Sichuan Province, China – 1989

They came at dusk, like they always did.

Jennifer Lau was eight years old, crouched beneath the floorboards with her knees pressed to her chest, hands clamped over her ears to muffle the shouting. But nothing could stop the sound. The fists. The boots. The cracking wood. Her father's voice – calm even as they dragged him outside – quoting scripture like it was a shield.

"We suffer not in vain," he said. "For the kingdom—"

A strike. A scream. Then silence.

Jennifer didn't cry. Not then. Not later. She watched the blood pool beneath the door, and she folded her hands.

Her mother sobbed beside her, trembling so hard it shook the floor. Jennifer didn't move. She just stared at the crimson stain and whispered the words they were never allowed to speak in public.

"God… if you're real – use me. I'll be louder than him. I'll be louder than anyone."

Hong Kong – 2021

The air conditioning in the warehouse-turned-chapel had failed hours ago. But still the faithful came.

Jennifer stood at the pulpit, fire in her veins and sweat on her collarbone. The place reeked of incense and breath – packed shoulder to shoulder with devotees. Some fanned themselves. Others shivered. Three in the front row wore medical masks but still wheezed. The coughs echoed through the prayer like a warning bell.

Behind her, a massive white cross glowed faint green from the overhead lights. Or maybe from something else.

She didn't preach from scripture anymore. She didn't need to.

"I see fear in this city," she told them. "But I do not see God. So let me ask you – where is your faith?"

No one answered. They never did.

"Do you think Christ waits for clearance from the health ministry? Do you think He cares what your bloodwork says?"

A woman broke down sobbing in the third row.

Jennifer pointed at her, voice cracking from strain and purpose. "Your pain is your offering. Your body is your altar. Let Him use it. Let me use it. Let us make this city clean."

She walked among them, laying hands on burning foreheads. Not healing – anointing. Their eyes glazed. Some began to speak in tongues.

Jennifer whispered, "We won't die like animals. We will ascend. Together."

Behind her smile, something frayed.

That night, she sat alone in her quarters – curtains drawn, air heavy with the stink of sweat and antiseptic.

One of her twelve had died. Peter. Forty-two years old. Hadn't even made it through the final hymn. Choked on his lungs.

Jennifer sat with the body for hours.

She held his hand and whispered prayers into the blue folds of his skin. Her voice cracked. Then stopped. Her hands trembled over the old leather Bible in her lap.

"Why?" she asked.

The ceiling fan above her spun lazily. The city outside howled with ambulances and sirens.

"Why do you stay silent?" she asked. "Why do you take them and leave me behind?"

She fell to her knees. Her nails dug into the wooden floor until they bled.

"I believe," she hissed. "I believe. So why— why— why do you make me watch them die?"

No answer came.

Only the scent of something blooming.

…………………

The bloom started beneath her feet.

Jennifer blinked. The air in the prayer room had gone still—unnaturally so. Not the quiet of isolation, but the silence of expectation. Something waited.

The ceiling fan had stopped. Her Bible was gone.

She rose slowly, not remembering standing. The floor beneath her peeled like skin, wooden panels curling outward to reveal something... green.

Lush vines crept from the cracks. Glossy, thick, trembling like they breathed. They wound around her ankles—gently, not binding, but guiding. Pulling her forward.

The walls dissolved.

And Eden opened.

It wasn't the Eden of scripture. Not the soft pastures and lambs of Sunday school paintings. This one pulsed with wet life. Towering fig trees wept sweet-smelling sap. Carnivorous lilies the size of coffins bloomed in the canopy. Ferns exhaled spores that shimmered in the air like motes of gold.

The air was warm, wet, cloying. Sweet with rot.

Jennifer did not flinch. Her eyes shone.

Finally, she thought.

A woman stood at the edge of the garden – waiting.

And Jennifer fell to her knees.

The woman – if she could still be called that – was radiant. Not glowing, not gilded, but alive. Her presence made the world tilt.

Her skin was impossibly smooth, pale as ivory yet streaked with gentle veins of gold-green light that pulsed with a rhythm older than time. Her eyes were deep – pupil-less pools of emerald and black, flecked with specks of chlorophyll and starlight. Ancient and kind. Terrifying and tender.

