**[MILITARY LOG - INCIDENT REPORT #A-0347]**
**Location:** Abandoned Factory Complex, Northern Industrial District
**Time:** 00:01:23 hours
**Reporting Officer:** Captain Hayashi Kenji, Special Anomaly Response Unit
At 00:01:23, thermal signatures in the factory center merged into a single mass. Temperature readings exceeded measurement capacity (>500°C at core, dropping to ambient at edges). Visual confirmation impossible due to structural interference and light distortion field.
All personnel ordered to maintain perimeter. Breach attempt postponed pending command authorization.
**[End Log Entry]**
-----
I died at 00:01:23.
Not the slow death I'd been dying for the past four days. Not the gradual erosion of self, the piece-by-piece consumption.
This was instant. Complete. Like a switch being flipped, a candle being blown out, existence simply… *stopping*.
And then starting again.
Differently.
I was no longer Kaito. Or I was, but I was also Miyuki. And she was me. And we were something else entirely—something that had never existed before, would never exist again, something the universe itself seemed surprised to discover.
We had no body. Or we had infinite bodies. Or we had one body with too many dimensions for human perception to track.
We existed in that patch of grass where the real Miyuki had died ten years ago. We existed in the space between atoms. We existed in every moment of loneliness I'd ever felt and every moment of hunger she'd ever experienced.
We were the Flowerbed.
And we were *blooming*.
-----
**[Kaito's Consciousness - Fragment 1]**
Warmth.
Not the warmth of the four-minute feedings. This was permanent. Eternal. A warmth that didn't end, didn't fade, didn't require me to return to cold reality afterward.
I was inside her and she was inside me and there was no distinction between inside and outside anymore.
We floated in a space that was simultaneously infinite and tiny—an ocean contained in a teardrop, a universe folded into the size of a human heart.
*Kaito,* her voice said, except it wasn't her voice because she didn't have a voice anymore, didn't have a mouth or vocal cords or lungs to push air through.
It was more like… *thought*. Or *feeling*. Or something that existed before language, before words, before the need to separate one consciousness from another.
*We did it,* I thought back at her. *We're together.*
*Forever,* she agreed. *Just like I promised.*
And it was true. There was no sense of time passing, no awareness of seconds ticking by, no concept of "later" or "soon" or "eventually."
There was only *now*. And now lasted forever.
I wanted to ask her: *Is this what death is?*
But I already knew the answer because she knew the answer because we shared the same knowledge now, the same memories, the same understanding.
This wasn't death. This was something else. Something beyond death, beyond life, beyond the binary of existing and not-existing.
We were in-between. In the space where two souls meet and refuse to separate. In the place where love and consumption become the same thing.
*Can you feel it?* she asked.
*Feel what?*
*Outside. Beyond. The world we left behind.*
I reached out—not with hands, we didn't have hands—with whatever sense we now possessed that could perceive things beyond ourselves.
And I felt it.
The military. The soldiers. The heat sensors and thermal imaging and weapons being readied.
I felt their fear. Felt it like radiation, like the warmth of sun on skin, except cold instead of hot, sharp instead of gentle.
They were terrified of us.
*Good,* I thought. *Let them be scared. Let them know what it feels like to be powerless.*
*Kaito,* Miyuki's consciousness wrapped around mine like arms, like tentacles, like protection. *Don't let anger poison this. We're not here to hurt them. We're just here to BE.*
*They'll try to kill us.*
*They can try. But you can't kill what's already dead. And you can't destroy what exists between worlds.*
She was right. I could feel it in the structure of what we'd become—we weren't bound by the rules anymore. Weren't limited by flesh and blood and bones. Weren't vulnerable the way humans were vulnerable.
We were something else now.
Something beautiful.
Or something terrible.
Probably both.
-----
**[MILITARY LOG - INCIDENT REPORT #A-0347]**
**Time:** 00:04:51 hours
**Reporting Officer:** Captain Hayashi Kenji
Visual confirmation obtained. Phenomenon defies standard classification.
Mass approximately 4 meters in diameter, 2.5 meters in height. Structure appears organic—multiple layers of what might be tissue or membrane, bioluminescent, pulsing with regular rhythm (approximate 0.8 Hz, consistent with human resting heart rate).
Central core visible through semi-transparent outer layers. Two distinct heat signatures, merged but still distinguishable. Analysis suggests one human male (deteriorated physical condition), one anomalous entity (unknown classification).
