He no longer dreamed when he slept.
He remembered.
Each night, as Ren Hadrien closed his eyes beneath the stars—no longer Earth's stars, but those of a woven sky—his mind drifted into lives that weren't his, and yet… were.
A man breathing in a city of glass, holding his dying child close before stepping into light.
A woman made of flame, walking into oceans of shadow with songs on her tongue.
A child floating above a shattered planet, whispering a name that would never be heard.
Each vision whispered truths not in words, but in weight.
He wasn't watching stories.
He was bearing them.
That was what it meant to witness.
He had stayed in the Garden longer than he had planned.
Time was fluid here. It did not count days. It measured understanding.
He built nothing.
But the Garden grew around him.
Structures shaped by resonance, not design—pillars of memory, bridges of breath, altars formed by wind and starlight.
Creatures began to emerge too.
None from Earth.
None entirely from the other world either.
They were in-between. Like him.
Some watched him from afar, blinking with iridescent eyes.
Others came close, nestled in silence, drawn to his stillness.
He did not command them.
He simply was.
And they stayed.
Then one day, a sound he had not heard in a long time:
Footsteps.
Not his.
Not imagined.
Human.
He turned, slowly.
And saw her.
Older now.
The girl with golden eyes.
No longer a child.
Not yet a woman.
She walked the garden path barefoot, her presence illuminating the grass with every step. Behind her, others followed—quiet, respectful, awed.
Survivors.
Seekers.
The new generation.
She smiled when she saw him.
"Ren," she said, simply.
He bowed his head. "You found your way."
"No," she said. "You opened it."
They stood in silence a moment, and then she looked around the Garden.
"It listens to you."
"No," he said. "It remembers me."
She touched a nearby tree. It pulsed softly under her hand.
"They think I'm leading them," she murmured.
"You are," he said.
"And you?"
"I'm just the echo."
That night, they sat around a fire that didn't burn—light without flame, warmth without ash.
She asked questions.
About the city.
About the Eye.
About the ones who came before.
About him.
And he answered, slowly, with care.
Not as a teacher.
Not as a master.
As a witness.
"I made choices," he said. "Some out of fear. Some out of pride. But the Garden doesn't grow from answers. It grows from listening."
She nodded.
And whispered, "Then I'll listen too."
The days passed.
And more came.
Dozens. Hundreds.
They built nothing with tools.
But villages of presence formed.
A culture of remembrance, not possession.
They called themselves the Weavers.
Those who would learn to walk between echoes, without tearing them.
And Ren?
He faded into the background.
He was present, always.
But no longer needed as before.
He was a name they whispered with reverence.
A path they followed without seeing his feet.
And that was enough.
On the eve of the thirteenth cycle, the girl—now woman—came to him again.
Her golden eyes dimmed slightly with age, but not with doubt.
"It's time," she said.
He looked to the horizon.
Storms had gathered again.
Not chaos.
Change.
The anomaly pulsed once more—not in warning, but in rhythm.
A new breach.
Not a disaster.
A birth.
He stood.
And smiled.
"I'll go."
He walked once more toward the far edge of the Garden.
No followers this time.
Only memory.
He reached the threshold.
Where the sky shimmered.
Where echoes gathered.
He looked back only once.
And saw her standing where he had once stood, all those years ago.
He did not wave.
He did not speak.
But she heard him all the same.
"Now… you are the bridge."
And then he stepped into the light.