Her hair spilled in long waves, dark green like jungle vines, coiled and lush, each strand braided with blooming jasmine and humming with unseen breath. When she moved, the air shimmered with moisture. Not sweat. Not rain. Life. Pure, sweet, fertile life. The garden bent toward her as if in worship.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

She was clothed in robes spun from living petals – shifting, whispering, breathing. Flowers bloomed along her hemline as she stepped. Roots followed in her wake, knitting the ground behind her with every movement. The air smelled of fig and crushed lilies and the faint iron tang of blood hidden beneath perfume.

Jennifer could not speak. Her lips trembled. Her hands clutched the folds of her robe, pressing the crucifix against her chest hard enough to bruise.

She knew. She knew.

This was no demon. This was no vision. This was her angel.

"My Guardian," she whispered, tears blurring her sight. "God sent you. I knew He would. I knew He'd answer. I knew."

Her whole body shook. The room, the sickness, the death – it was gone. There was only this miracle. This divine presence. The embodiment of the Garden promised to Eve. The reward for faith unbroken.

Jennifer crawled forward, eyes wide, manic joy bleeding from every syllable.

"I've been faithful," she sobbed. "I prayed. I never stopped. Even when they laughed, even when they called me mad – I kept believing. And now— now You've come. You've come to deliver me."

Verrine tilted her head.

A soft smile crept across her face – too wide, too perfect.

"I come to many," she said, voice like the hush of vines sliding over wet stone. "But only the fertile take root."

Jennifer's breath caught.

"I'll take anything. Anything You give me."

She opened her hand. Inside it bloomed a seed – perfect, green, glowing faintly with inner veins of gold. It pulsed to a heartbeat that wasn't Jennifer's.

"Take it," Verrine said. "And become the soil."

Jennifer's fingers hovered above it.

She didn't hesitate.

…………………

Jennifer took the seed with reverence.

It was warm in her hand. Damp. Alive. It pulsed against her skin like a second heartbeat.

The moment her fingers closed around it, the garden breathed.

Not metaphorically. The earth swelled beneath her. Leaves turned to face her. The vines coiled tighter around every tree. She gasped as a gust of air blew across her neck – thick with pollen and the electric scent of rain on stone.

"What… what do I do?"

Verrine stood before her, hands folded over her stomach. She didn't speak at first. She didn't need to. The answer grew inside Jennifer like a revelation.

"Plant it," Verrine said finally. "In the only soil that matters."

Jennifer pressed the seed against her chest.

It sank without resistance – into her sternum, into bone and blood and soul. No pain. Just ecstasy.

She arched her back and screamed but it wasn't fear. It was worship. A rapturous, keening sound of total surrender. Her eyes flooded with tears. Her veins lit up green.

The crucifix around her neck snapped clean in two.

Verrine stepped forward. Her voice now a murmur – intimate, tender, dripping with promise.

"You prayed to save them."

"Yes," Jennifer sobbed. "I begged."

"You asked to be more."

"I did. I still do."

"And now you shall be."

Jennifer collapsed forward, hands clawing the ground. Vines curled around her wrists like bracelets. Her skin prickled – hairline roots threading into her flesh. Her ears rang with voices – dozens, hundreds – all whispering thanks.

Verrine knelt beside her. Touched her forehead. Her smile widened – too white, too full.

"They will never die," she said. "Not truly. Every prayer… every cry… every soul that believed in you…"

The vines lifted Jennifer up. Her feet no longer touched the ground. Her body glowed from the inside out – green veins spidering through her arms and cheeks, reaching up into her irises. Her mouth opened, but no sound came.

"They will live inside you," Verrine whispered.

The world bloomed.

And Jennifer Lau – the woman – was gone.

…………………

It did not start with screams.

It started with hymns.

A quiet church. A city in masks. And Jennifer Lau – barely breathing – lay in a hospital bed as her followers prayed. Soft voices. Clasped hands. Pleas sent skyward from a congregation that had no more hope in doctors.

Then she opened her eyes.

They said the fever stopped. They said the lilies on her windowsill bloomed. They said that when she stood, the cracks in the hospital walls healed behind her.

By morning, she walked among them again. No fanfare. No announcement. Just a soft glow that followed her down the corridors.

She called it a blessing.

The faithful called it a miracle.

It wasn't.

It was Eden.

She didn't command the television networks. She didn't summon storms. She only spoke.

"We must grow."

One church became five. Five became fifty. Garden cells – small, subtle, soft-spoken – sprouted in corners of Hong Kong no one watched. A florist who no longer needed sleep. A teacher who preached calm in the face of quarantine. A policeman who whispered prayers as roots crept up his boots.

