Chapter 33 — The Orchard of Glass

The descent ended not in pain, but in brilliance.

Yusuf blinked at a light that sliced so quick it scorched his eyeballs. When his vision acclimatized, he was surrounded by trees—tall, thin, and crystalline. Their trunks shimmered like cut quartz, and their leaves were shards of colored glass, reflecting the light and scattering it in broken rainbows.

Below his feet, the ground was soft earth, but every step sounded as if shattering crystal. The orchard stretched on and on, the horizon lost behind blaze of refractions.

The faceless child stood there beside him, tilting up their head. "This is wrong," they whispered. "Memories aren't supposed to shine like this. They're supposed to breathe."

Yusuf brushed his hand across the trunk of the nearest tree. Cold, silky, unblemished. Too unblemished. "It's like someone iced this area—like it's trying to be alive."

As if in response, the tree trembled. A leaf—razor-cut, green-hued glass—fell from its stem and shattered on the ground. In the shards of it, Yusuf saw something shimmering among them: an image of a laughing woman, indistinct and half-formed, gone the instant he had seen it.

Memories trapped in the glass.

The Codex pulsed in his hand. When he opened it, words poured onto the page, stopping on one line:

Thread: Orchard of Glass. Status — Sealed.

The word "Sealed" branded itself deeper, blacker, until it pierced the parchment. Yusuf extended his hand and traced the page, but it shunned him, as cold as the trees.

The boy's voice was biting. "Something locked this world. Not erased it—not swallowed it—sealed it. That's worse."

Yusuf didn't have a moment to respond before a voice drifted through the orchard, as soothing as a lullaby

Save the fruit, and the orchard lives. Break the fruit, and the orchard dies.

Yusuf swung around. No one. Just the wind—or was it glass against glass?

But then, beyond, he saw them: figures walking between the trees. They glowed like the orchard itself, half-real and translucent, each of them holding something in their hands. Fruit—if it was fruit. Spheres of pure glass, with faintly glowing images imprisoned within. They had the faces of strangers on some of them. Others, locations. And a few, mere static.

The figures never looked up. They clutched their fruit to their chests as lifelines.

Yusuf's stomach clenched. "Are they. people?"

The child did not answer.

He stepped closer. One of the figures strode right past him, across his shoulder. It left no impression, no warmth—only the faint crunch of breaking. He caught himself looking down to see cracks radiating through the sphere in the figure's hand.

The figure stopped in its tracks, then shattered into a thousand glittering fragments. Its fruit fell and rolled at Yusuf's toes.

Inside the glassy sphere, a name seared:

Yusuf.

He shuddered in disgust.

The leaves of the orchard rustled, a sound like a billion panes of glass grinding against each other. All around him, the other figures stopped. Slowly, they turned their heads towards him, glass-fruits clutched in arms that trembled with hairline cracks.

The lullaby returned, louder this time, nigh on a challenge:

"Take the fruit, and the orchard shall live…"

The unadorned child grasped his sleeve. "We must go."

But Yusuf remained immobilized. His name still vibrated within the sphere at his feet, growing brighter and brighter, as if challenging him to grasp it.