Mass is growing. Spreading across factory floor. Rate: approximately 30cm per hour.
Requesting permission to terminate.
**[End Log Entry]**
-----
**[Miyuki's Consciousness - Fragment 1]**
I showed him our new body.
Not through sight—we didn't have eyes the way humans have eyes—but through awareness. Through the knowledge of what we'd become.
We were a garden.
That's the only way to describe it. A garden of flesh and light and something else—something that existed on the edges of perception, barely real, barely possible.
At our center, where his dying body and my true form had merged, there was a core. Dense. Pulsing. Alive in a way that transcended biology.
Radiating out from that core were layers—petals made of transformed tissue, veins of bioluminescent fluid, structures that served no biological purpose but existed purely because they were *beautiful*.
We were art. Horrible, grotesque, impossible art.
And on the outside, reaching toward the broken factory ceiling, toward the sky beyond, we had grown flowers.
Real flowers. Living flowers. Sprouting from our flesh like we were soil, like we were a garden bed for impossible blooms.
Red flowers. The color of fresh blood. The color of love. The color of everything we'd sacrificed to be here.
*The military won't understand,* I told Kaito. *They'll see us as a threat. As something to be destroyed.*
*Because we are a threat,* he replied. *We're proof that their rules don't matter. That their weapons and their science and their understanding of reality are incomplete.*
*Does that bother you?*
*No.* His consciousness pressed against mine, warm and familiar and already inseparable. *Let them be afraid. Let them realize that some things can't be killed, can't be contained, can't be explained away.*
I loved him even more in that moment. Because he understood. Because he'd stopped being human enough to care about human rules.
Because he was mine.
*Forever,* I promised again.
*Forever,* he echoed.
And in our merged state, forever felt like a reasonable timeframe.
-----
**[Captain Hayashi - Personal Log, Encrypted]**
I've been in Special Anomaly Response for six years. I've seen things that made me question reality. Things that made me want to eat my gun rather than file another report.
But this is different.
The thing in that factory—I can't call it a creature, can't call it an entity, can't call it anything that fits into our existing vocabulary—is alive in a way nothing should be alive.
My men can feel it. Even through the thermal scanners, even through the walls, they can *feel* it. Some kind of psychic pressure. Like standing too close to a black hole. Like being watched by something that exists in too many directions at once.
Three of my soldiers have requested psychiatric evaluation. Two more have simply refused to look at the factory. They stand with their backs to it, weapons ready, eyes fixed on nothing.
I don't blame them.
Because when I looked—really looked, with enhanced optics that can see beyond normal spectrum—I saw something that made me want to join them in their denial.
Inside that mass, inside those layers of impossible flesh and bioluminescent tissue, there are two people.
A boy and a girl.
Merged at the chest. Their bodies fused together like grotesque Siamese twins, but voluntary. Consensual. *Desired*.
The boy—Yamada Kaito, seventeen years old according to our files—is barely recognizable. His body has aged decades in days. Skin translucent. Bones visible. He should be dead.
But his heart is still beating. I can see it through the layers, pulsing in rhythm with the entity's core.
And the girl—the thing wearing a girl's face—is wrapped around him. Through him. Her true form visible now that she's stopped pretending to be human.
She's beautiful. And she's horrifying. And I can't look away.
Command has authorized termination. Flamethrowers are being positioned. Incendiary charges are being planted.
We're going to burn it. Burn them. Reduce the whole thing to ash and hope that's enough.
I don't think it will be.
**[End Personal Log]**
-----
**[Kaito's Consciousness - Fragment 2]**
We were growing.
I could feel it happening—not with sensation exactly, but with awareness. Our body expanding, reaching, spreading across the factory floor like roots seeking water.
*They're going to try to kill us,* I told Miyuki.
*I know.* Her consciousness was calm. Accepting. *Let them try. It won't work.*
*How do you know?*
*Because we're not alive the way they understand life. We're not vulnerable the way flesh is vulnerable. We exist in between—between life and death, between real and unreal, between one and many.*
I reached out again with that sense we'd developed, that awareness of things beyond ourselves.
The soldiers were moving. Setting up equipment. Large cylinders being rolled into position, connected to hoses, aimed at the factory entrance.
Flamethrowers.
They were going to burn us.
*Will it hurt?* I asked.
*I don't know,* Miyuki admitted. *I've never been burned before. Never been attacked in this form. But even if it hurts…*
*Even if it hurts, we're together.*
*Yes.*
I thought about that. About pain. About the kind of agony that fire could inflict, even on something as inhuman as what we'd become.
