Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
The Hanging Tree’ Jas Newton Howard ft. Jennifer Lawrence (Official Audio)
syoutu.be/F3hTW9e20d8
Chapter 19: Flowers
Early Afternoon - Early Sumr : Year 0 | Month 0 : Sector J14
World: Leviathan | Rank: ERROR | Population: 22
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"You're.. lonely... Aren't you..."
She spoke it softly.. like rely echoing a thought that had only just taken shape—the idle murmur of a creature that didn't even know what she was asking.
Yet sohow, those gentle words rang my skull like a sledgehamr. "Tch..." Bitter air filled my mouth in an instant, my nerves flaring and hand twitching before I pulled myself away to take a breath. "Haah... If that were the case, I'd have died a long ti ago."
Rattle Jolting as though my flinch caught her, she winced before my words could finish, twisting and pressing her head into my thigh before seemingly forcing words out. "Why.. is that..?"
Taken aback, I paused for a mont—my eyes caught on the daze in her stare before entertaining her with an honest answer. "It's a disease that eats will. If it isn't dealt with, when the ti cos, you'll accept death instead of finding the strength to struggle."
It was an answer I was certain she wouldn't understand... Sothing of a depth only one who had experienced it could.
And yet... "Finding the strength.. to struggle..." Curling around my leg, she walked off until just her tail was still touching my leg before her eyes, shimring blue like the dead bison around us, fell with a shadow. "I.. see..."
As if flickering with static, her gaze wavered more drastically the farther away she pulled—her expression growing conflicted and troubled before eventually turning around.
pat Pressing her head back into , the daze in her eyes returned, and her expression morphed with sothing.. unfamiliar... "I'm.. sorry..."
It was guilt... Coming from a being that shouldn't have known what it was. -How.. odd...-
Gently resting my hand on her head again, her gaze emptied.. like my touch draped her mind in fog.. and her expression relaxed.
Then, after pulling it away, her eyes would sharpen, but her expression would warp as though by pain.
It was puzzling, yes.. but the longer I watched her.. the more curious I beca...
Every ti our touch broke, she'd wince, close her eyes as if to focus, and curl back to rub against ...
And each ti, she would ask a different question—sothing simple yet unanswerable by anything other than whim or experience...
'Is this feeling.. fear..?'
'How do I.. rember..?'
And 'What.. is my purpose..?'
I had.. never seen anything quite like it... It was almost as if she was trying to define her own existence.
Unlike the living robotics I had observed in the past, she wasnt just manipulating her programming, she was thinking for herself as if she had sohow grown a brain...
...And as though using my touch to silence the circuitry.. she was beginning to define things herself.
Growing curious, I squatted beside her, giving her silence while watching and observing as she circled, trying to make sense to herself before forming another question she wished to ask.
At tis, I couldn't tell whether I was talking to a scholar, a monarch, or a child.
But regardless of the question, I responded truthfully, whether the answer was one I believed she could understand or not...
And without fail, she gleaned sothing from every word I spoke.
Until eventually, after countless questions, she sat before , rested her paw on my foot, and matched my gaze for the first ti since she awoke. "What.. am I..?"
It was a question I should have expected—one with many answers, none of which were incorrect...
...A robot, a monster, a maid, an animal...
Yet when the ti ca to answer it, I didn't consider any of them.
She wanted to define her... To define her purpose and role.
But I didn't want to.. and so, the words left my mouth as if it were any other answer. "You are you."
Her eyes widened instantly—the daze behind them sharpening just a hair before falling once more. "You are.. you..."
Lingering just a mont longer, she stood up and drifted, circling with and without my touch as if wanting to form thoughts from the sharpness, only to lay at my feet a mont later.. and fall asleep.
It was.. curious... -What a fascinating little thing you are...-
Looking over her body for another mont, I ran my fingers through her tal fur, feeling the beginnings of bone and skin beneath it before picking her up and draping her over my shoulder with neither the stiffness of steel or the limpness of flesh...
While she rested, I needed to get moving to find a way back to Earth again, but even as I began the journey back across the plains—headed for the mountains to the west—I struggled to pull my mind from her questions, not worried I answered anything incorrectly, but more-so wondering how she interpreted my answers.. and comparing to how I wished her to.
..As if perhaps.. maybe I didn’t want her to beco the servant everything had...
But, over the course of a few days, with Bella staying asleep, such questions faded.
Unable to run at full speed—or even near it—it took about a week to reach the mountains before turning south, hoping to find so sort of marsh that could be ho to the foreign ivy I found in the plains.
