The sky was too quiet.
Sam sat at the front of the stalled bus, staring blankly at the endless field of towering, grotesque flowers that stretched beyond the windows. Their petals pulsed with a sickly glow, opening and closing like breathing mouths, whispering lullabies that pressed against her skull like invisible hands.
"Are we still dreaming?" Wang asked beside her, his voice hollow.
Sam shook her head slowly. "Not a dream, Wang. This is the Mirage's true world. I think… we're inside its core now."
The teachers were frozen. The driver unmoving.The other students sat quietly, smiling like mannequins, their eyes dull glass orbs reflecting the flowers outside.
It wasn't just about hallucination anymore.
This was assimilation.
And Sam and Wang were the only ones still resisting.
For now.
Sam dug the mirror shard from her pocket, its edge now cracked and faintly pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
"We can't stay in the bus," she said. "We'll lose ourselves."
Wang hesitated but nodded. "Then we walk."
They stepped outside, the air immediately suffocating them with a sweet, heavy perfume. The flowers towered like buildings now, petals laced with crimson veins, their stalks twisting unnaturally toward them as they moved.
The path before them was a labyrinth of vines, flesh-like thorns, and tangled roots that whispered their names.
They walked for what felt like hours, days, or maybe minutes—time didn't exist here.Every direction looked the same.Every step heavier.
Until they stumbled upon the Hollow Garden.
A vast, open pit in the middle of the endless field.At its center—a grotesque mass of tangled roots, beating like a heart.Above it, hundreds of mirrored faces floated, reflecting endless versions of Sam, Wang, their classmates, strangers—all screaming silently.
Sam's breath caught.
"The root… that's the real root," she whispered.
But Wang's face twisted with horror.
"Sam… look closely."
She did.
And realized—
The faces in the floating mirrors weren't just random hallucinations.
They were the souls of those already consumed.
People.
Victims.
The nursery wasn't the only place the Mirage had infected.
It had been feeding for decades. Maybe centuries.
"This is… a feeding pit," Wang choked out.
Sam staggered forward, fury boiling inside her chest.This thing… this garden… it was feeding on the collective consciousness of its victims, looping them inside endless versions of their own terror.
This is why Sakda said escape wasn't about running… it was about severing the root inside your mind.
But now, Sam saw the physical root.
And she wanted to destroy it.
They approached the mass carefully, the vines recoiling like wary predators.
Suddenly, Sakda emerged from the roots, his body part human, part flower, thorns erupting from his skin.
"Stubborn little sprouts…" he hissed, his voice layered with dozens of echoes. "You think you can cut the root from the outside? This garden is older than your world. Your reality grew on top of us. We are the soil beneath your world."
Sam shook, but refused to back down.
"Then we'll burn the soil too."
Sakda laughed—a sound like cracking branches and bone.
"You don't have the courage."
But Sam did.
She reached into her pocket and found the mirror shard glowing.
"It's not about courage," she said softly. "It's about belief."
She turned the shard toward the root, reflecting its own image back onto itself.
The root convulsed violently, the faces inside the mirrors screaming as their reflections rippled.
The Mirage couldn't handle its own reflection.It thrived on the illusion, but when faced with its truth, it fractured.
Sakda lunged, vines twisting, jaws opening wide.
But Wang tackled him, grappling him into the vines.
"Sam! Finish it!" Wang shouted.
Sam raised the shard high, whispering every fear, every pain, every ounce of doubt she carried—and then shattering the shard directly into the beating root.
A blinding eruption of light tore through the Hollow Garden, washing everything in pure, searing white.
And then...
Silence.
Sam blinked.
She stood alone.
No flowers.
No Wang.
No bus.
Just a vast, empty gray field stretching forever.
The Hollow Garden... hollow now in every sense.
Did they win?
Did they escape?
She fell to her knees, breath ragged, eyes scanning the endless void.
But then—A hand.
Wang's hand, reaching from the darkness.
"Sam… we did it."
She gripped it tightly, tears running down her face.
But even now, she knew the truth.
They had severed the root inside the Mirage's mind.
But the seeds... still lived inside them.
The Mirage might be sleeping now.
But it wasn't dead.
And wherever it took root next...
They would be ready.
Because they had seen its core.
And survived.
For now.