The air smelled… wrong.
Like rotting sweetness, tangled with something older, heavier.Sam felt it crawling into her lungs with every breath.
They were still in the ruins of the flower nursery.
But it no longer resembled anything familiar.
Thick vines now threaded through the shattered walls.Pulsing.Breathing.Listening.
Flowers bloomed in impossible colors—bruised purples, oil-slick blues, fleshy pinks with throbbing veins.Petals opened when Sam and Wang passed, as if watching them.
And the ground was soft.
Too soft.
Like walking on skin stretched over something alive beneath.
Sam hated it.
Wang hadn't spoken in hours.
Ever since they touched the seed, something in him had changed.
He looked… distant.Distracted.
Sam worried the Mirage had planted something in his mind.
But she didn't say it.
They needed each other.
Even now.
Especially now.
Night no longer came.
The sky above them pulsed with a dull crimson haze.
No stars.
No moon.
Just that endless bloom-colored sky, dripping spores that glowed like dying embers.
They didn't dare sleep.
Sleep was when the voices became louder.
The Blooming Ones, as Sam now called them, crept into your dreams.
They showed you gardens of impossible beauty.
Worlds without pain.Without hunger.Without fear.
But if you accepted their invitation...Your body would sprout roots.
And you would never wake up again.
Sam had already seen three survivors from the old Shatterers go like that.
They walked into a field of black roses.
Smiling.
Never seen again.
They found the first human settlement at dusk—or what passed for dusk in this bleeding sky.
But the humans weren't truly human anymore.
Their flesh was… stretched.
Merged with vines.
Mouths sewn shut by twisting roots.Eyes turned into black pits leaking golden sap.
They greeted Sam and Wang by offering flowers from their chests.
Flowers that whispered in languages not meant for human ears.
Sam almost shot them.
But Wang stopped her.
"They're not hostile… not yet," he said, his voice hollow.
Sam stared at him.
"You're starting to sound like them."
But Wang only stared back at the flower people.
His eyes… were glazed.
Like he was listening to something Sam couldn't hear.
That night, as they camped inside an old greenhouse swallowed by vines, Sam finally confronted him.
"What did you see when you touched the seed, Wang?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he leaned back against a wall of writhing ivy.
"I saw… the truth," he finally whispered."The Mirage was only the veil. This—" he gestured around them, "—this is the core. This is what the world always wanted to become. The Blooming Ones are not invaders. They were always part of us."
Sam froze.
"That's not you talking, Wang."
He smiled faintly.
"I'm not sure anymore, Sam."
Sam couldn't sleep.
The flowers outside whispered constantly now.
Not in words.
But in… sensations.
They made promises inside your head.
They showed you what you feared the most.And then… they offered to erase it.
Sam clung to her knife the entire night.
It was the only thing that still felt real.
In the morning, Wang was gone.
All he left behind was a trail of red spores… leading deeper into the jungle of flesh and flowers.
Sam cursed under her breath.
He was walking toward the Core Bloom.
The heart of this nightmare.
Alone.
She strapped her gear.Sharpened her blades.Lit a torch.
And followed.
Even if he was lost to them.
Even if this was a trap.
She couldn't leave him.
Because if Wang was gone…She would be truly alone.
And in a world of endless blooming, the last thing you wanted…Was to be alone.