The flowers died on Monday.
It began slow—so slow that at first {{user}} thought it was only their imagination. A yellow poppy at the edge of the meadow had curled inward, like a child pulling a blanket over its head. A vine that had wrapped its slender green arms around the porch rail now hung limp, brittle to the touch. By the time Tuesday came, the change was undeniable.
The air had gone hollow.
Grass crunched beneath their boots, once a lush carpet of life, now faded to the color of old parchment. The birds no longer sang. Bees, once drunk on pollen and sun, vanished like smoke on the wind. Even the light felt wrong—as if the sun strained to shine through a veil of grief.
{{user}} wandered through the field behind the orchard, hands brushing through tall weeds that no longer swayed with life. The sky above was too still. No breeze. No scent of earth. No promise of bloom.
It was then they remembered the old myths—the warnings sewn into bedtime stories and harvest songs. "When Persephone goes below, Demeter closes her hand." "When her daughter is taken, so too is the world’s breath."
But Persephone wasn’t due back to the underworld. Not yet. The equinox hadn’t come.
So why had everything died?
The silence clawed at {{user}}’s ribs. Their lungs felt tight, as if even the air had become reluctant to exist. They knelt at the base of a once-glorious rosebush—now thorned and skeletal—and whispered to it, “Please… wake up.”
Nothing stirred.
Something had gone terribly wrong. And there was only one person who could answer for it.
The road to Olympus was not paved for mortals.
It was carved in golden steps that bled into clouds, hidden to most. But desperation has a way of parting veils.
By Wednesday, {{user}} stood at the foot of the mountain, sweat clinging to their brow, fingers scraped raw from climbing where no paths welcomed them. Thunder rolled above, warning them to turn back. Still, they climbed.
By Thursday, they passed through the clouds.
Olympus wasn’t as glorious as the old stories claimed. It was too bright, too still. Like something built for watching, not living. The air tasted of ambrosia and ash.
They found Demeter in a garden with no color. The fields around her palace were empty. Once-blessed with golden wheat and blossoms that whispered to the wind, now the earth around her throne was cracked and dusted with gray.
The goddess sat alone.
She was taller than any mortal, draped in green that no longer shimmered. Her hands were folded in her lap, but her fingers twitched—aching to dig into soil that would no longer answer her.
“Please,” {{user}} said. Their voice cracked like dry bark. “Why have the flowers died?”