The moment Sam stabbed the sky, everything collapsed.
The world didn't explode.
It... folded.
The eye in the sky shattered into countless shards of light, raining down like glass, each piece reflecting a different version of the nightmare they'd been trapped in.Sam braced herself, expecting the shards to cut into her skin—but instead, they passed through her like echoes.
Wang screamed beside her, clutching his head.
"Sam... I can hear them... voices... too many voices..."
Sam grabbed his arm, shaking him hard.
"Focus, Wang! They're not real. They're not real!"
But her own mind was fracturing.
The shards reflected her own face, hundreds of versions of her—some crying, some smiling, some screaming in agony.
Each reflection whispered something different.
"You'll never escape.""They already own you.""You are the flower now.""Wake up, Sam. Or stay forever."
Sam pressed her hands over her ears, trembling.
The knife in her hand was gone.No, worse—it had never been there.
Had she imagined Sakda?Was he just another defense mechanism created by the thing to toy with them?
Her breath came in ragged gasps as the world reassembled around them.But now it was worse.
Much worse.
The nursery was gone.
In its place stood a twisted carnival of nightmares.
Giant plants shaped like skeletal hands clawed at the sky.Vines stretched from nowhere, hanging like gallows nooses, dripping with something black and sticky.The ground beneath them wasn't soil anymore.
It was flesh.
Pulsating. Warm. Oozing.
And the screams...
They were everywhere.
Students—friends—trapped in pods along the walls, their faces stretched into grotesque expressions of terror, their eyes pleading for release.
"Sam... where... where are we?" Wang's voice cracked.
Sam couldn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
This was no longer the nursery.
This was the Blooming Mirage's nest.
Its true form.
Their minds had broken through the first layer of illusion... only to find themselves deeper in the beast's maw.
They walked through the carnivorous landscape, the smell of rotting flowers thick in their nostrils.
Each step squelched underfoot.
They passed familiar faces—frozen in endless terror.
Some of them were calling out.
Some whispered promises.
"Join us... it's peaceful... it's beautiful... it's painless..."
Sam ignored them, dragging Wang behind her.
She had only one goal now.
Find the root.End this nightmare.
But... how do you kill something that doesn't exist in the physical world?
Her thoughts spiraled into hopelessness.
That's when the ground split open.
They fell.
Into the dark.
They landed hard.
A cavern.
Except it wasn't rock.
It was inside the plant.
They were inside its stem, its core, its digestive system.
In front of them... stood Sakda.
Or... something wearing Sakda's face.
Its smile was all wrong.
"I warned you," it whispered, voice oozing like sap."You should've let yourself be consumed. It's easier that way."
Sam gritted her teeth.
"Who are you? What are you?"
The thing tilted its head.
"I am the gardener. And the garden. And the seed."
It stretched its arms wide, revealing its true form.
Its body was stitched together from faces—familiar faces.
Her classmates.Her teachers.Even... herself.
Sam stumbled back, horror gripping her throat.
"No... no..."
"Acceptance is survival," it purred.
Wang was shaking uncontrollably.
"Sam... we can't win. This... this is its world."
Sam looked down.
In her hand, the knife had returned.
She didn't remember picking it up.
Or maybe... she never dropped it.
It pulsed with something more than steel now.
Her defiance.
Her will.
Her fear, sharpened into a weapon.
"No, Wang. That's what it wants us to believe," she said softly.
She stepped forward.
Toward Sakda.Toward the Garden.
Toward the truth.
The thing laughed.
A deep, guttural sound that rattled the air.
"Go on, little girl. Cut me. Stab the flower.But remember... the bloom always returns.You cannot kill an idea. You cannot kill fear."
Sam smiled bitterly.
"Maybe not.But I can still make you bleed."
And she plunged the knife into the ground.
It sank deep into the fleshy earth.
The entire cavern screamed.
The faces twisted. The walls cracked. The air itself shattered like glass.
The world turned inside out.
Sam opened her eyes to blinding sunlight.
She was... back.
Standing on the roadside.
Her classmates... alive, chatting excitedly, oblivious.
Her teacher calling them to get off the bus.
Sam froze.
Wang beside her blinked, confused.
"Sam... was that... all a dream?"
She looked ahead.
The narrow path.
The rubber trees.
The 10-foot wall.
The man with the buzzcut.
Staring.
Smiling.
Sam's blood turned to ice.
No.
It wasn't over.
It had never been a dream.
They were in the loop again.
But this time... something inside her had changed.
She tightened her grip on Wang's hand.
"We never left, Wang," she whispered.
And the man—Sakda—smiled wider.
As if waiting for her to remember.
As if... welcoming her back.