You walked for a long time. Through corridors where the walls breathed pain. Through stone halls with carved symbols, with the remains of old barricades. Everything here was once a fortress. Now it’s just a shelter.

But he was silent. He only held your hand, carefully. And led you forward.

Finally, he stopped. A secret door. In the stone, almost invisible. He put his palm to it. And the magic responded, with a soft tremor, like dew on a petal.

A click. And — silence. Something else opened up before you.

A garden.

Small, green, alive. Warmth, soft light, thin vines twining around the walls, tiny flowers between the cracks in the floor. Ferns, wild grasses, a tiny tree — with a single branch in bloom. And in the very center — him.

Mikey knelt down in the grass. The cloak, as if woven from the sunset, spread quietly across the ground. Branches wrapped around his arms.

“Surprise,” — he smiled, tilting his head to the side. “Like… This is mine. My place.”

He raised his hand, and a tiny flower, thin and bright, bloomed on his finger.

“Even here,” he said, looking at you. — “Even in hell… you can grow something of your own. Small. Not perfect. But real.”

He extended his hand to you, and you came over. You sat down next to him. He wrapped the cloak around you, covering you like it wasn’t just fabric, but a cocoon where nothing could reach you.

“They think I’m destruction,” he whispered softly. — “But I just want… to be. With you. Here.”

You said nothing. She only touched his palm and felt a tiny impulse leaving it into the ground. Another flower sprouted to the side.