BREW

The moment the fruit burst on the Janitor's shoulder, a shockwave of soundless pressure rang out.

Echoes staggered—not from the impact, but from the sheer distortion of the dream layer. The earth twitched beneath their feet, not physically, but perceptually. Reality blinked—colors reversed, shadows reversed direction, and sound refused to obey.

"Contain the anomaly!" bellowed one of the Echoes, driving an anchoring spike into the warped ground.

A pulse from the Janitor's chest knocked back three operatives. The vines—now thick, thorned, and twitching—extended like veins of corrupted earth. They sank into the ground and from each root's tip, a new distortion bloomed.

Buildings melted like wax and reformed as twisting wood and glass. Roads shifted. A mist hissed from grates and drains, curling like breath from a buried beast.

Ran activated a layered sigil with a flick of his hand. A hexagonal dome of shimmering barrier surrounded the nearest teams.

"Push it back! We break the pattern or we die with it!"

Another Echo raised a relic rifle—one shot unleashed a stream of spectral flame that arced like lightning through the air. It struck the Janitor directly—but the vines moved, shielding it like a cocoon.

The scream didn't come from the Janitor. It came from the ground.

Roots burst from the asphalt, splitting roads apart. From each rupture crawled anomalies of unknown class—twisted beings made from architecture, memory, and nightmare logic. One looked like a school desk with writhing legs and a child's crying mouth; another resembled a man of concrete and ringing doorbells.

"Those aren't natural Lucid formations," Merry spat, blades already glowing with cursed patterns. "This is a conceptual collapse."

The Janitor's body began to bend unnaturally. Not just physically—but thematically.

Echoes began yelling over comms, but their voices cut in and out with overlapping echoes of themselves from different time frames.

Ran drew a seal into the air with a fluid circle of his wrist. A cascade of protective wards expanded outward, clashing against an unseen energy. The vines recoiled—but so did Ran.

"It's fighting back with the environment now. The vine—it's not just inside it. It is the concept now."

A soldier from a separate team screamed. His feet sank into the pavement as if it turned to liquid. When others reached him, he was already dissolving into black sludge. His screams faded.

Another Echo turned and roared, "We need to isolate its influence! It's rewriting everything!"

One fruit dropped from the Janitor's shoulder. It didn't hit the ground. It hovered.

Then split.

From it, a being emerged—slender, shapeless, faceless. It walked like it knew where it was, like it belonged to this broken version of the world. And with it came music—a distant, warbling waltz.

Merry lunged forward with her scissors, slashing open a tear in the terrain. She dived into a gap of rearranged memory and struck at the Janitor directly.

A gash opened in the Janitor's side, revealing not organs but looping vines tangled around flashes of memory. One looked like a child crying in a foggy alley. Another, a school burning in reverse.

Ran struck next. He slammed a sealing orb into the ground.

A massive glyph detonated beneath the Janitor's feet, blasting upward in golden light. The vines shrieked—not audibly, but in a pulsing pressure that made every soldier buckle.

The Janitor's body twitched.

The vines jerked.

And finally, the anomaly screamed—not like a person. Not like a monster.

Like a concept breaking.

"NOW!" Merry and Ran shouted in unison.

The Echoes drove in their anchors. Energy surged through the street like an earthquake trapped in a circuit.

The final blow didn't come from a blade.

It came from within. The vines, too fast to be seen, exploded outward—spilling something… else.

Something unrecorded.

Something the Janitor was trying to suppress.

And then… silence.

Nothing stood where the Janitor had been.

Only ash.

And the gentle thrum of the roots beneath.