Decay Garden

I had always felt like the prototype of an average woman, invisible in the rush of city streets. But when my wandering feet carried me to an abandoned garden at the edge of nowhere, I noticed something strange. The air was moist, heavy with the scent of decay. Rotten fruit clung stubbornly to broken branches, dead plants tangled beneath my shoes, and damp earth released a smell sharper than the polluted wind I was used to breathing. The soil itself seemed alive, sultry and humming, making me cautious of every step.

Black kites circled above the quiet garden. I crouched and reached out, hesitating, but just before my fingertips touched the soil, a blurred memory pulsed through me. Laughter. The smell of hearty beef stew. Half-seen faces. Kids running, sunlight glinting through green leaves, and a warm meal pulled from the earth. Then it all fractured and was gone as quickly as it came.

When my eyes fluttered open again, a shivering pain shot through my head. A distant sound bloomed. I was no longer in the garden. Light burned so brightly above me that I shielded my face. Shapes began to form: plants shimmering with bioluminescence, trees that breathed, species I could not name.

Did I know this species, or am I dreaming again?

Then a voice, deep and steady, broke through the silence. “Finally awake.”

A man stood before me, or something close to one. His figure was haloed in a light that seemed to grow from the ground itself. Around six feet tall, leather chinos clung to his thighs and a white tunic stretched against muscle as if the fabric was struggling to contain him.

I blinked, unsure if he was an angel, a stranger, or both. The soil beneath us hummed like a living bioreactor, its microbiome pulsing as though it was learning to breathe again to turn carbon back into life.

Above, stars bright as polished silver lit the sky, more colorful even than the man before me. I tried to steady my breathing, but everything began to spin, circles within circles, light folding in on itself.

Around me, a new world waited.

The bed beneath me sank with every tiny movement, and I was terrified of what might happen if I moved a single limb from this three-legged frame.

My mom used to say, “Careful what you wish for, darling, because no matter the outcome, it always has consequences.”

The door creaked open, revealing a smiley-looking man. He was beautiful, shining, almost sparkling green, like someone who had spent too long lying in the grass.

I waited for him to speak, to explain why he was here.

“Hello,” I said hesitantly.

He waited, almost expectantly, for me to say the four words. “Good evening, Your Majesty.”

Majesty. Am I dreaming again? The kind of dream you dream inside a dream?

He continued, voice calm and measured. “He will be with you in a few minutes. If you have anything to ask, ask freely.”

He went to the door just a minute before his departure. I asked, “Who is he?”

He turned around, skimming me from head to toe, like analyzing my body parts as if he could see through me. After a cautious step toward me, he answered, “Carson.”

A few minutes passed, but it felt like a thousand years. I moved from the bed and started roaming toward the door. The chilling sound sent a shiver down my spine, but I managed to open it. The image in front of me was beyond perfection. It was everything anyone would wish to dream: thousands, maybe millions of clouds floated from the sky, making it look heavy, half of them pouring rain through the wet soil.

The soil radiated a biochemical substance that floated like a semi-liquid mist. It made me want to touch it and feel it slip through my fingers. I continued to move through the veiny trees, touching anything and everything like a thirsty thief. I paused my fascination when I came in front of a glamorous building, mostly covered in sunlight, with a beautiful staircase leading to the edge of the peak. My legs moved with my approval up the stairs, and I continued moving until I saw the man who had said the first words when I woke up. The relief I felt was a million times that of the plateau planet. I rushed to speak to him.

“Hey, can you tell me where I am?”

He faced me fully, his sharp jaw, the muscles flexing beneath his shirt, stretching the material. I thought he had finished his assessment as he continued to stare at me.

“Hello,” he said before I could add some kind of insult. “No, you are certainly not dreaming. What are you doing here?” he said in disgust.

“Shouldn’t I be the one to ask that question? Where am I, and who are you?” I demanded.

He stormed down the stairs. I followed, trying to grasp his biceps just as my hand touched the fabric. A sudden power shot through me and pushed me away. He turned around just then. In his eyes, empathy and pity read as he looked at me.

“You are in Anibal City, and I am Carson.”