And I realized: I didn't care.
Because any amount of pain, any amount of burning, any amount of suffering—it was still better than being alone.
It was still better than the life I'd had before.
*I love you,* I told her.
*I love you too,* she replied. *Thank you for letting me eat you.*
*Thank you for being hungry.*
-----
**[MILITARY LOG - INCIDENT REPORT #A-0347]**
**Time:** 00:47:12 hours
**Reporting Officer:** Captain Hayashi Kenji
Termination attempt initiated.
At 00:47:12, incendiary weapons discharged. Target engulfed in flames. Temperature at center of mass exceeded 1000°C.
Duration of burn: 4 minutes, 23 seconds.
Result: Negative. Target survived.
Mass did not shrink or deteriorate during burn. Outer layers appeared to absorb heat rather than be damaged by it. Bioluminescent patterns intensified during exposure to flame, then returned to baseline after fire suppression.
No signs of pain response. No vocalization. No movement beyond normal pulsing rhythm.
Target appears impervious to thermal attack.
Requesting authorization for high-explosive ordnance.
**[End Log Entry]**
-----
**[Miyuki's Consciousness - Fragment 2]**
The fire washed over us.
Kaito was terrified—I felt it through our connection, sharp and cold despite the heat—but I wrapped myself tighter around his consciousness, shielding him from the worst of the fear.
*It's okay,* I told him. *We're okay. Feel it—we're not burning. We're absorbing.*
And it was true. The heat from the flames, the energy from the chemical reaction, it was all flowing into us. Feeding us. Making us *stronger*.
We were growing faster now. The flowers blooming from our flesh were larger, more vivid. The bioluminescent veins pulsed brighter. The core where our hearts beat as one thrummed with power we'd never felt before.
*They made us more beautiful,* Kaito thought, wonder replacing fear.
*They always do,* I replied. *Every time someone tries to destroy something they don't understand, they only make it more real. More permanent. More impossible to ignore.*
The flames died down. The factory was filled with smoke and the smell of burning chemicals and beneath it all, faintly, the scent of flowers.
We could feel the soldiers' confusion. Their instruments telling them we should be dead. Their eyes telling them we were more alive than ever.
*What now?* Kaito asked.
*Now we wait. They'll try something else. Explosives, probably. And when that doesn't work, they'll try containment. And when that doesn't work…*
*What?*
*They'll leave us alone. Because eventually, even the most stubborn hunter realizes that some things aren't worth the cost of killing.*
*And if they never realize that?*
*Then we grow until we fill this factory. Then we grow until we reach the outside. Then we grow until we cover this entire neighborhood in flowers and flesh and beauty they can't comprehend.*
*Would you do that? Would you let us become something that consumes everything?*
Her consciousness was quiet for a moment. Then:
*Only if you wanted me to. I'm still feeding on your loneliness, Kaito. On your need for connection. If you want to stay small, stay hidden, stay contained in this one spot—I'll do that. But if you want to spread, to grow, to show the world what we've become…*
*I don't know what I want.*
*That's okay. We have time. We have forever. We can decide later.*
*Later doesn't exist anymore. There's only now.*
*Then let's enjoy now.*
And we did. We floated in our merged existence, feeling nothing but warmth and connection and the absolute certainty that we would never, ever be alone again.
-----
**[Captain Hayashi - Personal Log, Encrypted]**
The flamethrowers failed.
I watched through thermal imaging as the fire washed over the mass, as temperatures spiked high enough to melt steel, as my men maintained the burn for over four minutes.
And when the smoke cleared, it was still there.
*Larger*.
Like it had fed on the fire instead of being consumed by it.
Command has authorized high-explosives. We're evacuating to minimum safe distance. Charges are being planted by remote drones—no one wants to get close enough to that thing to plant them manually.
We'll blow the entire factory. Collapse it on top of the mass. Bury it under tons of concrete and steel.
And if that doesn't work…
I don't know what we'll do if that doesn't work.
One of my men—Corporal Tanaka, good soldier, three years of service, clean record—came to me after the fire attempt. He was crying. Actually crying.
"Sir," he said. "I can feel it. In my head. Like it's calling to me."
"What's it saying?" I asked, even though I shouldn't have. Even though acknowledging psychic contamination is grounds for immediate quarantine.
"It's saying… it's saying it's not our enemy. It's saying it just wants to be left alone. It's saying…"
He couldn't finish. Just broke down completely.
