Paranoid Garden Novels & Stories

After seeing Harvey, they had strange looks on their faces but quickly got their act together. Harvey let out a chuckle at the sight before him. “Something wrong, Ms. Alani?” Alani wore a gloomy face for a while, then sighed. “Let’s go for a walk in the garden, shall we?” Harvey nodded, then motioned for Rachel to get to work. Then, he followed Alani into the garden inside the Gibson family’s residence. The garden was a small one, only about five thousand square feet. It was covered in purple orchids and was not anything fancy, but the place was well-maintained.

**"Cycle disrupted. Purge protocol initiated." Ravel grimaces. "Worse than a god?" "Worse," I say, staring at the sky. "*Engineers*." **The garden's makers have come to finish the job-and we're the weeds.**

"How deliciously ordinary you are. Tell me, child, do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into?" "I know enough," Iris replied, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. Through her connection to the garden, she could feel the plants' terror, their desperate attempts to flee from something that represented everything antithetical to growth and life. "I know that you're a parasite who feeds on others' suffering, and that you've come here to destroy something beautiful because you can't bear to see redemption flourish."

Sera held that. At six years old. Before sunrise. Sitting with a notebook and a clause draft paper and a photograph. Arriving at the thing Sera herself had only partially articulated in seven years of building. “What did you say to her,” Sera said. “Nothing,” Elliot said. “I poured more coffee. After a while she said: the peony is the connection paragraph. Zara planted the peony before Helena arrived because she understood it needed to exist. Your grandmother wrote the paragraph before the people who needed it existed because she understood the same thing. Both of them building for the arrival of the person. Both of them trusting the duration.” He held Sera’s gaze. “Then she said: the garden

We’re standing across the street from the soldiers, part of a small crowd of anxious people, most of who were sitting on that very patio just a few moments ago. With its green plants, pink and red bougainvillea blossoms and white trellis, the garden seems much too lovely to be the source of any danger, but I’ve never known Radar to be wrong. Her dark eyes are glistening as she stares toward the patio. I follow her gaze. Not for the first time, I wonder what she’s seeing. She’s tried to explain it, but whenever she begins to describe it, her mind seems to go blank and she can’t remember. But as soon as she sees another one, she knows immediately what it is. I guess Powers often work like that

My own arms felt like they were made of lead; one felt heavy on my stomach while the other dangled freely towards the ground. I could hear Alec speaking to me but my brain couldn't process anything he was saying. It all sounded like complete gibberish, as if he was speaking in some made up language. I could see sparks and stars zooming across my field of view as I searched around. Eventually, one of the stars stopped in front of a car, and I realized I was being put inside of it.

who caught falling lights was gone, replaced by a man who couldn't even take off his own shoes. He gave it up for me, Elion thought. He gave up the power. He gave up the memory. Elion walked to the window. He peeked through the gap in the velvet drapes. The garden was dark. The moon was hidden behind storm clouds. He thought he saw movement near the hydrangeas. He froze. A shadow? A cameraman? He waited. Nothing moved. "Paranoia," Elion whispered to himself. "It's contagious." He turned away. He walked to the desk where his notebook lay open.

The only thing that he could do was to make the most of the experience. Soon after, they reached the place. It was only a fairly large garden that had a small gazebo in the middle of it. There were gates surrounding the garden, but they weren’t really locked as people were free to be there, even when not everyone knew about its existence. On the red front gates, there was a sign that said, “Strawberry Fields Forever”. He found that sign funny as there were no strawberries that could be found inside it, just little flowers and plants that helped the place look like it came out of a fairytale.

“It’s your 56th sigh.” “You’re counting?” he asked and laughed. “I’m fine,” he said. “I did not ask,” I replied and continued eating. We are in a secret garden. As what he called it. Well, he told me that it's the name of the garden. I told him why it's called like that when it's not a secret. Though students do not usually flock here. I am right, it looks amazing, now that I’m really in front of it. I continued staring at the birds chirping, leaves slowly dancing, the wind singing. It’s magical.

"I want to hear everything!" As I persist in trying to get an answer from my mother, I notice something strange happening around me. The garden, which had been so lush and green just moments before, begins to change. The grass turns brown and withers, and the flowers droop and fade. A thick fog rolls in, obscuring my view of the garden and the distant mountains. The sky darkens, and the warm sun disappears behind a curtain of heavy, grey clouds. I turn back to my mother, and she's gone. In her place, there's nothing but a pile of broken glass, glittering in the dim light.