Rootless
Aoto didn't remember falling asleep.
He only remembered light—green and gold—flickering like fireflies under his skin. Then silence. Then weight.
When he woke, the sky had changed.
It was no longer golden. It was black. Laced with vines and stars that blinked like spores in a deep breath. He sat up slowly, expecting pain, but felt none.
Only warmth. And the pulse of the ground beneath him.
He stood.
The forest biome was still here, but twisted—flipped. The trees bent sideways, their roots curling into the sky. Flowers bloomed upside-down, dripping pollen upward into invisible wind.
He took one step forward.
The forest responded.
A thousand thin whispers ran through the leaves. The moss curled at his toes. The vines overhead rippled like waves.
He was being watched.
And then—she arrived.
The Queen stepped out from behind a tree that hadn't been there a moment ago. Her body was covered in a cloak of layered petals. Her hair braided with glimmering fungal threads. Wherever she walked, the ground bloomed—just a little. Just enough to say this place breathes her.
"You've made it through your first loop," she said.
Aoto didn't answer.
She smiled, patient as always.
"You died, of course. You tried to leave. You tried to resist. But your mind gave you a world to soften the collapse. A little fiction. A little mercy."
He narrowed his eyes. "You made that dream."
"No," she said softly. "You did. I only planted the seed. You chose the shape."
Aoto clenched his jaw. "Why?"
She walked in a slow arc around him. The trees bent away, giving her room.
"Because you're the first one to survive past failure."
"You have no bloodline. No enhancement. No connection to the cycles of this world. You should have died like the others."
He said nothing.
"But you didn't," she continued, reaching up to brush a glowing petal that curled around her wrist. "You came here as dust. And now you won't root. You stay yourself. You stay alone. Even the biome cannot change you."
He took a step back.
"Then stop. Let me go."
She tilted her head.
"You say that as if you ever left."
The world shifted.
The sky blinked. The trees reversed. The moss flattened.Everything rewound—not time, but placement. Like the forest had exhaled and pulled him back into its lungs.
He was lying down again.
Same spot. Same posture. Same breath.
He hadn't moved at all.
His hands shook.
"This is a prison," he whispered.
"No," she replied gently. "It's a study."
"I'm trying to understand why you can't be changed. Every creature here learns. Every invader breaks. But you—"
She knelt beside him, eyes glowing faintly with chlorophyll light.
"You remember being a person," she said, "but I think you're something else. Something misplaced."
"You're not growing. You're not rotting. You're just… staying."
Aoto glared at her.
"I'll find a way out."
"I hope you do," she said with a soft smile. "You'll show me something new."
She stood.
"Tomorrow, we'll try again."
She walked back into the forest, vanishing between two trees that didn't exist a second ago.
The forest pulsed once.
And Aoto was alone.
Still breathing.
Still... not hers.