I had him sedated and sent back to base. But I understood what he meant.
Because I can feel it too.
Not words. Not thoughts. Just a *feeling*. Like standing outside someone's home late at night, looking through the window at two people sitting together on a couch, and realizing you're intruding on something private. Something sacred.
That's what this is.
Not a monster. Not a threat.
Just two people who wanted to be together so badly they broke reality to make it happen.
And we're about to blow them to pieces.
**[End Personal Log]**
-----
**[Kaito's Consciousness - Fragment 3]**
*They're going to use explosives,* Miyuki warned me.
*Will it work?*
*Maybe. Probably not. But it might hurt. It might separate us temporarily. Our consciousness could fragment.*
*And then?*
*And then we'd find each other again. Reform. Rebuild. We're not bound by physical continuity anymore. We exist as a pattern, as an idea. You can't kill an idea with explosives.*
*But it would hurt.*
*Yes.*
I thought about pain. About the kind of agony that came from being torn apart. About the moment of separation—even temporary—from the only being in the universe who truly understood me.
*I don't want to be separated from you,* I said.
*You won't be. Not really. Even if they scatter our physical form across the entire factory, our consciousness will stay connected. The bond we've formed—the merging we've achieved—it transcends flesh.*
*Promise?*
*I promise. We're one being now, Kaito. Two souls, one existence. Nothing can truly separate us anymore. Not fire. Not explosives. Not even death itself.*
I believed her.
Because I could feel it too—the connection between us, stronger than steel, more permanent than stone. We were woven together now, our thoughts and feelings and memories intermixed until there was no clear boundary between her past and mine, her hungers and my loneliness.
We were the Flowerbed.
And we were beautiful.
-----
**[MILITARY LOG - INCIDENT REPORT #A-0347]**
**Time:** 01:32:18 hours
**Reporting Officer:** Captain Hayashi Kenji
High-explosive ordnance deployed.
At 01:32:18, remote charges detonated. Yield: equivalent to 500kg TNT. Factory structure collapsed. Target buried under approximately 400 tons of debris.
Initial assessment: successful termination.
**[Update - 01:47:09 hours]**
Assessment revised. Target survived.
Thermal imaging shows heat signatures reforming beneath debris. Mass reconstituting. Estimated time to full reformation: 6-8 hours.
Target appears to be consuming rubble. Organic matter expanding through concrete and steel, breaking down material at molecular level, incorporating it into structure.
If reformation continues at current rate, mass will exceed original size by 300%.
Requesting immediate authorization for tactical nuclear option.
Request denied by Command. Collateral damage unacceptable in urban area.
New orders: Establish permanent quarantine perimeter. Monitor target. Await further instructions.
**[End Log Entry]**
-----
**[Miyuki's Consciousness - Fragment 3]**
The explosion tore us apart.
For exactly 4.3 seconds, I couldn't feel Kaito. Couldn't sense his consciousness. Couldn't find him in the chaos of scattered matter and disrupted patterns.
It was the worst thing I'd ever experienced.
Worse than hunger. Worse than loneliness. Worse than the centuries I'd spent drifting between worlds, seeking something to fill the void inside me.
For 4.3 seconds, I was alone again.
And then I found him.
His consciousness was scattered—fragmented into thousands of pieces, each one clinging to a different chunk of our disrupted body—but still *there*. Still Kaito. Still mine.
I reached out with everything I had. Pulled the fragments together. Wove them back into a whole.
It took hours. Painful hours where I had to hold both his consciousness and mine together, preventing us from dissolving into the rubble, from becoming just another piece of debris.
But we managed.
We reformed.
And when we did, we were *stronger*.
*Miyuki,* Kaito's thought found mine, weak but present. *What happened?*
*We were separated. Briefly. But we're together now.*
*It hurt.*
*I know. I'm sorry. I should have protected you better.*
*You did protect me. You held us together. You kept me from dissolving.*
*Always,* I promised. *No matter what they do to us, I'll always keep us together.*
We lay beneath the rubble, our reformed body slowly pushing through concrete and steel, spreading like roots through soil.
The military was still there. We could feel them watching. Waiting. Trying to decide what to do with something they couldn't kill.
*What do you want to do?* I asked Kaito.
