The roots of the flower tore out from my alveoli, surging up through my throat in a mix of sweet blood and bitter sap. I collapsed to my knees, coughing helplessly. The bud that had accompanied me for sixteen years of my life was casually discarded on the ground, along with my flesh and blood, twitching weakly on the floor.
"Malnourished. It won’t bloom," the teacher said indifferently, tossing the soiled rubber gloves into the classroom trash bin. "Go wait in Class Five."
The students rustled as they extended their tendrils, hungrily sharing the remnants of nutrients from the withered bud. Would any of it contribute to the brilliance of their own blooming flowers?
I took one last look around the classroom, my gaze lingering on the class monitor as she walked to the podium. A delicate lilac bloomed between her thin lips. Noticing my stare, she gave me a serene smile and waved quietly.
The teacher had already switched to an expression of pride, tenderly stroking the passionately blooming lilac. Without hesitation, he loudly praised how well-developed the flower was, how fresh its fragrance, even guaranteed that it would fetch a good price.
I silently closed the door and dragged my feet toward Class Five at the end of the hallway.Where the flower had been ripped out from my body still ached faintly, and an indescribable bitterness welled up from deep within my body. Warm sunlight streamed in through the windows but dissolved into an inescapable shadow at my feet.
The sound of clear, bright recitations drifted into my ears, like seeds breaking through the soil, desperately fighting for the right to bloom. Only when their flowers were taken from them would many realize that their blossoms had long been assigned a price. Those who couldn’t bloom brilliantly could only rot silently in the soil of flowers.
For those of us whose seeds had died inside, we could only cling to a hopeless future, destined to be mere foils in this soilless cultivation.
Class Five was as silent as the bed of a dying man. Faces numb, heads bowed, figures sat in dimness, stiff roses frozen lifelessly in the stagnant air. I knew—those weren’t real flowers. They were just artificially cultivated, shoddy imitations of flowers.
Dead seeds were chemically coaxed into mass-produced beauty to meet the city’s need for gaudy embellishments. The whole world needed this lie: every life could eventually bloom.
I swallowed the rotten seeds the teacher forced into me. Cold, withered roots spread through my breath like a dying man’s final grip, stubbornly tightening around my throat.
The teacher looked satisfied as a rose revived between my lips. He seemed to say something approving, but I didn’t catch it.
This gloomy classroom would be the final resting place of my wretched life.
Then, without warning, an unfamiliar scent filled the air. A dark cloud loomed over the once-blue sky, blurring the sun—which had never shone on us—into a gray haze outside the window. Raindrops struck the windowpanes, carrying a thick, rough and earthy smell.
The scent was intoxicating, making my numb, frozen heart pound heavily. I took a deep breath, feeling my entire body stir with an unfamiliar impulse.
I pushed open the window. The teachings were completely forgotten: delicate flowers should never be exposed to harsh wind and rain.
The rain wove a thick curtain before me, enveloping all the flowers that once bloomed under the sun outside. I couldn’t see clearly, but I could feel that scent calling to me from somewhere far away, almost compelling me to leap out recklessly.
Yet I hesitated—because none of the fates assigned to me pointed in this unknown direction; because an invisible prison tightly gripped the throat of this cursed life; because every unloved flower could only ever be a foil.
I had already lost the right to bloom. Why should I take the risk?
Run!
Someone was shouting at me.
Run! Run!
Many people were shouting at me.
Run! Run! Run!
They lifted their heads. Lifeless flowers tried to strangle their parched throats, dying roots dug deep into their bodies. Yet with the last fury of their lives, they roared at me.
Run!
The words propelled me like a lighthouse piercing the night. Surging and sweeping me along, making me stumble forward. There was no time to hesitate—this force had already pushed me, battered and bleeding, through a thicket of thorned roses.
In the storm, I fled the city in frenzy.
I saw many flowers. The delicate ones hid from the wind and rain under shelter, leaving only lifeless imitations to soak in the storm.
They smiled at me, at this lowly creature who had also lost her flower. They wanted to welcome me as one of their own. They shielded me from the wind and rain, kindly took my hands, softly urged me not to lose my place of refuge for some illusory destination.
I ignored them. I didn’t even have the strength to stop and refuse.
They called out to me loudly. Some cursed me to fall into a pit and die; others wished for me to bloom in the end. They all swayed their pale, stiff arms, trembling in the storm. The city gleamed atop their bodies.
A sharp stone pierced my bare foot. The world before me seemed to lose all color, leaving only barren wilderness and jagged rocks on the ground. The wind and rain still raged around me.
Night smothered the world’s breath, making me stumble, scrape, and struggle to rise in the mud. I was covered in wounds, but this makes the stagnant blood inside me finally flowed out instead. At last, I stopped coughing, and the bitterness in my body faded. Breathing in that increasingly intense scent, I felt something new taking root in my pounding heart.
The hard stones turned to soft sand, then to muddy marshes, until finally—
I reached the end.
It was a silent wasteland, where even the wind and rain had ceased.
Between heaven and earth, there was nothing left to describe. In my sight stood only an unremarkable dead branch quietly rooted in this forgotten place.
At last, I discovered that it was the greatest lie and curse I had always believed:
Every life is a flower.
"But this… is a tree."
Even though there was no soil in this world for it to exist, it still grew, proudly embracing the barrenness.
I collapsed beside it. Emerald vines sprouted from the cracks in my flesh, devouring the soil forged by lies.
Years later, apples grew among its branches.
A man created a woman from his rib.
They came to me, sharing my fruit.
No more flowers grew on their bodies and no more vines.
They would bloom and flourish.
They would also die.
They were alive.
They were free.