Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 99: The Gardens of Forgetting: Where the World Falls Silent

Chapter 99: The Gardens of Forgetting: Where the World Falls Silent

One morning, as the nascent light caressed the world with that particular slowness that belongs to preserved places, to suspended moments, to dawns that do not wish to startle those who pass through them, we saw it — or rather, we began to see it.

It was not a sudden revelation, not a brutal emergence in our field of vision, not a moment cut clean between ignorance and certainty.

It wasn’t a turn.

It wasn’t a shock.

It didn’t impose itself.

It revealed itself.

Slowly.

Not like a silhouette rising in the distance, but like a memory resurfacing, like a forgotten truth that the world, with an almost anxious tenderness, had decided to return to us, little by little, step by step, breath after breath.

It was first a different clarity in the air, a density in the light, a change in the way the wind slid over our skin — as if space itself was adjusting to a still invisible presence.

Then reflections appeared on the horizon, at first blurry, barely brighter than the sky, but too constant to be a mirage, too alive to belong to stone.

And the more we walked, the more those reflections became matter, and the more that matter took shape, not as a construction springing from nowhere, but as an ancient heart, set there since forever, simply waiting for our eyes to be ready to see it.

The whole world, at that moment, seemed to hold its breath.

As if it wanted to prepare us for what we were about to discover.

As if the path itself had been designed to lead us not just to a place, but to an understanding.

And in the vibrant silence of that approach, neither I nor Lysara spoke.

Because something within us already knew.

Because that something... it was her.

The oasis.

Not an oasis like those read about in travel tales or childhood stories, not a mere stretch of water fringed with palm trees — no, this one defied all imagination, not by sheer immensity, but by the impression it gave of always having been there, vast and untouched, like an ancient breath of the earth that no one had yet disturbed.

It stretched as far as the eye could see, unfolding before us a sea of pure water, so clear that the sky itself seemed to reflect in it cautiously, as if afraid to sully it with its image, and all around, like a setting fashioned by the hands of a patient god, lush, vibrant greenery bloomed in living circles, in plant-like spirals that seemed to gently orbit the lake like stars obeying an invisible gravity.

The sun’s rays, touching the still surface, shattered into waves of liquid glints, diffusing on the water shifting sheets of pale gold, as if the light itself was dancing, carried by the sacred slowness of this place.

And the vegetation, dense, exuberant yet never chaotic, slithered to the shores with organic fluidity, composed of trees with vast and dense foliage, flowers whose edges still bore dewdrops despite the late hour, hanging and supple vines that seemed to vibrate at the slightest breath of air, as if everything here had been designed to breathe as one.

It was a vision of such perfection that even dreams, in their wildest freedom, would not have dared to invent it.

A place too pure to be fantasized.

Too real to belong to the rest of the world.

And at its center, in that harmony-soaked silence, we understood it without needing to say it aloud: this was it, yes — the heart of Terra Neutralis.

The point of balance.

The cradle of all.

And maybe... maybe also, the sanctuary toward which our whole journey had always, without us knowing, been reaching.

Not an end.

But an offering.

The water, before us, was not merely clear or pure — it was an unreal blue, deep yet luminous, as if it contained within it another light than that of the sky, a light of its own, vibrant, that seemed to rise from its depths to caress the surface without ever getting lost in it, a light that belonged to nothing known and yet evoked something buried in the oldest memories.

Through that vast and silent liquid expanse stretched long translucent roots, winding with almost aquatic grace from the trees lining the banks into the lake’s depths, as if the forest itself sought to drink, slowly, calmly, from this cradle of living water.

Fine banks of golden sand appeared here and there, shaping the bottom in delicate arabesques, where the light slid in curling swirls, and in that suspended space, between the real and the impossible, swam the Azure Silhyas — creatures as fragile as they were sublime, resembling butterfly-fish, whose immense, supple, and almost diaphanous fins brushed the water’s surface in slow procession.

They moved in silence, by the dozens, emitting a soft light, a diffuse, lunar glow, which enveloped the lake’s edges in an almost dreamlike halo, giving each movement the elegance of a waking dream, as if time itself slowed down to let them pass.

Lower down, barely visible, in the deeper layers where light thinned without vanishing, undulated other forms, more discreet, slower, yet no less fascinating: the Nebulicorals, strange mollusks with unsuspected intelligence, whose spiral bodies, made of crystalline matter, vibrated at a rhythm so subtle it could not be heard — it was perceived.

