The Heart did not die quietly.
It unmade itself.
Kael's vision whited out as the flower's final bloom tore through the chamber not fire, not light, but something deeper. Something that scalded the memory of roots rather than the roots themselves. The air itself seemed to peel back in layers, revealing the garden's bones, its history, its countless failures.
The bodies of the bloomed children disintegrated first, their hollowed forms collapsing into dust, their ribcages sighing open like petals in reverse. The vines holding them recoiled, blackening mid-air before crumbling into ash.
Kane was on his knees, his body a ruin of split bark and unfurled thorns, his breath coming in wet, shuddering gasps.
"Fuck," he coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blackened petals. "That's one way to do it."
The bear was motionless, its massive body half-sunk into the floor, its brands now dark. The chain around its neck had rusted through entirely, the links crumbling where they touched the ash-choked air.
And Sarnel
Where she had been, there was only a silhouette. A shadow burned into the air, her mouth open in a soundless scream, her fingers outstretched as if still trying to graft the world back under her control. Then even that faded, eaten by the gold-edged darkness spilling from Kael's shattered flower.
The roots beneath them screamed.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
They knew this ending. They had seen it before.
And they knew what came next.
The Unraveling
The chamber convulsed. The ceiling split like rotten fruit, revealing a sky that wasn't a sky just an endless, starless black, the void where the garden's god had once coiled. The walls sagged, their fleshy membranes sloughing off in great sheets, exposing the lattice of petrified bone beneath.
Kael stumbled, his legs buckling as the synchronization hit its peak.
[Root System Synchronization: 100%]
The garden spoke through him now. Not in words. In pulses.
He saw it all.
The first Seedborn, kneeling in this same chamber, their body splitting open to feed the roots.
The worshippers with their rust-colored robes, their knives, their hollow prayers.
The children.
Always the children.
Planted like seeds.
Watered with suffering.
And now
Now it was ending.
Not with a whimper.
With a roar.
Kael's vision swam. The ash in the air thickened, clotting in his lungs, his throat, his veins. He coughed, and his spit came out black, threaded with tiny, writhing roots.
The flower was gone from his palm.
In its place
A hole.
A perfect, bloodless puncture where the vines had burrowed deepest.
And through it, he could feel the garden's last, desperate whisper:
"You were supposed to be different."
Kael bared his teeth. "I am."
He pulled.
The roots inside him ripped free.
The pain was beyond pain. It was uncreation.
The chamber screamed with him.
The Aftermath
Silence.
Then
A sound like a thousand sighs at once.
The roots were dying.
Not just here.
Everywhere.
The garden was coming apart at the seams, its vast, hungry body collapsing in on itself like a gutted beast. The floor beneath Kael's boots softened, then liquefied, sinking into a thick, black slurry that stank of rotting nectar and old blood.
Kane grabbed his arm, his grip weak but insistent. "Move."
Kael didn't argue.
They ran.
The bear did not follow.
Its body had sunk into the mire, its massive head bowed, its eyes closed. At the last second, Kael thought he saw its lips peel back not in a snarl, but a smile.
Then the darkness swallowed it whole.
The archway of thorns was gone when they reached it, collapsed into a tangle of withered brambles. Kael didn't stop. He plowed through, dragging Kane with him, the vines snapping like brittle glass against their skin.
Behind them, the garden folded.
The walls pressed inward. The ceiling collapsed. The air itself seemed to compress, squeezing the last remnants of life from the roots, the soil, the memory of the thing that had lived here.
Then
Light.
True light.
Sunlight.
Kael stumbled into it, gasping, his lungs burning with the sudden shock of clean air. The ground beneath him was solid. Dry.
Real.
Kane collapsed beside him, his body shuddering as the last of the petals spilled from his lips. His skin was flaking away in great, bark-like sheets, revealing raw, pink flesh beneath.
He laughed. It was a broken sound.
"Fuck," he wheezed. "We made it."
Kael didn't answer.
He was staring at his hand.
At the hole in his palm.
At the single, tiny root still twitching inside it.
Alive.
Waiting.