He woke in a forest stitched from memories, and wildflowers burning with names he didn't recognize.
Valley's voice went silent after she read one of Hasley's passages.
I lay on my back, floating above the rippled chaos in her mind. Fractured light like a mosaic in the distance, shattering over and over again. And it was due to shatter again in a moment. As if her Chaos was stuck in a routine of doom. A glimpse of light to falter away just before it could get too bright.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection just before it would shatter, checking to see if I had changed at all each time it did.
My hair was longer than I remembered it was.
Brown and at my shoulders.
My only guess was that my own subconscious wanted to ease my transition by tricking me into thinking everything was still growing, as if my body had never died.
My eyes never changed, still hazel with specks of green. Green as grass that had plenty of water, and a ring of gold to hold it all together.
But it wouldn't blink when I did.
Her silence went on as if my head was tilted back, ears under water, muffled from the dissonant echoes of the glass breaking around me. Glass that I anticipated to break again.
I waited for it to happen, but the silence lingered, not just her voice but all sounds.
Suddenly, the sky that I had spent hours looking up at transformed from a murky, oil-mosaic painting to an endless, clear ocean, as if my float had turned this world upside down, but with no waves, only calm.
A clear sky on a warm day.
I smelt something sweet and exotic, like lilacs on an isolated raft in the middle of nowhere.
It reminded me of spring.
The sounds of buzzing bees nearby, and I knew something had changed.
I looked around, feeling the brush of smooth silk and dull velvet. I was lying in a bed of glowing wildflowers that pulsed faintly.
Slow whispering wind brushed through them as if they were giving a small wave to say hello.
Colors of the rainbow, but scattered and out of order, tilting towards me as if it could sense my interruption.
As if the chaos wanted to prove that it still lingered here, even in the peace.
The peace that wasn't even here a moment ago. And they thought I was the interruption.
But I suppose I am the intruder here.
Only if the mind cared for what she wanted. Then I'd be welcomed.
But the mind doesn't care about matters of the heart, only that it pumps sufficiently.
I stood up and brushed away specks of grass.
I looked around.
The wildflowers from the journal, I presume.
Valley's imagination was greater than I ever could picture in my own mind, at least not from words.
I'd have to actually see it first, and she just conjured this land from a single paragraph.
Chaos had transformed into stable energy.
Motivation.
At least for now.
I could feel the gears grinding in her mind, working toward her need for answers as a new wildflower would grow every few seconds.
A person who can drive their chaos rather than letting it drive them can control their own fate.
This was particularly dangerous in Solence, where Atropa's headquarters were located.
There was a wildflower that caught my attention, stopping me in my tracks. Standing tall and proud, to show off that the sun had provided what they needed to get through the coming days.
That wildflower had a name on its petals,
"Allek" etched in like the bright sun had burned it there.
I didn't know who he was.
I could feel a sliver of jealousy rise in me, but I had to brush it off.
I could feel her mind still clicking.
Turning with determination.
I hope that I had nothing to do with it.
Only that she was inspired by Hasley's words, and not by my presence roaming around in her mind.
It was like a candle lit after the storm knocked the power out, but there would have had to be a mighty big storm since I arrived to grow this large garden.
Or I was the storm.
And the garden was meant to be here, not me.
I had been walking for a while, dodging the small growth of life that wanted to branch out near me, so I didn't accidentally kill it before it began.
Then I heard footsteps crunching on the stems.
Stems I know I avoided.
These footsteps weren't my own.
I turned quickly, but as soon as I looked behind me, the flowers began to rise.
They grew taller than I could see.
And I couldn't tell if this was Valley's Chaos in control anymore, or whoever was here with me.
Stems were as round as tree trunks, growing as they thickened. The sunlight now hid behind giant flower petals, and if they fell, they wouldn't be falling like a feather in the wind; they would crush you like a stone to an ant.
Petals with names of people she had forgotten because she never told me of their existence.
Or didn't want to remember, as I caught a glance of the name Derek.
But if I were to be crushed, I pray it not be the petals of Allek, the tallest flower tree here.
I was in the center of it, a maze that cast shadows lingering all around me.
Someone was definitely here, and they didn't want to be found.
I tried to follow the path that looked like it had been stepped on before they grew, because they had grown across the ground from where they were snapped, but whoever it was realized quickly and fixed it back to normal right before my eyes.
Whatever normal may be.
It didn't matter where.
The mind, or the outer world.
Normal was just an illusion anyway.
But still, I moved toward where the first branch had broken and stayed in that direction.
The buzzing of the bees had grown louder.
That's when I realized that the flowers weren't the only life that had grown larger.
Panic sank in, and I tried to stay low and unseen.
They wouldn't come down here.
They would stay up there with the petals, I told myself.
I tried not to think about it as the buzzing became familiar.
Familiar to the point that I knew I was lost.
I didn't know where I was going.
I remembered a story I learned about all Soul-woven couples, that they could enter the other's mind and get lost or lose a piece of themselves before returning to their mind, whether your body died or was still among the living.
That's one of the many reasons why this was so dangerous.
And I'm a in perfect example right now as I kept my pace through the wildflower forest.
It was unnatural and defied the laws of the universe.
But Atropa grew since the first merge, and had everyone lining up for the new fad, and before we knew it, it had become the new way to be.
The story goes that there was once a time when all soulmates were one before they were split in two, and they were only getting that back. It may have started innocently, but it has been corrupted for a long time now.
That's why I never wanted to check our score.
Not when I didn't know who was controlling the outcome.
I don't know how long it had been, but I had been lost in these wildflowers for what seemed like hours.
Suddenly, the flowers began to wilt and die.
A foul smell filled the now heavy air.
The view ahead was becoming clearer as all the petals began to fall around me, and the stems collapsed to the ground, causing tremors beneath my feet.
I held onto the nearest one, hoping the roots wouldn't be ripped from the ground like unwanted weeds.
Everything had fallen over and wilted into dust, even the one I was hugging onto vanished into dust between my fingers.
Yet the shadows didn't disappear into the openness.
It was only getting darker.
The garden had died, but something far worse had taken root.
The wildflowers could turn to dust, but I would still walk through the dark for her.