They filtered the water with almost ritual regularity, purifying it silently, and at the same time, they sang.

Not like birds.

Not like voices.

But by releasing light pulses, almost imperceptible waves, which spread through the water like a memory, like a sonic blessing only attentive bodies could feel.

On the shores, where the light settled slowly upon dew-soaked grass and where every stone seemed polished by silence, rose the Fountain-Trees — calm and sovereign giants, whose wide, twisted trunks climbed with silent elegance toward the sky, as if they wanted not to pierce it, but merely to brush it.

Their bark, pale brown streaked with iridescent highlights, released fine mist in places, soft and cool, and from their hollow branches, naturally arched like temple vaults, flowed in cascades a pure, clear water with a subtle scent, which slipped down their flanks before vanishing into thick moss and invisible roots.

It was a slow water, regular, uninterrupted — not gushing, but offered — a water that did not seek to quench the world, but to bless it, to caress it drop by drop, as if reciting a millennial song on the bark’s surface.

It was said the sap of these trees, invisible to the naked eye but present in every drop, had the rare power to purify the body, not as a brutal remedy, but as a soft, progressive healing that cleansed both flesh and memories.

And it was also whispered that it soothed souls — not by erasing them, but by softening them, restoring to the weight of wounds a new lightness, that of things accepted rather than denied.

These trees did not speak.

But their presence said everything.

On the ground, as we moved through this part of the sanctuary where even silence seemed gathered, almost reverent, our steps brushed against a plant carpet of incredible softness — the Verdweave Carpets, a rare form of living moss, thick and supple like a still-warm cloud, whose surface, both silky and elastic, gently deformed under our heels before regaining its shape with fluid slowness, as if it welcomed each of our steps with gratitude rather than indifference.

Each time we set foot upon it, a pale glow, discreet but clear, rose beneath us, briefly lighting the moss with a soft, almost maternal light, tracing behind us a luminous trail — not to show us where to go, but to remind us that we were, in that moment, exactly where we needed to be.

And around us, in the unseen heights, between the hanging leaves and the calm curves of the branches, fluttered Libelulys, fine winged creatures, like dragonflies born of a flower and a star, whose long, diaphanous wings barely vibrated in the air, drawing with each beat a line of iridescent light, almost liquid, that slowly dissipated into a trail of vegetal sparks.

They did not flee our presence.

They accompanied us.

Their passage was no accident.

It was an offering.

And under this sky that seemed to bless us in silence, every breath of air, every rustle of leaves, every shimmer in the wake of the Libelulys reminded us that we were no longer in a place to be passed through, but in a world that had accepted us.

And that perhaps, in return, hoped to be loved.

Even the sounds here seemed transformed, washed of all violence, as if simply crossing this land had been enough to purify them, to rid them of everything the outside world imposed — no more shrillness, no more cries from the belly of a beast in hunt or a heart in flight, no more dull impacts, no more breaks in the air — only a slow, continuous symphony, offered in filigree, where each vibration seemed designed to soothe rather than disturb.

There was here neither alert nor urgency, none of those sounds that in other places would instinctively draw a hand to a weapon or a gaze toward an unseen threat.

Only the soothing trickle of a thread of water somewhere among the stones, whose regular lapping drew a soft, almost maternal rhythm.

The trembling of leaves, which the wind brushed without ever forcing, as if it whispered instead of blowing.

The distant, crystalline song of a Mirrocolibri, a tiny bird with shimmering feathers, whose high and clear tone seemed suspended from the light itself.

And sometimes, rarer still, more precious than all sounds combined — a silence so pure, so absolute, that it resonated in us like a single note, like an inner chord, a silence that did not weigh down, but stretched, vibrating, to the most intimate part of flesh and soul, reminding us that the absence of noise could, sometimes, be the fullest form of music.

Rather than crossing the oasis, rather than placing our steps at the heart of that mirror of water and light, we decided, almost in one breath, almost without needing to say it aloud, to walk around it — not out of fear, for there was nothing here that could threaten us, not out of caution, for no danger lingered in the air, but simply out of respect, out of that silent form of reverence one does not learn but feels, when one understands that certain places are not meant to be traversed, that their silence, their balance, require that one approach without ever crossing them.

This place, with its liquid light, its slow creatures, and its whispered songs on the surface of the world, was not meant to be trodden.

It was meant to remain intact.

Pure.

Unviolated.

