, the only sound was the buzz of the overhead lights.
---
Back in school, Eren felt the stares on his back before he even sat down.
"Hey, plant boy," someone hissed. A snicker followed. "Got any vines crawling in your backpack?"
He ignored them, kept his head down, and dropped into his seat. Talia leaned over from the desk behind, whispering furiously. "They're watching you. The guys in the black car, did you see them? Parked across from the school all morning."
He stiffened. "Government?"
"Who else wears sunglasses in the rain?" she muttered.
Their teacher droned on about industrial revolutions, but Eren couldn't focus. The journal in his bag felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His grandmother's looping script, the sketches of flowers that weren't supposed to exist — every page proof that this wasn't random. The Garden had been awake long before him. And now, others were circling, sniffing at its edges.
Closer, Lyra breathed again. Only he heard it. He pressed his hand flat against the desk, forcing himself not to flinch.
---
That night, another meeting, this time in New Delhi. RAW's special division filed into a narrow office stacked with files.
"We intercepted chatter between the Americans and the British," said the handler. "They're treating this like a classified environmental anomaly. But we have…additional evidence."
She slid photographs across the table. Grainy night shots of Eren Vale, hood up, walking home. In one, the streetlight above him flickered green, vines visible curling faintly from the cracks in the sidewalk.
"Local boy?" one of the operatives asked.
"Local catalyst," the handler corrected. "Where he goes, it follows."
---
Eren and Talia sat side by side on the old bridge outside town, legs dangling over the water. The night was too quiet. Even the frogs had gone still.
"You can't keep pretending this is normal," she said finally. "The whole world's looking this way. I saw the news — half the channels are covering it, half are pretending nothing's happening. You're at the center, Eren."
"I didn't ask for it."
"Doesn't matter. It found you." She hugged her knees. "And if the government's involved—"
"They'll try to bury it." His voice came out harsher than he meant. He clenched his fists. "They'll cover it up, study it, weaponize it. Lyra will never be free."
Talia's eyes softened. "You really believe she's real."
He looked out over the black water. "I know she is."
The bridge groaned. Both of them jumped, staring down. The wooden planks were laced with something pale and glistening. Roots. They curled between the beams, dripping faint luminescence into the river below.
Talia's hand shot out, grabbing his. "Tell me you see that."
"I see it."
The roots twitched, pulsed once, then retreated back into the wood like veins sinking under skin. The bridge was ordinary again. But neither of them could pretend anymore.
---
In Moscow, a darkened office flickered with the glow of monitors. Russian analysts replayed satellite footage of the town. Heat signatures spiderwebbed beneath the streets, too structured to be natural.
"It's growing," one muttered. "Whatever it is, it's spreading underground."
A colonel leaned closer to the screen, eyes narrowing. "Send a team. Quietly. If the Americans want it hidden, we'll dig it out first."
---
Eren returned home near dawn. His mother was asleep, the house silent. He paused at the hallway mirror again, heart thudding.
The glass rippled. Not faintly this time. Waves spread across it like disturbed water, and Lyra's face broke through the reflection.
Her lips moved. No sound came. Then, with sudden clarity, one word formed:
"Run."
Before he could breathe, the window behind him shattered. A black shape dropped through — men in tactical gear, faceless behind masks. Their rifles gleamed in the moonlight.
Eren stumbled back as one seized him by the arm, shoving him against the wall. A voice growled in accented English:
"Target acquired."
The fern on the sill exploded in a burst of light. Vines lashed outward, striking like serpents. The men shouted, one firing blindly as greenery wrapped his leg.
Lyra's whisper filled Eren's skull, no longer soft.
"Closer, Eren. Closer."
And then the house itself began to move.