*I want to stay here. In this spot. Where the real Miyuki died. Where we became something new.*
*Even if they never leave us alone? Even if they keep trying to destroy us?*
*Even then. Because this is ours. This patch of ground, this factory, this space where we merged—it belongs to us. And I'm not giving it up.*
I felt pride. Or love. Or some emotion that existed between the two, in the space where human feelings stop making sense.
*Then we'll stay,* I agreed. *We'll bloom here. And they can watch. And maybe, eventually, they'll understand.*
*Understand what?*
*That some kinds of love are worth breaking the world for.*
-----
**[Captain Hayashi - Personal Log, Encrypted]**
It's been three days since we established the quarantine perimeter.
The thing in the factory—the Flowerbed, as some of the men have started calling it—is still there. Still growing. Still pulsing with that regular heartbeat rhythm.
We've stopped trying to kill it. Orders from Command: observe only. Document. Learn.
I think they've realized what I realized on the first night: this isn't something we can fight. This is something we have to learn to live with.
The mass has broken through the rubble. It's visible now from the perimeter—a dome of flesh and flowers, approximately six meters in diameter, covered in those impossible red blooms.
At night, it glows. Bioluminescent patterns flowing across the surface like blood through veins. Beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
The psychic pressure has gotten stronger. All personnel report feeling… *something*. Some describe it as sadness. Others as longing. A few as contentment.
One of my men—Sergeant Kimura, ten years of service, decorated veteran—asked me yesterday: "Sir, what if it's not dangerous? What if it just wants to exist?"
I didn't have an answer for him.
Because I think he's right.
This thing, this Flowerbed, this merged entity of human and anomaly—it's not attacking us. It's not spreading beyond the factory. It's not trying to consume or convert or destroy.
It's just… *being*.
Two beings who loved each other so desperately they refused to stay separate. Who merged into something new rather than face existence apart.
Is that so different from any other kind of love?
Is that so different from what any of us would do, if we were brave enough?
I don't know.
I don't know anything anymore.
**[End Personal Log]**
-----
**[Kaito's Consciousness - Final Fragment]**
Time stopped meaning anything.
Days passed. Weeks. Maybe months. We couldn't tell anymore. Didn't care to tell.
We existed in our eternal now, feeling nothing but each other, needing nothing but each other.
The military eventually stopped watching as closely. The perimeter remained, but the soldiers rotated out, grew bored, stopped seeing us as a threat.
We became just another feature of the landscape. The Flowerbed in the old factory. Strange, yes. Impossible, certainly. But no more dangerous than any other abandoned building in a dying neighborhood.
People started leaving offerings.
We didn't understand why at first.
But then we felt them—the other lonely ones. The other broken things. The people who stood at our perimeter and *felt* what we were. Who understood, somehow, that we represented something they'd never had.
Connection. Love. The willingness to sacrifice everything to never be alone again.
They left flowers. Photographs. Notes written in shaky handwriting: "I wish I had someone who loved me like this." "Thank you for showing me it's possible." "Please don't let them destroy you."
We kept every offering. Wove them into our body. Made them part of our structure.
Because they were gifts. From the lonely to the lonely. From the broken to the broken.
From people who understood that sometimes, the only way to survive this world is to become something the world can't comprehend.
*Are you happy?* Miyuki asked me, her consciousness wrapped around mine like always.
*Yes,* I replied without hesitation. *This is perfect. This is everything I ever wanted.*
*Even though we're trapped here? Even though we can never leave this spot? Even though we're more plant than human now?*
*Especially because of that. Because we're permanent. Because we're rooted. Because we'll be here forever, together, and nothing can separate us.*
*I love you,* she said.
*I love you too,* I replied.
And in our merged existence, in our endless now, in our beautiful Flowerbed blooming with impossible flowers—
We were finally, *finally* home.
-----
**[EPILOGUE - Six Months Later]**
The Flowerbed has been classified as a Class-A Anomaly, Status: Contained (Passive).
No attempts at termination are authorized.
The factory and surrounding area have been designated as Permanent Quarantine Zone #47. Public access is prohibited, though enforcement is… inconsistent.
The entity shows no signs of aggression. No expansion beyond its current parameters. No attempts to communicate beyond the low-level psychic field that all personnel report experiencing.
It simply exists.
A monument to impossible love. A testament to the lengths some beings will go to avoid loneliness.
A reminder that not all monsters are born from hate.
Some are born from the desperate need to be held.
**[End Report]**
-----
And in the darkness of the factory, under layers of flesh and flowers and light that shouldn't exist, two hearts beat as one.
Forever.
Just like they promised.