My thought was, if I could find where the ivy originated, I could also find another hint.
However, things weren't so simple. After another couple days of searching I did eventually find the ivy's ho, but rather than a more isolated bio like a swamp or even forest, it was sparsely spread across the ridge of the mountains, without pattern or reason seemingly other that happenstance.
"Haah..." It was the worst place I could've found it...
Being right on the windiest part of the ridge, it was entirely possible for its seeds or spores to get caught in the wind, and cross the several thousand kiloters to where the monunt stood. -And being a plant that only seems to grow in the windier places...- My odds the monunt in the plains ant much of anything.. dwindled rapidly...
-What a pain...-
It seed like ti started slipping by after that, flowing like it hadn't since I was still a subject of the system, watching the sun rise and set from the mountaintop while digging through my system and wracking my brain to muster another idea.
But it never ca...
Until eventually, the furry feline I had laid beside , started moving.
"Mmmhhh..." She woke up with a groan—a gentle purr that ca from habit rather than purpose—before lifting her head to look over the vast forest at the base of the mountain beneath us, and the beginnings of the plains at the horizon.
It was dark, so dark I wasn't sure she could see any of it, but as she looked out, her eyes almost seed to glow.
"You must have slept well."
Turning to , her eyes drifted with confusion before eventually settling with a mumble. "I.. suppose so..."
Turning back toward the horizon, she fell silent again—her brain churning as if to sort itself while her eyes drifted beneath the sea of stars.
But with every ripple of breeze that slipped through the thick layer of ivy behind us, her daze slowly lifted.
Until finally.. she spoke again. "Why are we here..?" Turning back to , she matched my gaze without a waver. "You.. wouldn't have co here for the view..."
I was quick to nod. "I ca here to think."
She imdiately responded with a head tilt. "You're.. troubled..?" She didn't seem to understand.
And I knew she wouldn't.. but I didn't need her to. "Im trying to find one of the administrators of this world."
"An administrator as in.. a god..?" Seeing nod, her head tilted again. "Why..?"
"To find a way ho." Turning back to the horizon, I spoke with a heavy breath. "If I can't get back to Earth quickly, it might just collapse."
Following my gaze, she spoke barely above a whisper. "Are you.. a god of Earth?"
"Hah, no. I'm just.. an old resident..." Pausing, my gaze fell to my feet. "I lived there before The System ca—hundreds of years ago by Earth’s ti—and after clawing my way through the deepest reaches of hell, I finally had the chance to go back... Just.. only long enough for to get a taste of freedom before it was snatched from again..."
Turning back to , Bella's daze seed to lift for a mont. "Why do you sound.. defeated..?"
Leaning back, I let the mountain wind ruffle my hair, and let my eyes drift over the stars like they hadn't in years. "I’m not defeated. Just.. at a loss... The only lead I had was an old stone column buried in the plains. I thought the ivy there was foreign, maybe planted by a god to guard sothing. But the ivy grows naturally here, in the high winds." Motioning over my shoulder, Bella's gaze quickly followed. "It was likely nothing more than a seed carried by chance, but the chance is big enough to make reconsider where I'm looking."
Tilting her head, her look grew puzzled. "How.. can you be so sure it wasn't the god's doing?"
"The column wasn't special, nor was anything around it.. just a sea of rubble and a bed of flowers..."
Her gaze imdiately returned to , unblinking. "What if it was placed by this world’s god though? What if.. the god wished to protect the flowers?"
A dry chuckle escaped . "Hah… And why would a god bother with flowers?"
"Well.. because they're pretty..."
I wanted to scoff once more, but in that mont, it caught in my throat—my expression falling dark as her stare dug into .
It was a naive answer.. one that could only result from soone who had never experienced the kind of beings the gods of these worlds were...
But the longer the silence dragged, and the more the winds rippled over us.. the more sothing in hesitated.
'Because they're pretty...'
...
The thought lingered long into the night. Leaving to recount all my mories of travels in this world to see if I had found any such flowers anywhere else while Bella nestled against my side in silence.
By dawn, the thought still hadn’t left . Perhaps I was looking for the wrong thing.. not fortresses or monunts, not shrines dripping with historic authority.
...But, smaller.. more fragile things.
"Flowers…" I muttered under my breath as I watched the sky turn from violet to gold. "Where did I see them..."
Beside , Bella stirred, ears flicking as a misty breeze curled her fur. "Hmm..?"
"There was one place I saw them, but I didn't think anything of it..." Looking down the ridgeline as morning dew curled off it, my troubled mind cald. -Maybe I.. really was looking for the wrong thing this whole ti...-
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