1054: Story 1054: The Nightshade Sentinel 1054: Story 1054: The Nightshade Sentinel In the abandoned gardens of the Dervan Estate, flowers still bloomed—lush, vivid, and wrong.
Where other gardens wilted under the weight of the apocalypse, this one thrived, choked with vines of black roses and midnight lilies.
It was said that the estate once belonged to botanist Ira Dervan, a recluse obsessed with immortality through plantlife.
But when the dead began to rise, Dervan’s house vanished beneath a curtain of blossoms and fog.
Now, only whispers remained of the Nightshade Sentinel.
Renna Cross, scavenger and amateur folklorist, came looking for medicinal herbs.
She found a garden that breathed.
The flowers moved—not in the breeze, but by instinct.
Petals twisted toward her.
Leaves followed her steps.
And at the center of the maze-like hedgerows stood a statue of stone and vines: a cloaked figure clutching a scythe made of bone and root.
Renna blinked.
The statue had changed.
Its head was now tilted slightly… watching.
She pressed on, deeper into the floral maze.
She knew the legends—of a gardener who struck a deal with something beneath the soil, trading his soul to protect life eternal.
It was a selfish pact, meant to preserve his plants even as humanity rotted.
The garden would feed on decay, harvesting death to bloom forever.
But what Dervan didn’t expect… was to become the garden’s guardian.
A sentinel.
As night fell, the flowers began to whisper.
Words made of pollen.
Breaths carried on petals.
“Pluck a bloom, and pay the price.”
Renna pulled a single obsidian blossom from the ground.
The garden wailed.
The statue bled.
Roots lashed out, cracking stone paths and clawing at her boots.
From the soil rose creatures made of blossoms and bone—flower-faced corpses stitched together by vines, each one bearing Dervan’s twisted signature.
And at the garden’s heart, the Sentinel awoke.
A towering figure clad in rotting burlap and ivy, hollow-eyed, its mouth sewn shut with rose thorns.
It moved with jerks and cracks, dragging its scythe behind it, followed by swarms of petal-leeches.
Renna ran.
She weaved through tunnels of green where the walls closed in, where every step bloomed a trap.
The Sentinel gave chase, slower than death but just as inevitable.
Its breath was the scent of wilt and ruin.
She reached the statue again—realized the truth.
The Sentinel wasn’t chasing her to kill her.
It wanted replacement.
It was tired.
It needed a new guardian.
Renna made her choice.
She set fire to the bloom she’d taken.
The garden screamed, roots recoiled, and the Sentinel froze mid-swing.
Fire spread like memory—consuming vines, petals, and the body that had once been Ira Dervan.
By dawn, the estate was ash and dust.
And yet…
From beneath the soot, a single sprout pushed through.
Dark.
Glossy.
Smiling.
“Every garden needs a keeper.”