Just as he finished, a darkness filled the air, like I was swallowed by dark magic, but it was just the soil drying into the earth’s core. I had seen this scene before. I didn’t know where, but it felt like I was meant to be here. Before I could master a second breath, the earth beneath me shuddered and took me away with it.

My eyes fluttered as air kept pushing as if it were trying to get in. “You know, it is tiring. Do you always faint like this?” he murmured.

There was Carson, the person I had been told to wait for. He was really… a wet dream, but he was an asshole. He didn’t offer to help me. “Would it hurt if you helped me?” I said, pushing my hand toward him, but he continued on his way. I got up, feeling embarrassed and hurt, even though I understood why I was here.

As I looked down, the soil was turning to damp soil; all the reflection and life had drained from it. It made me sad. I looked toward Carson, and the same expression was on his face.

“Carson, what is this?” I asked, looking around me. “That could take a while. Wash up and rest. Allen will take you and offer anything you want.” He left without looking at the open surface.

Allen, the green creature who came to my room, later took me to the room I had been in.

Before he could leave, I asked, “Where am I?” “Our lord will let you know in a moment.” He vanished into thin green sparkles afloat in my eye.

Later, as the evening rolled on, I was refreshed, feeling a lot better than before. The warm water seemed to heal what was broken without me even knowing it.

Before I came here, I had had a shitty day. I lost my best proposal idea without a chance to redo it, and my renter was mad because I let my cat out after he woke up. Yeah, I am a cat lady and a sore loser when it comes to life.

Just before I could get into depth, the door of my room opened, revealing nothing. I got up from the bed awkwardly.

I stepped carefully across the soft, glowing moss. Every step hummed faintly underfoot, like the soil itself was alive, aware of my presence. The air smelled sweet, earthy, and metallic at once, carrying a pulse I could feel in my chest.

I looked around and noticed the trees’ roots tangled with thin, shimmering threads of delicate mycelium networks that glowed faintly with blue and green light. It was as if the forest itself was whispering, sharing knowledge across miles in a silent, living web.

“Your soil can remember,” Carson said, appearing at my side. “It keeps knowledge of growth, of seasons, of everything that has lived here.” “Come with me, Maya,” he added, sensing my dreaded thoughts.

I crouched beside a row of bioluminescent crops, their leaves glowing golden and silver. “They… know when to grow?” I whispered. “Not just grow,” he replied. “They signal when the soil is rich, when water and nutrients are ready, when the harvest will be perfect. The soil tells them. And the soil listens to us.”

My eyes widened, taking it all in as I saw a soil bioreactor in the distance a tall glass-and-metal cylinder filled with thick, dark earth. Inside, microbes moved in a slow, hypnotic swirl, purifying water and absorbing carbon from the air. The hum of it made the hairs on my arms rise.

But then I noticed patches where the glow dimmed, threads of mycelium brittle, soil pale and cracked. A sharp knot of worry tightened in my stomach.

“It’s… dying,” I said, remembering the way he had seen the surface I cited before. Carson nodded gravely. “Without someone to guide it, the memory fades. The land forgets. I think that’s why the gods guided you here.”

I swallowed hard. Guide me? Was he for real? I was just an ordinary woman… or so I thought.

And who are you? I wanted to ask that question before I could stop myself.

“Carson,” I called after him, my voice echoing off the empty stone. “Who are you to this place? How did you become their king or whatever they call you?”

He stopped mid-step, and for a second, I thought he’d ignore me again. The air around him tightened, like the city itself was listening. He turned just enough for the light to trace his jawline, that familiar coldness returning to his face.

“I didn’t choose this,” he said quietly. “Anibal City was already dying when they sent me here. The soil was dampened, lifeless. They thought I could fix it.”

His voice broke just slightly, like something cracked underneath the calm. “But every time I try to heal it, it takes a part of me. This place doesn’t want saving it just wants to remember what it was.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The clouds above swirled, the rain slowing to a mist. I could feel the ache in his words the exhaustion of someone strong for too long.

I didn’t know why, but it hurt to see him like that.

Yet somehow, the life of this world the soil, the plants, the very breath of the forest—was tied to me somehow. I was meant to be here, like the drowning feeling I often get. The familiar thoughts pulled me to them, similar to a bond I had felt before in my chemistry lab.

