Cycle 7 — Night of Glass Petals
I stood beneath the tree that bleeds. Its roots reached out to me like fingers, and I heard my name, but not from any voice I knew.
Cycle 8 — Nocturne Bloom
He watched me sleep. I woke with soil under my nails and a taste like rust on my tongue.
Cycle 9 — Hollow Moon
[fragment begins mid-thought] ...and then the garden went still. Every root recoiled, and something whispered behind my ribs: "We were never gone."
Cycle 10 — Witherwake
I opened my mouth to scream but the sound was soil. He planted something in me. I felt it growing when I woke.
Cycle 11 — Redroot
The garden whispered a name I had buried. Not his name. Mine.
Cycle 12 — Hollowbed
I watched my own hands draw a sigil I don't remember learning. Something laughed — behind my eyes.
Cycle 13 — The Night Rooted
There was a door inside the tree. It opened into nothing, but the nothing knew me.
Cycle 14 — Whispering Rot
I remembered a life that wasn’t mine. In it, I was powerful. In it, I was his.
Cycle 15 — Rootbound Silence
I was in my garden. But it wasn't mine anymore. My body was still moving — hands tending the soil — but I was watching from behind my own eyes. I tried to scream and felt my mouth smile without me.
The roots twisted around my ankles and whispered: “You left the door open.”
Under my fingernails, something wriggled. It didn’t want out. It wanted in.