The air turned sweet.Too sweet.
Like nectar rotting in a dead mouth.
The boy coughed.The girl covered her nose.
But it wasn't smell.It was memory.
The kind that blooms when you want to forget.
They reached the edge of it by dawn.
A valley painted in gold and rot.
Trees taller than towers.
Flowers the size of graves.
Every stem grew from a name.
Carved into roots.Etched into petals.
Some whispered.
Some screamed.
The girl stepped forward.
Her foot sank.
Not into soil—into bones.
They looked up at her.
Grinning.
Grateful.
Dead.
The boy didn't blink.
He recognized this place.
Not from dreams.From stories.
Told in whispers by survivors who didn't survive.
This was where the gods came to bury their mistakes.
Their regrets.
Their forgotten sins.
It was a Vault.But not sealed.
Not guarded.
Not hostile.
Just waiting.
Always waiting.
A vine reached for him.
Not fast.Not violent.
Just curious.
It brushed his arm—
and everything stopped.
He was seven again.Holding a blade too heavy.Watching her die.
Not the girl beside him.
Another.
The first.
The only.
He dropped to his knees.
"Not again…"
The girl grabbed his face.
Her voice cut through the illusion.
"This place isn't alive.It just remembers too much."
She pulled him up.
Led him forward.
The deeper they went, the quieter it got.
No wind.No birds.No breath.
Even the gods, it seemed, had things they didn't want to remember.
At the center of the garden—a tree.
Tall.Black.
Burning without fire.
From its branches hung masks.
Each one a face the boy had worn in another life.
He walked to it.
Touched the trunk.
It pulsed.Then opened.
Not like a door.
Like an eye.
And from within stepped a woman.
She was old.
Too old.
Skin cracked like bark.
Hair made of threads and vines.
Her voice sounded like roots tearing through stone.
"I remember you," she said.
"Even when you don't."
The girl stepped forward.
"Are you the Vaultkeeper?"
The woman shook her head.
"No. I am the gardener."
"I do not protect.I do not fight."
"I simply harvest."
She raised her hand.
Petals fell from the sky.
Each one whispered a version of the boy's life.
A victory he never earned.A peace he never reached.A death he never survived.
He staggered back.
But didn't fall.
The girl gripped his hand.
Tight.
Strong.
Real.
He faced the gardener.
"I won't plant anything here."
The old woman smiled.
"Then you must pull something out."
She pointed at the tree.
At a mask.
The highest one.
It looked just like him.
But smiling.
Whole.
Untouched.
He climbed.
Each branch whispered doubts.
Each leaf offered peace.
"Stay.""Forget.""Sleep."
But he reached the top.
Grabbed the mask.
And crushed it.
The tree screamed.
The garden trembled.
The woman wept black sap.
But she bowed.
"You chose to suffer."
"Then pass."
The world folded.
The petals turned to ash.
And the Vault—
closed.
Not with a key.
With a choice.
They stood on a hill outside the valley.
The air was clean again.
The girl looked at him.
"Did you leave something behind?"
He nodded.
"My peace."
She smiled.
"That's how I know it's really you."
From the east—
a tower rose.
Not from stone.
From light.
Sharp.Impossible.
The blade whispered:
"The Librarian has opened her eyes."
To be continued…