The first thing he felt was weight.
Cold rain soaking through ruined clothes. Mud beneath his palms. Gravity.
Cobi gasped, inhaling a rush of air that tasted like iron and ozone. The hum of the Root Mind faded into distant static as real sound returned — the slow drip of rain from broken leaves, the far-off echo of thunder swallowing the horizon.
He pushed himself upright. The clearing around him was unrecognizable. What had once been scorched earth was now overrun with fresh growth — flowers the color of starlight, trees already ten feet tall, their trunks veined with silver. The air vibrated faintly like it was still remembering the storm that birthed it.
He touched his face; blood had dried around his eyes, but his heartbeat thrummed with impossible energy. When he focused, he could hear dozens of heartbeats farther away — birds in trees, small animals stirring underground, droplets forming on leaves. Each sound had its own rhythm, but all of it flowed through one endless pulse.
The Earth was alive, and it was breathing through him.
"You've crossed the veil," whispered a familiar echo, more distant now. "Creation remembers her child."
Cobi turned toward the voice, but only the forest looked back.
By mid‑day, he stumbled into the outskirts of town. The streets were deserted except for abandoned vehicles and torn caution tape fluttering in the wind. The hum of news broadcasts echoed faintly from a storefront window.
He stopped to watch the screen.
The headlines said everything: WILLOWRIDGE EVACUATED. BIOLOGICAL THREAT IMMINENT.
His photo appeared below, grainy from security footage: Cobi Rivers — Suspect in Willowridge Disaster.
He almost laughed. They saw a killer; they would never understand he'd just come back from the heart of the earth.
Still, something tugged at him — guilt. Memory. The image of his grandmother's still body. The thought of Jace, alone and frightened—for now.
He pressed his hand to the glass. The screen glitched, static crawling across its surface wherever his fingers touched, images warping into vines and symbols that burned briefly before fading.
Somehow, his very presence distorted technology now. The world couldn't keep him contained anymore.
That night, he found shelter in an old service tunnel beneath the railroad tracks. The dark didn't bother him — his eyes had changed. Faint streaks of silver illuminated the walls, reacting to his breath.
He spread out everything he'd scavenged—newspapers, torn maps, photos left behind at the forest checkpoint. One article caught his eye:
"Thirteen Phenomena Reported Across the Globe: Flora Mutations Share Common Genetic Pattern."
Each location shimmered in his mind — glowing points scattered across Earth. He could feel them calling, like notes of a single song carried on the wind. The other vessels—thirteen in total, each awakening, each holding a piece of Gia.
He traced them with trembling fingers: Cairo. Kyoto. Greenland. The Amazon. The roots of her memory had stretched everywhere.
For a moment, fear tried to find him. If the others fell to the darkness inside their plants, the curse would repeat—cities devoured, humanity erased. But then another feeling rose to meet it: resolve.
"To stop it, you must remember why she began it."
The echo of Gia's last words wrapped around his thoughts.
He folded the map, pocketed it, and crawled toward the tunnel's exit. Night unfurled above — a sky threaded with strange auroras, silver streaks weaving across the stars. Each light pulsed at a different rhythm, as if beating in time with the awakened vessels across the world.
Cobi looked up, hand glowing faintly. His reflection shimmered in the storm puddle at his feet — human and not, frightened and divine.
"This is where it starts," he murmured. "I'll find them before she does."
The rain began again — soft this time, like the earth itself was listening.
And Cobi Rivers walked into the night, following the pull of thirteen hearts blooming across a dying world.