It had been a long time since anything like this had happened; heck, he didn’t remember when the last time even was.

No Lost wanted to talk to him; every single one of them kept their mouths closed, not daring to speak a word. But why? Why did they not want to talk to him?

He had times when he couldn’t get the shadows to answer the question he had, but to outright not talk to him. That was unheard of; it was one of the weirdest moments as a Reader that he has had.

And if before a fraction of him thought that this city was normal, now he knew with one hundred percent certainty that something was not right.

...

Aether sighed, ruffling his hair.

Nothing was going out as he planned; he couldn’t enter the tower no matter what he did. He had tried many ways to enter, but each time, there just was not another entrance than the main one, which was not only in plain sight, but it also would just not budge.

"But there has to be a way, right?" He says, looking at a Lost, but it didn’t answer him. It stood still, even leaving. Without saying a word,

Aether groaned in annoyance. He had searched all over the main island, and the one with the Inn, was he going to have to go and search all of them until he found one that had something interesting?

’Well, let’s hope this one... is different.’

The path ahead narrowed slowly as Aether walked deeper into the island, almost as if the weight of his foot was too much, or almost like it was trying to intimidate him so he would top his search... but he wasn’t going to let such a thing even break a portion of his will.

At first, it looked ordinary enough by this city’s standards, since nothing was really normal in this place if you were to use normal standards. White stone pathways. Thin streams of water crossing beneath glass-like surfaces. Sculptures standing between intersections, carved so perfectly they almost looked artificial rather than handmade.

Beautiful, like everything in this place, yet the same, all the same, the people who had built this city had perfectly replicated their style in every single corner without a single error; it was unheard of, not to make one mistake, when doing the same thing over and over again.

Even when talking, if you were to repeat one word over and over again, you would notice that after a while, you say it wrong. So how had they done it perfectly? It was just inhumane.

But the further he went, the quieter everything became. Almost as if he was disconnected from the world behind him. Like he was entering a whole new reality. Strange, how a little quiet can make you feel as if you are at peace on another planet, gazing at the stars.

But it wasn’t the silence of abandonment; this place was in no way abandoned.

The silence of something preserved, something old, and with a lot of meaning.

Then he stepped through a massive archway.

And stopped.

’...What the hell is this place?’

A garden stretched before him.

No.

Calling it a garden felt wrong.

It was too large for that; a garden was something small, a piece of greenery that you challenged yourself to take care of, it was a fun way to raise life, and at the same time see just how responsible it was. But most were small; no gardener could ever get to this size.

The entire island had been transformed into a massive park that spread in every direction, its pathways twisting beneath enormous white arches and walls that rose high enough to block entire sections from view. The walls curved unnaturally, guiding movement without ever fully revealing where any path led next.

...It seemed as if a world was trying to guide its people through stories, so that they could see every bit of its magic, but without spoiling anything first. It didn’t want to ruin the surprises it had.

I was almost like a maze designed by someone who cared more about beauty than logic, someone... with a big heart, who didn’t just want to build a beautiful park, but also a storyteller, who wanted to go beyond humans and animals, and to show the story... of flowers.

It made him wonder, just who had been the one to do this.

The air itself felt different here, which was something that he had gotten used to, the air changing as if it were nothing. But in a place like Stormfell, something as little as this really doesn’t bother you anymore in the slightest. It was a completely normal thing that anyone would be confused about why you are asking about it.

It was... colder, calmer, like sitting by a river.

Filled with the scent of flowers.

Aether continued, taking one of the many pathways, to watch one of the many stories this park had to say, and when he entered the archway. He was shocked, he was... flowers, but some he had never seen or heard about ever in his life.

Some glowed faintly beneath the shade, their petals carrying shifting colors that changed whenever the light touched them. Had a flower with the ability to change the color of its petals, existed in his world... no, never, it was definitely something specific to this world... something that was actually, very beautiful.

As hard as a book was and became, a Reader never regretted seeing its story.

Really... this was one of the many reasons people even entered books, to see their stories and stuff specific to them, things that didn’t exist in their world. Things like these flowers, which he could have never seen before if he hadn’t entered Demon of Dread.

Others floated slightly above the ground instead of growing from it, connected by thin strands resembling silver roots hanging in the air.

’Floating flowers, eh? Not as cool, but interesting.’

He kneeled down to one of them, staring at its roots, a beautiful silver it was..., and it was a cool house; he could see every piece of the flower. Since normal ones hid their roots.

There were trees with transparent leaves.

Trees with dark bark covered in golden cracks that pulsed softly like breathing veins.

One of them had branches filled with tiny white flowers that dissolved into glowing dust whenever the wind passed through them, only for new blossoms to form seconds later.

It felt like trays of flowers in the air, creating a gorgeous sight, with flowers slowly falling from the sky, as if they were clouds. How much he wished that Readers had the ability to bring back some things from the worlds they entered, then maybe even the Withered could be beautiful.

Aether chuckled. ’Doubt it, that place will never be beautiful if it doesn’t break free from the Blue Rose.’

He slowly walked forward.

Streams crossed through the park naturally, though even those looked too perfect. The water carried glowing fragments inside it, tiny particles drifting like pieces of stars trapped beneath the surface. Fish, unlike anything he recognized, moved through the currents, transparent bodies reflecting the sunlight into shifting patterns across the walls.

’Maybe I should try getting one... though I doubt I will be able to catch one... plus, it was definitely illegal. And he didn’t want to get thrown in the dungeon of another civilization; if he did, that would make it two in a row.

’Yeah, no thank you.’

And the arches...

They never stayed the same.

Some were covered entirely in flowers, vines hanging down like curtains.

Others carried engraved symbols across their surfaces, so old and faded they looked like they had been carved centuries ago. A few were broken entirely, yet the pieces remained floating in place, separated but unmoving, as if the world itself refused to let them collapse.

It felt endless.

Every turn revealed another path.

Another hidden section.

Another scenery that looked too perfect to belong to the same world as the wasteland below. The contrast was too big, and he had been through a desert that, after a while, led to a tundra, and this was way weirder than that.

Aether looked upward.

The sunlight passed through the drifting leaves above him, scattering across the pathways in fractured patterns.

Beautiful.

That was the worst part.

Because places this beautiful usually hid something beneath them.

...

However, as much as he walked around, he never found anything... until he found a tree.

A normal tree, like one you see everywhere.

Which, in a park like this, with only unique and special vegetation and life, you wouldn’t expect a normal tree... also, the ground next to it didn’t look natural...

Aether walked up to it slowly before he started to dig with his hands.

Was the reason and beauty of this place really to create stories for people... I mean, there weren’t any, and he doubted that none would have come to such a place.

...

Unless it was something else.

As Aether continued to dig... he slowly found something.

A human skull.