Saint Lycoris Academy – 07:00 hours
The bell rings with a sound too clean to belong to the real world.Every morning begins the same way—rows of students bowing beneath stained glass windows that paint their faces in holy pink.
Prayers rise like smoke; discipline smells like perfume.
They call this place a school.I call it a greenhouse.
Our motto is carved above the chapel doors in polished gold letters:
Bloom with Grace.
No one ever mentions the second line hidden beneath the paint, carved by older hands, nearly erased by time:
And bleed in silence.
I recite the morning creed with the others, voice steady, breath measured:
"To be chosen is to be pure.To be obedient is to be alive."
I say it perfectly.My lips move.My heart does not.
The teachers nod.The Choir Sisters lower their eyes in approval.And from the balcony above, Mother Violet watches, her smile thin as a blade drawn from prayer.
She loves the quiet ones most—the ones who don't question, who don't twitch under the weight of devotion.
After prayers, we file out through the garden path, steps synchronized, uniforms pressed to perfection. The air smells like lilies and disinfectant.
White lilies, red lycoris—trimmed into symmetrical rows. Each bloom identical. Each stem cut to regulation height.
If one grows too wild, it's removed before anyone can see it bend.
I used to think that was mercy.Now, I'm not sure.
They trained us to notice patterns, so I see them everywhere.How the same crow circles the bell tower at precisely the same minute.How the janitor's keys jingle in rhythm with the morning hymns.Even the sunlight feels rehearsed here—obedient, filtered through glass so pure it forgets it was ever part of the sky.
The world doesn't move. It obeys.
When I was younger, I thought it was beautiful—the stillness, the symmetry.Now, the silence hums like something trapped inside a jar.
My notebook is filled with sketches of flowers I've never seen in the real world.Six petals, always bleeding into one another, never quite staying whole.Sometimes I dream that they whisper to me in the dark.Sometimes I wake up with dirt under my nails.
The nurses say it's stress.Mother Violet says it's penance.I think the flowers are trying to remember their roots.
Today, a rumor drifts through the halls like a spark under glass:
A new transfer student from the outer city.
Unusual. No one transfers into Saint Lycoris.Students arrive here only by decree, not by choice.
Mother Violet calls it divine adoption.I call it testing fertilizer.
We whisper between lessons—half curiosity, half dread.New blood means something's about to change.The Academy hates change.It calls it sin.
By midday, rain begins to fall.Soft. Steady. Familiar.
The sky above the dome is supposed to be filtered—synthetic weather only for ritual, never for chance. But sometimes, when the systems falter, the real rain finds its way in.
I sit beneath the covered walkway, my lunch untouched beside me, watching droplets trace down the glass panels.They fall in perfect rhythm, as if even gravity has been trained to obey.
My reflection stares back from the window—pale, still, practiced.For a heartbeat, my eyes flash red in the distorted light.
Then it's gone.Maybe the window blinked first.
Over the loudspeaker, the chapel chimes again—clear, commanding:
"All Class 2-B students report to the chapel court.Welcome, our new brother in faith."
The announcement echoes down the corridor, too polite to sound real.
I close my notebook. The latest sketch—six petals, bleeding quietly—stares back at me before I fold it shut.
The edges of the page are smudged with graphite and something darker I can't name.
When I stand, the air shifts.There's a tremor—so faint most wouldn't notice.But I feel it in my chest, like a pulse out of time.
Something different has entered the garden.
We line up in the courtyard as the rain slows to a drizzle.The courtyard is shaped like a cross; at its center, the statue of Saint Lycoris watches over us—her hands outstretched, petals carved between her fingers.Legend says those petals never fall.
Mother Violet steps forward, her robes whispering against the marble.Her presence carries the same weight as the rain before thunder.
"Children," she says, her tone a melody trained to sound like mercy. "Today, we receive a new bloom into our family. May he grow in discipline and devotion."
We bow in unison. The word family still feels like a threat in my ears.
Then he steps through the gate.
The first thing I notice is that he doesn't bow.Not immediately.He hesitates—not in defiance, but confusion.
His uniform is new, pressed, too bright against the gray rain.His hair still holds the scent of the outer city—dust, electricity, something human.
When his eyes lift, they catch the light from the stained glass behind us.For a second, I think they're reflecting the pink hue.Then I realize they're not.
They're simply warm.
Mother Violet studies him the way she studies new flowers—assessing where to prune.
"Welcome, Ren Amakusa," she says. "You are chosen now. Serve the garden well."
He nods awkwardly, and when his eyes sweep across the courtyard, they stop—on me.
It's not recognition.It's not fate.It's something smaller, quieter.An accident of attention.
But the moment it happens, something deep inside me—something that's been buried since the rain years ago—stirs awake.
One of the six petals moves.
I look away before it can speak.
After the ceremony, we return to class.The teachers lecture about purification rites, emotion management, the theology of obedience.Their words drone like the hum of old machinery.
But my attention drifts toward the back of the room, where the new transfer sits.
He writes neatly, but his hand trembles slightly.He glances out the window more than the board.When the teacher corrects him, he apologizes too quickly.He doesn't understand how to mask fear yet.
He'll learn.We all did.
But part of me—some dangerous, restless part—hopes he won't.
At recess, the rain thickens again.I find shelter under the same walkway. The glass hums with soft percussion.
Across the courtyard, Ren stands near the lilies, staring at the statue.He shouldn't be outside without permission.He doesn't know that yet.
I should report him.Instead, I watch.
He raises his hand, letting a single drop of rain fall into his palm.He smiles.
The simplicity of it feels violent.No one smiles at rain here.Rain means the system has failed.
For a moment, I wonder if he hears it too—the faint hum beneath the earth, the one that sounds like something growing where it shouldn't.
Notebook Entry — Personal Observation:The new boy looks like the rain forgot to stop at his skin.He doesn't move like the others. He breathes differently.I think the Academy will try to fix him soon.
I snap the notebook shut.Even the act of writing feels like sin.
Evening comes early in Saint Lycoris.By curfew, the garden lamps turn the pathways silver, and the air smells of holy oil.We kneel for night prayer, heads bowed, eyes lowered.
Mother Violet leads from the altar:
"To love is to serve.To serve is to die beautifully."
The words fall like petals from her mouth, rehearsed and polished.The rest of us echo them.
I feel my voice tremble on the last line.Not from fear—from memory.
Because when I close my eyes, I see the rain,the umbrella,the flash of red reflection in the glass.
And I know that somewhere, deep inside the soil of this place, something is waiting to bloom again.
The rain doesn't stop that night.It falls harder, heavier, like the sky is whispering secrets through the storm.
In my dorm, I lie awake, listening to it.The ceiling hums with faint echoes—heartbeat frequencies embedded in the Academy's security system.Every student here dreams the same dream: white petals falling into red water.
But my dream changes.
I see six petals again, glimmering in the dark, twisting into one another, whispering words I can't quite make out.And behind them, a shadow—a boy's silhouette, framed in rainlight.
If he smiles again… we keep him.
I wake before dawn, my hand clenched around the notebook.The ink from the last page has bled into the next, forming veins that look like roots.
Saint Lycoris Academy, 06:45 hours.The bell hasn't rung yet. The world holds its breath.
Through the dorm window, I watch the rain thin into mist.Below, in the courtyard, Ren walks alone, umbrella tilted lazily against the wind.He pauses by the lilies.For the briefest moment, he looks up.
Our eyes meet.
The sound that follows isn't thunder—it's something breaking, softly, like the first crack in glass before it sings.
I don't know what will happen next.But the garden smells like metal again.And that's never a good sign.
End of Diary #1 — "The Garden That Prays."