'Huh.' Jun looked arouhereal fmes of colors and shades he’d never seen ed the entire Garden.

  'You'd think people would freak out more if everything around them was on fire, including themselves, but everyone seems to be doing fine. Oh. Okay, everyone is frozen with looks of absolute terror on their faces, but they're frozen in space. Sure, this happens all the time. I'm not freaking out.'

  Feeling an irresistible draw from behind him and no immediate danger(?), Jun escaped reality and drew his attentions back to his creation. Because of his abnormal state, Jun hadn't sculpted based on any image, but on the wave of memories and feelings from his youth. He wasn't sure what he made.

  Jun bit his lip hard. He drew blood. He gripped his hands around his tools so tightly that they groaned under pressure as his eyes became instantly blood shot. How could he have created this? This painful moment.

  No. It was right. This was her love. He had nht to run from it. This was the moment he khat love transded eveh.

  Before him was a t demon on her knees i moments. Her form kept her graceful elegance from when she had been human, while her beauty was elevated in her demonic transformation, even at the moment of demise.

  Four sharp horns rose from her temples and curved into a to highlight her demonic beauty. Even on her knees, she was ht feet tall with elongated limbs that ended in deadly cws and talons that offered no menace as they clutched her mortal wound. Tattered wings that oretched so wide it seemed they'd blot out the world y limb and broken at her sides.

  Other than that, she looked just the same as before.

  The same beautiful wild hair.

  The same gentle face.

  And the same tender smile that held so much pride for him.

  Through two lives and two deaths, she loved him.

  Even though he killed her.

  The tears that didn’t fall when life derailed irayals fell freely now. He stroked the face that he thought he'd fotten as all the sorrows, new and old, finally found its outlet.

  He didn't notice his tears burn into streams of energy or how the fires were gregating on his body, turning white and flowed into the sculpture and then dispersed into the rest of the Garden and bato Jun in an ever visually dynamic cycle.

  Jun didn't notice.

  He had not allowed himself to be truly vulnerable since she was lost to him, but now, with his rejuvenated memory of her, he didn't try to hide it. He just missed her.

  As his grief had run its course, he was grateful for ohing.

  To have been able t up an image of his mother, he thought he'd never have, regardless of the pains, was worth a few tributions.

  Eyes still closed, hands still resting on the cheeks of the mother in his dreams, he found a slight moment of peace. He could now remember her face from before, when she would hold and fort him, wheerrors of the demon nds threateo break his little mind. She would smile and hold him close and sing ever so softly into his ear to chase all his fears away. Then she would thank him for blessing her life.

  She chose to live and die a life of suffering so that he could live. She didn't eveate.

  He opened his eyes and momentarily doubted his senses when, instead of his wouransformed mother, she stood there like how he remembered her. When they were happy, healthy and whole.

  His mother looked at him with a mischievous smirk at the edge of her lips, like she knew a secret joke that never failed to tickle Jun’s curiosity.

  For a brief instance, he was ba the dark hollows of the wilderness, surrounded by the perils that colored his youth. She stood before him with her typical pyfulness, wearing the one dress that she had kept safe, only to be worn on special occasions like Jun's birthdays, Christmas, Happy Jun day, and a dozen other reasons his mother had found t some cheer to their dreary world.

  The dazzling dress made of the most preaterials aones was ohe source of endless envy of the upper css. Now faded and threadbare, a mere ghost of its days of glory, Jun thought it was the most beautiful dress in the world as it was, because it had seen all their best days together.

  He old her she never had to do those things to make him feel special. There wasn't a time that he wasn't happy when they were simply together. Regardless if it was in a poisonous s, a monster ied cavern, or a rare moment of safety a, it was all good times because she was there.

  And now she stood before him.

  He was sure that it had been a pletely different se before, but he didn't care. This was good.

  A true peace.

  A true smile.

  Then the world lost its focus, and the world became dark.

  ---

  Jun no longer felt a sense of self. Only his soul bore witness as the greatest secret of the universe shared its presehrough the darkness.

  An impossible opy that challehe infinite sheltered fruits as rge as worlds and shined bright and numerous like an endless starry sky.

  Far in the distance, a vast trunk that shattered his uanding of the universe proudly supported the vibrant heavens.

  Roots like the t titanic mountain raretched out in every dire as endless rivers of energy, wider than any o, flowed and swirled through the roots like small streams into the trunk, to the infiwisting and reag branches and leaves that offered it back to the world, new and in an endless glorious cycle with the purest energies flowing into the Fruits of the Worlds nurturing the Laws that defieself.

  Jun's soul, in its rawest state, made no effort to uand the impossible and only observed i the majesty before it.

  This wasn't something that mortals should see. Their minds and spirits would colpse at the barest glimpse.

  Jun didn't know that.

  He didn't see the light of his soul brightening and growing and strengthening. He didn't notice his senses gradually improving as sensations he couldn't uand washed and purified his soul.

  Jun was too lost, barely holding on to his sanity from his position uhe World Tree.

  Knowledge and insights into ws and cepts he'd never even ceived were overwhelming his sciousness as the world became clearer to all his senses, new and old.

  A single fruit above him resonated with Jun.

  He looked up.

  It looked like a gss apple that shined with infinite gaxies in infinite colors.

  Somewhere in that swirl of colors was the Earth. That was his Fruit. A little dimmer thahers but his he less. He just knew.

  It erfect.

  Except....

  That's when Jun became aware of an ugliness hiddeween the shadows of the titanic leaves.

  Nausea indug bck tendrils weaved through vast blotches of the opy, like tless vile snakes, ected to and defiling tless fruits.

  Including his own.

  He watched a endril emerge from the darkness between the worlds and slowly slither towards a ahy fruit.

  The e was made and darkness spread.

  There was nothing anyone could do about it.

  This was their enemy.

  The monsters beyond the gates.

  The demons that haunted his youth.

  ...his mother.

  Ju a raw, undiluted hate boil through him. How dare this filth defile their worlds! A powerful desire to se all the darkness and all evil so that this wonder of creation could grow free aiful again, burst from his core.

  A pulse of fion harmonized with his own.

  A voice that spoke no words was calling out.

  It was faint. He couldn’t uand, only feel.

  It leading.

  It was in such pain.

  Help me.

  The fear was felt through his soul and had marked it.

  Jun awoke with a start, his hand still on his mother's human face. It helped calm his thunderi, w if he’d been drugged.

  Was that real?

  It felt... more than real.

  The wonder and awe.

  The fear and disgust.

  The World Tree had pleaded with him.

  That was a head trip.

  A flood of noisy agitation demanded Jun's attention.

  He couldn't keep ign reality forever. Some sense was returning as Jun realized he'd done a lot of stupid things while blinded with emotions.

  Shit.

  The drone cam h by his face made him realize how fucked he was.

  He turned his head away to see... his family.

  Uncle Juan was holding aional Aunt Mary o lil Davie that was supp a tear stained Lily. Nicole and Tiana, looking dazed, stood close by. Even in their clear grief and fusion, he could see their for him.

  That's right, he hadn't lost the most important things. His family and good friends that loved and supported him when he had nothing to where he was now.

  They were his home.

  As long as he had his home, everything would work out.

  “Jun you're beied! We have to go over there now!”

  “...what?”