Sam stood in front of the old greenhouse, the weight of her resolve heavier than any fear she'd ever known.
This wasn't just a trip anymore.This wasn't just hallucination.This was a war.And no one even knew it.
She clutched the rusted canister of gasoline tightly in her grip. The fumes clawed at her nose, grounding her in the sharp, acidic scent of reality—something the Mirage couldn't distort.
Wang adjusted his hoodie, face pale under the flickering streetlights.
"Are we sure about this, Sam?" he whispered.
"No," she replied truthfully. "But if we don't, the Mirage wins."
They stared at the greenhouse—a cathedral of glass and steel now crawling with vines that pulsed like arteries under moonlight. The Seed's influence had spread fast, infecting more than just the plants inside. It had bled into the soil, the school, the town.
Sam noticed the subtle signs.
People's laughter was hollow.No arguments.No pain.Just smiles.Glass smiles.
She shuddered.
They were already halfway into the dream.
Sam and Wang crept inside the greenhouse, the glass groaning under the weight of the mutant vines.
The flowers opened as they entered, revealing jagged petals lined with teeth-like fibers.They hissed softly.Welcoming them home.
In the center, the Seed writhed, its tendrils now fused into the walls, leaking a black sap that shimmered with reflections of Sam and Wang—distorted versions of themselves smiling blankly.
This thing didn't just feed on fear anymore.It fed on surrender.On comfort.
Sam poured gasoline over the Seed's base, her hands trembling but steady enough.
Suddenly, whispers filled the greenhouse.
The Mirage was speaking.
"You'll only suffer," it cooed from the reflections. "No more pain. No more struggle. Stay. Rest. Be part of the garden."
The vines wrapped gently around Sam's ankles like a lover's embrace.Promising peace.A painless existence.
Wang gagged, holding his head. "It's… in my thoughts again, Sam… I can't—"
"Fight it!" she snapped, slapping him across the face. "Stay with me!"
His eyes flickered back to life for a moment.A moment was all they needed.
Sam flicked the lighter.
The flame hovered dangerously in the air, illuminating the Seed's gaping eye at its center—a milky, pulsating organ reflecting her own face in infinite layers.
It smiled.
"You can't kill what grows inside your mind, Sam."
"Maybe not," she whispered.
"But I can starve you."
She dropped the lighter.
The explosion was deafening.
Flames roared up the vines, the Seed shrieking in voices that weren't voices—an orchestra of everyone it had ever consumed, begging, pleading, cursing.
Sam and Wang stumbled back, the heat blistering their skin, choking on smoke and the stench of burning illusions.
The Seed fought back.
The glass cracked, releasing a wave of psychic screams into the air.
Sam clutched her head, but she didn't let go of reality this time.
She remembered the pain.
She welcomed the fear.
Because they were real.
They were hers.
When the fire brigade arrived, they said it was an electrical fire.
The town mourned the loss of the greenhouse.
No one asked questions.
No one wondered why some people started waking up in the following days, confused, lost, unable to explain the blank gaps in their memories.
Sam and Wang didn't tell them.
They knew the truth.
The Mirage had been weakened.Not killed.Weakened.
And in those who woke up screaming in the night, in those who now feared their own reflections—Sam saw the scars left behind.
She saw them in herself too.
Every time she stared into a mirror, she half-expected to see the Seed watching back.
But it didn't.
Not yet.
Sam and Wang sat at the park weeks later, under a starless sky.
"Did we win?" Wang finally asked.
Sam didn't answer right away.
She watched the wind ripple through the empty playground, the swings creaking.
"No," she said quietly. "We just bought time."
Wang sighed. "It's going to come back, isn't it?"
Sam nodded.
"But next time, it won't trick us with nightmares. It'll use dreams. Wishes. Comfort."
She stood up, staring into the dark.
"Comfort is the easiest cage of all."
Wang smiled bitterly. "So what do we do now?"
Sam clenched her fists.
"We stay awake."
They walked away from the park together, into a world that still slept peacefully, unaware of the thing curling inside their mirrors, their screens, their minds.
The Mirage was still out there.
But so were they.
And they wouldn't sleep again.