Chapter 80 – "Something Took Root"
> "Victory is a dangerous thing. Especially when it leaves seeds behind."
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Scene 1 – "The Fight Begins"
> Narrator: "The first blow was not thrown. It was spoken."
The Root Nodule Monster raises its arms and speaks fractured memories mid-battle. It's like fighting a ghost that knows your secrets.
Dion hears the Nodule accuse him of abandoning his brother.
Reen hears cries from a surrendering enemy she never remembers killing.
The group is hesitant—but Gift moves first, grounding them with action.
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Scene 2 – "Flames Against Lies"
Maiku burns the Nodule with puches of flame. They're meant to be white but..... But the flames turn green.
The Nodule absorbs pain like water—it adapts.
Jakku gets wounded and starts muttering lines from a memory that isn't his.
Reen (yells): "Don't listen. Watch what's real!"
They double down with coordinated attacks.
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Scene 3 – "The Memory Loop"
The Nodule traps Dion in a time-loop illusion: he stabs his brother over and over, screaming.
Matthew plays a haunting note on his flute—cutting through the illusion.
Dion gasps awake. Rejoins the battle, shaking.
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Scene 4 – "Gift's Realization"
Gift (yells mid-battle): "It's not a monster—it's a memory with legs!"
Reen slices into the Nodule's core. It starts to leak black sap, glowing faintly green.
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Scene 5 – "The Kill"
The group synchronizes:
Dion cleaves it's arms.
Matthew stuns.
Jakku slices the stomach.
Maiku scorches the roots.
Gift lands a deep cut to the legs.
Reen delivers the final blow, splitting it down the center.
> Narrator: "And the lie died screaming."
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Scene 6 – "The Corpse That Grows"
The corpse hits the ground… and then pulses.
Roots spill out. The ground cracks open.
From the husk, a stalk rises—thick, alive, glowing with the same rhythm as the True Root Body.
It grows fast. In seconds, it becomes 10 feet tall.
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Scene 7 – "The Return of the Body"
> Narrator: "They thought they killed the seed. But some plants are buried in death."
From the stalk sprouts a flower of bone petals and bark-veined veins—the True Root Body begins taking form at last.
Gift: "That wasn't the enemy. That was fertilizer."
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Scene 8 – "Atlas Watches from Afar"
Atlas looks over the horizon, where the green light pulses.
He carves a symbol into his blade—the Root sigil, crossed out.
Atlas (low): "Now we're in it."
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Scene 9 – "Back at Camp: Fragmented Minds"
The crew returns. No cheers.
Jakku writes in a journal—but the words change every time he looks away.
Matthew's flute no longer plays the same tune twice.
Reen and Gift share a look, but say nothing.
They don't trust their memories anymore.
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Scene 10 – "The Hominin Link Evolves"
Cut below:
The Root Avatar opens its hands. Inside: a cracked memory jar leaking fog.
It whispers to the growing True Root Body:
Root Avatar: "Now… give them truths they won't want to question. Make them love you. Make them doubt each other."
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Scene 11 – "The Plant Breathes"
Close-up on the True Root Body.
Its face forms—part bark, part flower, part human. It is and is not Thalen.
Root Avatar: "This replaces your old body. Now you are new. And when we merge we have no right to be in this world."
Its chest pulses once.
> Narrator: "It had no name yet. But it already remembered everything… even things that never happened."
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Scene 12 – "The Final Line"
Reen, in the darkness, whispers to herself.
Reen: "We won."
Then she looks at the green stalk now towering beyond the fields.
Reen (quiet): "...Didn't we?"
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To Be Continued…
> Narrator (Closing Monologue):
"Victory.
The sweetest poison.
Because once the cheers fade… all that's left is what it planted in you."
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"They fought a monster.
But it did not bleed—it remembered.
Its weapons were not claws or tendrils…
but whispered betrayals and dreams that felt too true to question.
In the battlefield of flesh, they had strength.
But in the battlefield of mind…
they faltered."
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"How do you kill something made of story?
A lie is not slain with a sword.
It lingers.
And in that fight, they did not just survive.
They absorbed it.
Each cut they made bled into their belief."
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"That corpse was no ending.
It was the first harvest.
The Root does not resist destruction.
It requires it.
Because in ruin… it blooms faster."
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"No longer dream. No longer memory.
The Root Body now breathes.
It wears the skin of stories.
And behind its eyes?
A god that remembers things that never happened."
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"The crew returned intact.
But not whole.
Words changed on the page.
Songs forgot their own tune.
They had won… but couldn't agree on what they'd won against."
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"In war, it's not always the body that breaks first.
It's the truth.
And once that tilts—even by a single seed—
it grows crooked.
And crooked things… cast long shadows."