Scene 1: The Mark Grows
Maiku grips his wrist as the orange lines crawl upward, branching like veins—like roots.
Maiku (gritting teeth): "It won't stop. It wants something."
He grabs a scalpel. The lines bleed light, not blood. Then seal. Unharmed.
Gift sees the mark and backs away instinctively.
Gift (quiet): "That's not just a mark... it's growing."
Jakku steps forward without hesitation. Injects the emergency antidote straight into Maiku's side.
The growth halts. Slows. Then quivers.
Jakku: "It's alive. Not fully inside him yet. We still have time."
Gift (urgent): "Reen—we need more. We need something permanent. It's planning. It has goals."
Reen nods and starts mixing compounds at a frantic pace.
They lower Maiku into a new containment tank. Reinforced walls. Hardened glass. Every sensor live.
But the symbol inside the tank? Still blooming.
---
Scene 2: A City Forgotten
The message from Lorian reveals coordinates beneath Julio's crust—a city erased from all databases.
Descending through layers of collapsed tunnels, they find it: a place built in silence, beneath silence.
The walls hum. Orange veins pulse faintly through the stone.
Forgotten machines twitch awake, recognizing something in Maiku's DNA.
Jakku finds glyphs carved deep into metal:
> "The First Ones were not devoured. They bloomed willingly."
Matthew (cold): "They chose this?"
Reen: "No... they believed in it."
As they explore, the city seems to divide them. Each drawn to different echoes—memories that aren't theirs.
---
Scene 3: The Bloom Speaks
Inside the containment tank, Maiku convulses. Eyes roll white.
A vision takes him—full immersion.
He's back in the city—but thriving, alien, alive. Plants with circuit leaves. Skies tinted gold.
Lorian is there. But his body flickers, overlaid with something older.
Lorian: "I tried to hold it back. To be the dam."
Bloom: (echoing through him): "He is the seed. You are the soil."
Two futures flash—
Julio in balance: symbiosis, light, peace.
Julio in decay: orange rot choking cities, minds enslaved.
Bloom (calm): "Choose."
Maiku (in agony): "I choose... harmony!"
He screams. Blood trails from his nose. The symbol lights up like fire.
Reen rushes in—releases the antidote as vapor into the tank. Maiku stills. Barely.
---
Scene 4: The Fracture
Back at the city ruins, the team fractures.
Gift stands in stillness—eyes distant.
Gift: "It's not evil. It's change. It's reaching out in my dreams... it's showing me patterns."
They speak through the comms
Reen: "That's infection, not enlightenment. We should bomb this place."
Matthew: "We should put Maiku down before it spreads through him too."
Jakku snaps.
Jakku (screaming): "NO! He's not gone. He's not done. Don't talk like that."
Silence.
Even Reen steps back. No one's ever heard Jakku shout.
The scene shifts to Momonato flexing his fingers. Orange shimmer dances just beneath the skin.
Momonato (whispers): "I feel everything. All of it. Sight. Sound. Feeling. It's... terrifying. But I don't want it to stop."
They all turn to Maiku's tank.
He's glowing again.
---
Scene 5: The Bloomed
Something walks into the city ruins.
Not monstrous. Not sick. Perfect.
A man—but blooming.
Eyes like galaxies. Voice like layered chords.
Bloomed One: "You fear the bloom... yet it has already begun."
Maiku's hand glows in response—inside the tank.
The Bloomed One walks forward. Peaceful. No fight.
Jakku draws his blade and slashes.
The Bloomed One smiles, even as its body falls apart into petals—each one pulsing with encrypted data from the ancient past.
Jakku catches one on a slab of rock. Saves it.
Gift finds something buried where the Bloomed One stood: a blueprint. It hums with the same orange light.
Gift: "It's a neural lattice. A way to understand them."
---
Scene 6: Momonato's Fight
Momonato trembles.
The parasite inside him doesn't hurt—but it changes.
Suddenly—slash.
Lorian—fully bloomed, fast as thought—slashes Momonato across the ribs.
Momonato stumbles, gasping.
Lorian: "You're not ready."
Momonato: "Let's find out."
He summons his staff. They clash—metal and pulse, speed and memory.
But Lorian is faster. Stronger. Almost... perfect.
Momonato is overwhelmed, disarmed, on the ground.
Lorian lifts his blade for the killing blow—then hesitates.
His hand shakes. His face flickers.
Lorian (barely human again): "Not yet... not you."
And vanishes in a blink of petals.
Momonato lies bleeding. But alive.
---
Scene 7: Lorian's Last Line
The base's systems jolt—screens flood with orange static.
One final message:
> "If you want to stop it, you'll have to kill me.
But if you want to understand it... come to where I bloomed."
Maiku sits in the tank.
His mark has become a flower.
To Be Continued...
Narrator Commentary – Chapter 12: The First Bloom
Change is no longer coming—it's here. Chapter 12 peels back the illusion of control, revealing just how deeply the Bloom has seeded itself into Maiku, into the team, and into Julio itself.
What began as an infection now whispers of evolution. The mark on Maiku's hand—once seen as a curse—takes root like prophecy. It resists harm, defies removal, and pulses with intent. A signal. A seed. Something ancient, sentient. And it wants to grow.
The forgotten city beneath Julio's crust is a turning point. It isn't just ruins—it's a memory. A buried truth. The glyphs carved in long-lost steel speak of choice, not conquest. Harmony, not horror. And this subtle reframing is where things fracture. The team's unity buckles under the weight of doubt, fear, and curiosity. Some see salvation. Others, doom.
Momonato's struggle is particularly tragic. The parasite doesn't mutilate—it elevates. Makes him more. But at what cost? Lorian, now fully transformed into something between man and myth, tests his limits. And in that moment of mercy, when blade meets restraint, the story whispers that not all is lost. That something of the old Lorian might still remain.
And then there's Maiku—half vessel, half battleground. His visions don't show monsters, but possibilities. Dual futures, mirrored in bloom or decay. And his desperate choice—to seek harmony, not eradication—may be the fulcrum upon which everything turns.
This isn't a war against an invader. It's a confrontation with an idea. A new mode of existence.
But make no mistake: the Bloom doesn't ask. It offers.
And as the flower unfurls in Maiku's hand, the question blooms with it—can you truly resist something that promises to make you whole?
The answers lie where it all began—where Lorian bloomed.