There were no screams. Just conversions.

By the time anyone noticed the pattern, it was too late. A hundred voices praying in the same tongue. A thousand hands reaching upward. Not in protest – in gratitude.

The mist came later. Gentle. Green. It rolled in beneath the Pearl River Delta like fog from a dream, creeping into Guangdong, then Guangxi. Shenzhen trembled but did not fight. There were already churches waiting. Already gardens blooming.

And when the first soldiers knelt instead of firing – when the first medical team found their patients smiling as veins turned green – Verrine revealed herself.

She stood atop the balcony of a glass tower, no longer walking. Her feet hovered just above the ground. Her skin had hardened into something like marble. Her hair flowed around her shoulders in living green tendrils. Her dress shimmered with wet petals that opened and closed with her breath.

The ones who saw her fell to their knees.

She opened her arms.

"You prayed to be whole. You prayed to be saved. You prayed to be with me. And so you are."

Behind her, a line of parishioners stood sealed in glassy, bloomed lotus pods. Alive. Silent. Smiling. Their hands were pressed in prayer.

Jennifer no longer cried. She only smiled.

"They're all still with me," she whispered, pressing a palm to one swollen pod, now pulsing with a heartbeat. "Inside me."

And so Eden grew. Not through conquest.

Through faith.

…………………

It was quiet beneath the roots.

Far below the streets of Chengdu, under a cavern of pulsing bark and glistening vines, the air hung heavy with humidity and prayer. Light filtered through the canopy above – not sunlight, but a dappled green glow that seemed to come from the leaves themselves. Everything breathed. Slowly. Wetly. Together.

At the chamber's centre stood the pod.

It shimmered with defiance – a perfect red sphere, crystalline and unyielding, shot through with psychic veins that pulsed like arteries. It didn't flicker. It didn't hum. It simply was.

Inside, Elizabeth Jaeger floated – unmoving, eyes shut, fists clenched. Her hair drifted like white ink in water. Around her, the psychic energy pulsed in steady waves, pushing back the vines that slithered too close. None could touch her.

None but one.

Footsteps approached – bare, slow, reverent. Each step coaxed new petals to bloom across the mossy floor.

She entered the chamber as if it were a cathedral.

The woman looked unchanged. Human. Still Jennifer Lau's face – serene, soft, almost radiant. Pale skin, unlined. A white dress that swayed like morning mist. But her hair had deepened to a viridian cascade, thick with thorns and leaves, coiled into a crown that twitched with its own intent.

She smiled at the pod like a mother seeing her child for the first time.

"My final seed," she whispered.

Behind her, the roots thickened – writhing, tightening. A thousand glass pods were nested there now, each one curled around a shape that used to be a person. The faithful. The healed. Their smiles pressed gently to the inside of their new Eden.

But this one—

This one still resisted.

Verrine circled the pod. Her fingertips trailed the surface, but the red psychic shell shimmered in warning. She didn't flinch.

"She burns too bright," she said softly, as if speaking to no one. "Even in sleep. Even in fear. Like fire bottled in prayer."

She leaned closer.

"She remembers her mother, you know. Even now. That memory anchors her."

A pause.

"She'll let go soon. When she sees what I offer."

Verrine's face tilted – not curious. Hungry.

"You'll bloom, little one. You'll join them. You'll make a garden of your grief."

The pod flared – red, angry, defiant.

Verrine blinked once, then smiled wider.

"She's listening."

From the shadows, footsteps echoed. Slower. Heavier.

A tall figure emerged, clothed in military garb laced with living green tendrils. His face was calm, unlined, his medals rusted into the bone of his chest. But behind the eyes – depth. Cold. Ancient.

He saluted.

"General Wang," she said. Then: "No. Eligos."

The archdemon bowed low. "My lady."

She turned without looking at him. "It's begun. He burns through my Second Circle."

Eligos nodded once. "He's stronger than we thought. He has faced Aamon. And Mammon."

"Good," she said, almost purring. "Then he's worthy."

A crack rippled across the edge of the red sphere – just one, hair-thin, gone in a blink.

Verrine's smile never faded.

She placed her palm flat against the pod.

"You are mine," she whispered. "You just don't know it yet."

The vines behind her bloomed. A thousand flowers opened in unison.

And from her lips, warm and venom-sweet, came the last line—

"I am your saviour."

Darkness swelled. The pod pulsed. And the garden trembled.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.