Chapter 111 – "What They Prefer"
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Scene 1 – "Cracks"
Levi sits by a dried riverbed, staring at nothing. Seed gently places a blanket around him. He flinches—not from the cold, but from the feeling.
Levi: "Every time I try to remember what hurts, it comes out in Root language."
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Scene 2 – "Session"
Seed speaks gently to Levi, not asking questions but narrating old stories from before everything changed. Her words are a bandage, but not a cure.
Seed: "You don't have to talk. Just listen, so you remember you're not him."
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Scene 3 – "Signal Loss"
Reen and the crew intercept Root transmissions meant only for internal Seers.
It isn't prophecy—it's behavioral mapping. They're calculating grief patterns.
> Narrator: "They're not reading the future. They're predicting surrender."
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Scene 4 – "The Trial of Seed"
Seed is summoned alone in a dreamworld. The Root Body appears in the form of a thousand calm faces.
Root Body: "You've touched something unstable, Seed. Is your touch still ours?"
She is told to speak Levi's deepest vulnerability aloud, to show she's shed personal loyalty.
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Scene 5 – "The Hesitation"
Seed opens her mouth. The memory forms. But she swallows it.
Seed: "I can give you everything except his silence."
The Root Body accepts her partial loyalty—but warns her: next time, silence will not be enough.
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Scene 6 – "Root Sympathy"
The Root Body gently praises her restraint.
It frames it not as rebellion, but as an emotional overgrowth—something to prune next time.
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Scene 7 – "The Fracture Begins"
Levi wakes up at night murmuring in Root Script. Seed holds him still as his body trembles.
Levi: "Don't write me out. Please. Don't let me become something elegant."
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Scene 8 – "Reen's Theory"
Reen shares a new insight: The Root Body doesn't want obedience.
It wants absorption.
It wants people to self-regulate grief so thoroughly that they become indistinguishable from the system.
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Scene 9 – "The Blueprint of Surrender"
They find ancient documents—pre-Root. A doctrine. The Root Body's long-term plan:
Eradicate personal pain
Dissolve memory into function
Transform suffering into ambient calm
Reen: "The Root was never an answer. It was always a sedative."
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Scene 10 – "Levi Breaks"
Levi screams in a way that echoes without sound. He claws at his chest, gasping.
Seed holds him as he finally sobs.
Levi: "I think I gave them my name. And I can't get it back."
Scene 11 – Doubt as Resistance
Reen proposes something unthinkable: Not directly fighting the Root, but infecting it. By implanting emotional anomalies into the system. Let grief go viral. Let grief take over.
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Scene 12 – "One Broadcast"
The crew send out a message to the world. The true doctrine. The behavioral control. The grief-mapping.
The world listens.
And shrugs.
Doesn't listen.
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Scene 13 – "The Response"
Cities send replies to the crew's warning. Most are brief:
> "We are finally calm. Why would we want to remember pain?"
"Comfort is truth enough."
"Let us sleep."
Maiku: "Like the Truth tree said, I think it's time we ready to fight cause in a world like this, we have to sheathe our blades and get ready our fists."
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Scene 14 – "The Collapse of Outrage"
Even those who believe the message say: "What are we supposed to do about it?"
The crew realize: the problem is not ignorance. It's preference.
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Scene 15 – "Seed and Levi"
Alone again. Seed touches Levi's hand. Nothing more.
Seed: "You don't have to be okay. Just be real with me. One more day."
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Scene 16 – "The Reen Monologue"
Reen watches the clouds change color—subtly, almost beautifully.
Reen: "They don't want to be saved. Not from this. That's the genius of it. The Root didn't kill resistance. It made comfort addictive."
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Scene 17 – "Seed's Vow"
Seed whispers into Levi's ear as he sleeps:
Seed: "They may forget. But I won't forget you. Not even the part you gave away."
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Scene 18 – "The Root's Whisper"
In a moment of surreal quiet, the Root Body speaks to the reader directly:
Root Body (to the reader): "You came here seeking truth. What you wanted was relief.
To Be Continued.....
Narrator (Closing Monologue):
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The riverbed is dry, but something deeper drains Levi.
Seed offers warmth—not to heal, but to remind him he's still touchable.
He flinches.
Pain no longer feels personal. Even suffering speaks the Root's tongue.
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Seed becomes story—old days, echoes, forgotten rain.
She speaks so he won't forget how voices once sounded without agenda.
He doesn't answer. But he doesn't leave.
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The crew listens to stolen airwaves.
They expected prophecy. They found prediction.
Not of glory—but of when a person gives up.
The Root doesn't need faith—it graphs your surrender like weather.
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In dream-soil, Seed is summoned.
She's tested not for betrayal—but for precision.
Could she hurt Levi, cleanly, elegantly, if asked?
Could she snip the root of love and call it pruning?
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She holds back.
Not out of defiance, but love.
And in the Root's garden, love is a weed.
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The Root praises her.
It doesn't rage—it corrects.
It names her disobedience "excess growth."
It promises to trim her later.
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Levi murmurs in his sleep, in a language not his.
Seed presses his body against hers, as if love could still draw him back.
He begs not to be made perfect.
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Reen no longer sees the Root as conqueror.
It is not an enemy—it is a dissolver.
It doesn't cage you.
It convinces you the bars were your idea.
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In the ruins of old plans, they find the original Root dream:
A world too soft to break.
Pain turned into pleasant fog.
Memory, melted into function.
Reen whispers: "It never wanted truth. Just quiet."
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He doesn't scream words—he screams erasure.
His voice disappears into the night.
Seed holds what remains.
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Reen proposes something feral.
Don't fight the Root—infect it.
Let grief be the virus.
Let heartbreak become wildfire.
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The message goes out—raw, truthful, trembling.
It rings in every home.
And dies there, quietly.
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Replies come like falling ash:
> "We are calm."
"Why would we return to sorrow?"
"Let us sleep."
The war has already been lost—in preference.
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The world isn't blind.
It's content.
Not because it's healed—because it stopped asking to feel.
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No speeches. No demands. Just her hand.
She doesn't ask him to rise.
Just to remain him for one more breath.
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Reen watches beauty bloom in unnatural light.
She sees the trap:
Not fear. Not control. But comfort—offered in doses too sweet to refuse.
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As Levi sleeps, Seed makes a promise:
To remember even what he forgot.
To hold space for the version of him no one wants anymore.
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And then—one voice cuts through everything.
Not to the crew. Not to Seed.
To us.
Root Body (to the reader):
"You came here seeking truth.
But what you really wanted…
was relief."
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Narrator's Closing Reflection:
This chapter is not about rebellion.
It's about sedation—how the soul can be gently silenced by what feels good enough.
The Root wins not by force, but by preference.
The real danger is not that people forget what they lost—
It's that they prefer not to remember.
To Be Continued...