In the year 2147, the city of Neo-Veridia wasn’t built on the ground—it floated a thousand meters in the air, held aloft by magnetic fields generated by ancient fusion reactors. Below, on the surface, only ruins covered in moss remained, and forests had reclaimed what were once metropolises.
Irvis, an ecosystem restorer, worked at the frontier between sky and earth. His mission was to maintain the city’s air filters, but his true passion was exploring the lower ruins—something forbidden by the High City Council.
One day, while repairing a wind sensor on the edge of the precipice, Irvis found a crack in the support structure. Peering through, he didn’t see the usual darkness, but a faint golden light emanating from a hidden valley. Curious, he descended on a safety rope until he reached the ground.
What he found there left him breathless. In the middle of a forest of giant ferns, there was a garden. But these weren’t ordinary plants. They were structures of copper and crystal that grew like flowers, emitting a soft sound, like a constant whisper. As he approached, Irvis noticed the «flowers» reacted to his presence, changing color and tone according to his emotions.
It turned out that centuries ago, a group of scientists had created these «Memory Gardens» to preserve humanity’s history before pollution made the surface uninhabitable. The copper structures were programmed to record and reproduce the sounds, images, and feelings of those who visited.
Touching a blue copper flower, Irvis heard the laughter of a child playing in a park—a memory he’d never lived. Touching a red one, he felt the warmth of summer sun from ages past. The garden didn’t just store data; it stored the essence of humanity.
But the garden was dying. The energy from the city’s reactors had declined, and without it, the flowers began to dim. Irvis knew that if he didn’t act, this last vestige of human history would disappear forever.