The morning came quietly, like a breath held just a second longer than usual. After the long stretch of tension and fear outside the garden, this calm felt strange to Elliot. It wasn't just the quiet; it was the way the garden listened. Not passively—but as though it were waiting for someone to speak.
Lyra stood barefoot at the edge of the listening grove, where the green of the moss never quite dried, even when the sun stood high. Beneath her feet, tiny vibrations moved, gentle and slow, like the hum of a slumbering heart. The new growth—Listening Root, as they had come to call it—had begun threading through the southern side of the garden's underbelly.
"It hears us," she whispered, crouching to touch the delicate shoot pushing from the soil. "Not with ears. It feels what we feel. Maybe even more clearly than we do."
Elliot sat beside her, quietly observing the way her fingers traced the sprouting root. "And we didn't plant this, right?"
"No. It grew from the place where you bled." She looked up at him. "Right after we got back."
Elliot blinked. "So… it's my fault?"
"No." Her tone was firm but not cold. "It's your echo. This garden isn't just reacting anymore. It's remembering."
That idea should've been comforting, but it settled in Elliot's chest like a weight. He didn't know whether this was proof of life, or a quiet shift toward something else—something less controllable.
They spent the afternoon testing the root's reaction. When Elliot hummed, the tendrils quivered. When Lyra cried softly—tears she didn't know she was holding—the moss thickened beneath her knees. And when both of them sat silently for a while, the root grew half a finger's length forward, slow and deliberate.
"It responds to our presence," Elliot said finally. "Not just our feelings. Maybe it's looking for… answers."
"Or purpose," Lyra replied. "Like I was."
They didn't speak for a while after that. The wind carried the scent of mist and stone, and in the distance, the sky darkened slightly—not storm, but the curtain of evening starting to fall.
Later, they returned to the main grove. The other plants had subtly changed. Glowshrooms pulsed slightly brighter when Lyra passed. The Buffblooms now opened not just in sunlight, but when Elliot read aloud from the old journal they had found during Stillfall.
Even the Sentibloom was growing restless. It hadn't closed in days.
"We're reaching a turning point," Lyra said that night as they shared a sparse meal of fire-root stew and clearberries. "The garden isn't just alive anymore. It's… waking up."
Elliot nodded slowly. "And you? What are you waking up to?"
She glanced at the mossy floor, her golden-green eyes flickering. "Something that scares me. But I think I need to know what I am. For the garden's sake."
He reached out, hesitating only slightly before placing his hand near hers. Not quite touching. "Whatever it is, you're not alone in it."
The glowshrooms nearby brightened ever so faintly, and the Listening Root stirred, not in fear, but in acknowledgment.
Outside the garden walls, far beyond the comfort of their sanctuary, the night deepened. Something else stirred, something that had followed them back in silence. But for now, within the garden, peace held.
Just barely.