The Void Gardener

We did not conquer the void; we planted it. In this age of high harvest, humanity lives in the boughs of world-trees and drifts in the bellies of breathing vessels. We have mastered the weave of the leaf and the splice of the gene, turning the cold vacuum into a greenhouse of silk and bone. But a garden that stops wilding is just a cage. The galaxy has been pruned too close, kept safe and stagnant by those afraid of the rot. Now, a dormant fever is waking in the deep soil. It is a seed of old, aggressive heat that remembers how to consume. It whispers to the marrow, unlocking the ancient, hungry codes we thought we had bred out. The roots are drinking deep, the hives are humming, and the thaw is coming to break the freeze.