The soil beneath my hands pulsed like it had a heartbeat, faint but steady. I pressed my palms deeper, feeling it breathe, remembering everything it once was. Carson watched in silence as I whispered the old words my grandmother used when she planted simple things, like gratitude and warmth. Maybe the soil remembered her too.

The microbes in the reactor began to glow again, soft green veins spreading through the earth. I saw roots shimmer, leaves uncurl, and rain fall that smelled like hope. The air cleared, carrying something pure, something alive. I looked up at Carson, and his expression carried both endearment and amusement.

For the first time, I wasn’t invisible. I was part of this place its memory, its voice, its rhythm.

Maybe I wasn’t brought here by mistake. Maybe the world was just waiting for someone ordinary to listen.

“What did you do? What was it?” Carson’s voice echoed.

I walked closer to him, invading his personal space, which wasn’t necessary. His eyes weren’t ordinary, of course the place wasn’t either but something in me wanted to explore what hidden truth they held.

“Carson, I’m Maya. A senior PhD student and specialist in neuro-soil biochemistry the study of how land remembers. Every root, every mineral, every patch of dirt carries memory. Sometimes, it just forgets how to feel.”

“So you do that just because you know some human knowledge? Maya, this isn’t some place you can just get up and fix with whatever. I have tried. I was here long before you,” he said, enraged, the words spitting out like fire.

I kept stepping backward, but he followed. “So spare me the little head of yours and go back to where you come from,” he stormed toward the stairs. I had found him earlier.

I tried to find my way back to my room, but instead I stumbled upon a limbed tree. Its branches were crooked and lifeless, its roots half-buried in the damp soil. The glow that once shimmered beneath the ground was gone, replaced by dull cracks that pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of something half-alive.

I knelt beside it, pressing my fingers into the dirt. “Neuro-soil,” I whispered to myself. “If you can still remember… remember what it felt like to live.”

The air thickened, humming against my skin. I could almost hear the soil breathing, slow and tired, but still there. I reached into my satchel, pulling out what little equipment I’d carried: a small vial of binding serum, a strip of root conductor, and the last of my lab notes. I mixed them carefully, the reaction soft and glowing. When I poured it into the cracks, the ground sighed, releasing warmth that spread like veins of light.

The tree responded. Its limbs trembled, stretching ever so slightly upward. And for a brief second, the clouds parted. The city’s heartbeat quickened.

It was working.

But I could feel it too, a pull, like the soil was taking something from me in return. My breath caught. The light grew stronger, wrapping around my arms, my chest, my heartbeat syncing with the city’s pulse.

Then I understood what Carson meant every time he tried to heal it, it took a part of him.

And yet… I didn’t stop.

Because for the first time, the ground wasn’t dying. It was remembering.

I don’t know how long I stayed there. Maybe hours. Maybe days. But when I stood, my body felt lighter, almost transparent. The soil was alive again. The city was breathing. And I knew what I had to do next.

That night, I wrote to him.

Carson,

I don’t know if this will reach you or if the city will allow it. But I needed you to know you were right. Anibal doesn’t need fixing. It needs feeling. It needs someone who can listen to its ache.

I found a limbed tree beyond the western ridge. It still remembers what sunlight feels like. I’ve mapped the veins beneath it follow them, and you’ll find what’s left of me. I think this place and I were meant to meet halfway. Maybe the city took me because I finally heard it.

Don’t be angry. Just keep the soil alive.

Maya

The letter lay open on the desk, its edges curling slightly in the soft wind that drifted through the city. Carson traced the faint shimmer of light that Maya had left behind, her instructions etched in every root, every patch of soil she touched.

Alone, he walked through Anibal City. The streets no longer felt heavy. The soil beneath his feet pulsed faintly warm, as if remembering her hands. Tiny sprouts pushed through the cracks, leaves unfurling like a sigh of relief. Bioluminescent threads glowed softly along the roots, signaling life returning to every corner of the city.

The air smelled sweet, earthy, and metallic, carrying the memory of hope. Carson watched clouds gather, rain falling gently onto the revitalized soil. Somewhere deep beneath, the micro biomes hummed in perfect rhythm, carbon turning back into life.

Anibal City had bloomed again, but not for him.