Fenrik didn't go back to the garden the next day.
He told himself it was coincidence.
Grief playing tricks on his mind.
Exhaustion twisting reality.
That was easier than accepting the alternative.
Morning light spilled through his window, dull and colorless. Fenrik lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint sounds of the city waking up. Cars. Footsteps. Life moving on without him.
Kaizen was dead.
That thought still didn't feel real.
Fenrik sat up slowly, his chest tight. His phone lay on the desk, screen dark. No new messages. No corrections. No "we made a mistake."
Just silence.
He stood, washed his face, and went through the motions like a machine. Eat. Dress. Leave. Every movement felt delayed, as if his body was acting a second behind his thoughts.
At college, people noticed.
"Hayashi looks worse than usual," someone whispered.
"He always looks like that," another replied, laughing.
Fenrik passed them without reacting.
For the first time, the bullying didn't hurt.
It felt… far away.
The rumors started at lunch.
Fenrik sat alone, poking at food he had no appetite for. Voices from the next table drifted over.
"Did you hear about that guy downtown?"
"No, what?"
"They say he just vanished. Like—gone. Alley was empty. No blood. No signs."
"That's fake."
"Then what about the subway thing last night? People said the lights went out and some weird door appeared."
Fenrik's hand stilled.
A weird door?
"…Probably some urban legend," someone else said. "People make stuff up."
Fenrik lowered his head.
Just rumors, he told himself.
That's all this is.
But his heart didn't believe it.
That evening, Fenrik walked home the long way.
He avoided the garden without thinking about it—his feet choosing streets that circled around it. Every time he felt himself drifting closer, a knot tightened in his stomach and he turned away.
He wasn't ready.
He didn't know what ready even meant.
As he passed a narrow street, he noticed something strange.
A man stood at the mouth of an alley, staring into the darkness.
Just standing there.
Not moving.
Fenrik slowed.
The man's posture was stiff, unnatural, like a statue placed wrong. Fenrik's good eye caught something off about him.
The shadow at the man's feet was too long.
Too thick.
Fenrik swallowed and kept walking.
Behind him—
Something scraped.
Fenrik didn't look back.
His pace quickened.
The scraping followed.
Closer.
"Stop," a voice whispered.
Fenrik broke into a run.
He turned a corner, nearly colliding with a couple walking their dog. He stumbled, heart pounding, and spun around.
The alley was empty.
No man.
No shadow.
Only a faint cold lingering in the air.
Fenrik leaned against a wall, gasping.
"I'm losing it," he muttered. "I have to be."
But deep down, he knew that wasn't true.
Night came again.
Fenrik sat on his bed, lights off, staring at the door. His left side was swallowed in darkness; his right eye caught the faint glow of the streetlight outside.
His thoughts circled back to one place.
The bench.
The garden.
The light.
Don't go, he told himself.
His feet moved anyway.
The garden was quiet.
Too quiet.
The sakura tree stood like a dead witness under the moon. Fenrik approached the bench slowly, every step heavy.
"Nothing's here," he said aloud, forcing the words. "It was just… a bad night."
He sat.
The stone path felt colder than before.
Minutes passed.
Nothing happened.
Relief began to seep in.
Then—
Tick.
A sound like a clock snapping into place.
Fenrik stiffened.
The air shifted.
The garden lights flickered—not violently, but rhythmically, like a pulse.
A faint red glow crept along the cracks in the ground.
Fenrik stood abruptly.
"Enough," he said, voice shaking. "Whatever this is—stop."
The ground beneath the bench opened.
Not breaking.
Opening.
Like a door being gently pulled apart.
A deep, endless darkness stretched below, and for a moment Fenrik felt dizzy—as if his blind eye was trying to see something it shouldn't.
From the darkness, a presence rose.
Not a shape.
Not yet.
Just pressure.
Authority.
Judgment.
Fenrik's knees buckled.
A voice echoed—not in his ears, but in his chest.
"The night approaches."
Fenrik gritted his teeth. "What do you want from me?"
Silence.
Then—
"You will return."
The darkness folded in on itself.
The ground sealed.
The lights steadied.
Fenrik collapsed to one knee, breathing hard.
His hands were shaking.
But beneath the fear—
Something else burned.
Curiosity.
Anger.
Resolve.
"If you're going to drag me into this," he whispered into the empty garden, "then stop hiding."
The garden didn't answer.
But deep beneath the stone—
Something ancient stirred.
And far beyond Fenrik's world, a place not meant for humans shifted ever so slightly.
A dungeon had noticed him.