Chapter 79 – "False Harvest"
> "A memory is a seed. Given time, it will bloom into belief."
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Scene 1 – "Thalen's Smile"
> Narrator: "It started with a memory he never lived."
Thalen Yamazaki—an old, gentle farmer—sits beneath a tree, watching the fields.
He smiles as if recalling something… but the memory doesn't belong to him.
Thalen (to himself): "They came in fire… They took the sky."
His smile twitches.
He walks toward the crew's base.
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Scene 2 – "Friendly Stranger"
Thalen arrives at the crew's area.
He brings vegetables. Acts overly kind. Observant.
Gift offers him water. Reen watches silently.
Dion: "Old man's sweet. Bit off, though."
Maiku: "His eyes don't match his mouth."
Thalen stares at Reen's sword… like he recognizes it.
Thalen (to himself): "Soaked in Rootblood…"
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Scene 3 – "Inside the Hominin Link"
Inside Thalen's mind—a dream sequence.
Memories flood his mind: Reen torching a Root village, Dion laughing over a burning sapling, Gift poisoning the soil.
All false. All vivid.
The Root Avatar whispers in his thoughts like a friend.
Root Avatar: "They will kill the world again. Unless you act."
Thalen's eyes open—changed.
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Scene 4 – "Atlas Feels It"
Far away, Atlas drops the glowing Root Seed.
It rolls away.
Atlas (alarmed): "No—wait—!"
The seed pulses violently green. It burrows into the ground.
Atlas reaches for it, but it's too late.
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Scene 5 – "Transformation"
In a shadowy grove, Thalen wanders alone.
The planet swells. Roots reach for him.
The glowing seed appears… and swallows him whole in a twisting mass of bark, tendrils, and sap.
A scream. Then silence.
Moments later, the Root Nodule Monster emerges—twisted humanoid bark, memory-glowing eyes, roots writhing from its spine.
It walks. Toward Dion.
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Scene 6 – "The Crew Notices Missing Hours"
Back at base.
Reen: "When did Thalen leave?"
Maiku: "He never said goodbye."
Matthew: "I feel like he told me a story… but I can't remember it."
Gift: "Something's been edited."
Jakku: "We're being rewritten."
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Scene 7 – "The Root Avatar's Workshop"
Cut below.
The Root Avatar watches Thalen's transformation via a root mirror—smiling.
It speaks as it tends to floating seeds like experiments.
Root Avatar: "One down. But the link needs perfection. These minds… still resist."
It examines fractured memory fragments like puzzle pieces.
Root Avatar: "Fear won't do. I need guilt. I need love turned sour. That's where truth takes root."
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Scene 8 – "Atlas's Realization"
Atlas walks through a scarred glade.
He sees symbols in the bark—echoes of the Hominin Link.
He suddenly sees visions: the crew being slaughtered. Dion screaming. Reen turning into a tree.
Atlas: "No—these aren't mine. These aren't true."
He drops to his knees, whispering:
Atlas : "They're… planting belief."
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Scene 9 – "Approach of the Nodule"
At twilight, a distant dust cloud approaches.
Matthew feels his flute hum.
Maiku: "Something's coming."
Jakku: "No birds. No wind."
Reen stares.
Gift steps forward.
Gift: "It's not a monster. It's a memory."
The Root Nodule Monster stops—staring directly at the crew.
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Scene 10 – "Dion's Name"
The Root Nodule raises one hand.
Nodule (distorted): "Dion… False Son of Soil…"
Dion freezes.
Dion (quiet): "That's… Thalen's voice."
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Scene 11 – "Memory Turned Weapon"
The crew prepares for battle.
But the Nodule doesn't attack. It begins speaking fake stories:
Dion betraying his brother.
Reen murdering surrendering Root beings.
Gift destroying villages.
> Narrator: "The weapon was not strength. It was narrative."
The words sound real.
And for one second… even Reen hesitates.
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Scene 12 – "The Root Evolves"
Below.
The Root Avatar smiles.
Root Avatar: "Now they listen. Not because I scream. But because they begin to wonder."
It places a new seed in a memory jar.
Root Avatar: "Let the world rot slowly—one story at a time."
Scene 13 : "The Attack"
The Nodule stops. The crew watch.
They wonder.
Then it leaps!
To Be Continued…
> Narrator (Closing Monologue):
"The most dangerous harvest is not of crops… but of certainty.
A single memory—tilted just right—can turn a hero into a villain, and a friend into a fuse."
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"He was kind. Gentle. Harmless.
But the Root did not need soldiers.
It needed believers.
And so, it gave Thalen a memory that fit too tightly to question.
Not history. Not truth.
Just a story that felt right…
...and that's how wars begin."
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"What is the Hominin Link, if not a weapon shaped like a whisper?
Not steel. Not teeth.
But conviction, false nostalgia, and betrayal with your own face on it.
The Root doesn't scream anymore.
It whispers in first person."
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"When a creature of bark and bone spoke Dion's name…
It wasn't the violence that shook him.
It was the story.
And in that moment,
even the crew felt their grip on truth… loosen."
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"It does not conquer like before.
Now, it curates.
Seeds stored in memory jars.
Guilt tuned like an instrument.
A gallery of false recollections, waiting to bloom.
Because the mind is soil.
And belief?
That is where the Root takes hold deepest."
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"They prepared for battle.
But the first weapon wasn't claws or fire.
It was a lie that sounded too real to dismiss.
And when the Nodule leapt…
It didn't just strike their bodies.
It struck their past."