And so, with the slowness imposed by the sacred, we followed the shore, walking without sound, gently parting with almost instinctive delicacy the low branches that leaned over our path — not to stop us, but to test us.

The ground, denser, moister, was covered in thick, supple roots, which we learned to read like an ancient map, and the light, filtered through the canopy’s intertwined foliage, fell in pale, shifting veils onto the tropical undergrowth we traversed, giving each step the feeling of passing from one dream to another, from a world to a memory.

We walked along the colossal roots of ancient fig trees, so vast, so deeply anchored, that one might have believed they held up the entire world, and in their twists, in their immense knots, there was a silent wisdom, an ageless memory, as if these trees had seen the first souls of this world come to life and still bore their trace in their knotted bark.

Several days passed like this, without disruption, without rupture, in a continuity so fluid that it sometimes became difficult to say where one dawn ended and the twilight began, as if time, in contact with this oasis, had finally decided to no longer impose its pace but to fade into the natural rhythm of breaths, silences, and light.

We slept near the water, a few steps from the shore, where the ground was warm and supple, covered with living plant carpets, under the immense shelter of leaves large as ancient canvases stretched by invisible hands, shielded from the wind but not from the song of the world, lulled each night by the regular lapping of water against the stones, a soft, circular sound, and by the glimmers of stars that, from their clear sky, came to reflect on the lake’s mirror as if they too wished to lie beside us for a while.

Every morning, when we opened our eyes, it was not noise or agitation that woke us, but the light itself, slow and majestic, sliding over the water’s surface in subtle arcs, tracing curves of gold and amber between grass and rocks, giving dawn the look of a first day each time.

And every evening, as in a choreography written by silence, the nocturnal creatures awoke without disturbance, without cries, without sudden rustling, appearing among the foliage like thoughts in motion, sometimes approaching, always retreating in time, as if they danced not to disturb our passage, as if they knew we were there to see, not to take.

And in this discreet ballet, in this offered slowness, in this peace that no longer even sought to be noticed, we were learning, without saying it, to breathe differently.

Lysara, more and more often, began to smile for no apparent reason, without a word spoken, without an event to justify it, as if something in her was gently lighting up from within, and that smile — discreet, almost shy — was simply responding to a peace she had never known before, a peace that asked for nothing, that demanded neither loyalty nor vigilance, but offered itself with the slowness and gentleness of a world that does not judge.

Sometimes she would stop, in the middle of the path, without warning, and remain there, motionless, eyes lifted to a branch, or fixed on a root, as if she were listening to something I could not hear — then she would reach out, sometimes, to place her hand on the bark of a tree, or on the smooth, warm surface of a stone bathed in light, saying nothing, as if the simple contact was enough to establish an ancient dialogue, forgotten, but never truly lost.

And I, a few steps away, watched her do it, without intervening, without asking questions, without breaking the invisible link slowly weaving between her and the place, and I understood, without needing more: this world was adopting her, not as a stranger who had earned her place, but as a daughter found again, awaited, recognized — and she, without realizing it, was blending into it, not by effort, but because something essential within her was finally finding its form again.

We were no longer in a hurry.

Yes, the crystal was waiting somewhere, motionless at the heart of the oasis, like an ancient heart beating to a rhythm other than ours, a vast, patient rhythm, without demand — but it could wait a while longer, it could accept that we arrive not at the end of a journey, but at the end of an inner consent, because what mattered now was no longer the arrival, but this slow glide of our steps in a world that seemed to write itself before our eyes as we brushed against it.

The world we were crossing had ceased to be a place; it had become an open-air poem, a shifting text woven of water, wind, and light, a long ancient murmur of love between earth and sky, a conversation old as ages, which we merely brushed with our breath, and in which we were not authors, nor even witnesses — we had become humble readers, discreet passers, almost silent, tracing each verse, each stanza, each rhyme with reverent slowness, never wanting to turn the page too fast, never skipping a line.

And for nearly a month — or what might have been a month, so much had time lost its edge — we kept walking, not in a straight line, but in slow, deliberate curves, following the deep contours of the oasis, climbing velvety hills where the grass seemed woven from green silk, crossing groves scented with sweet spices and unknown fruits, where each step stirred a new aroma, and entire forests bathed in filtered light, where trunks shone like stained glass and where silence sang.

Each day, the world offered us something.

An image.

A breath.

A gleam.

Each day brought its share of wonders — not to dazzle us, but to remind us, slowly, that we were alive.