Veil of Truth

Victoria distributed the seeds, placing one in each person's palm with calmness and patience. They were unlike anything Erel had ever seen, as black as obsidian but unnaturally warm to the touch, pulsing with a rhythm that felt disturbingly like a heartbeat against his skin.
She gestured toward the seven plots of rich, dark soil arranged in their perfect circle. "Plant your seeds and tend them with truth. But understand, these are not ordinary plants. They feed on honesty, grow strong from confession, and wither from lies. Each seed will battle the others for dominance. Only one plant will reach the light above."
"And the person whose plant dies?" Miss Grey asked, though her expression suggested she already knew the answer she dreaded to hear.
"Becomes fertiliser for the survivors," Victoria replied with casual cruelty, her rose-petal eyes blooming with sadistic pleasure.
Miss Blackwood's face drained of all colour. "This is madness. You're asking us to compete for our lives by... by confessing our secrets?"
"Not just secrets, darling. Your deepest truths. The things that define who you are beneath all the carefully constructed pretence." Victoria's voice hummed as if she were enjoying it all.
Captain Stone stepped forward, as sweat beaded on his weathered forehead. "What if we refuse to participate?"
"Then all your plants die simultaneously, and you all become fertiliser together. The game requires willing participation, that's what makes it so deliciously cruel." Victoria's laugh was like a cold wind through a graveyard. "Free will is such a beautiful thing to snatch away."
Miss Blackwood was trembling, her small hands clutching her seed so tightly her knuckles had gone white. "I can't do this. I can't share... I have to find Sarah. I can't die here."
‘Why the hell did she even enter the plane? Wait, she might be a construct… the exaggerated emotions, it makes sense.’
Miss Grey placed a protective hand on her shoulder. "We don't have a choice. If we're going to survive, we need to follow the rules."
Reluctantly, the group approached their chosen plots with the fear of what was to come next.
‘Let's test the extent of his bullcrap’, he thought, as he proceeded towards Thorne.
As they knelt to plant their seeds in the hungry soil, Erel struck up what appeared to be casual conversation with Thorne. "Professor, this reminds me of the bio-planar experiments at the Thornfield Research Station. Didn't they find an entity that was similar in one of the breach zones?"
Thorne's eyes lit up with interest. "Oh yes! Though their methodology was quite different, the application was similar indeed.”
‘Another nonexistent research facility. He's responding like it's common knowledge in academic circles.’
"The watering begins now," Victoria announced, producing an ornate watering can that seemed to be carved from wood. "But before you begin, understand this: your plants will only grow strong enough to survive if you feed them your most vital truth. Not surface embarrassments or minor shames, the truth that cuts deepest, that you guard most fiercely."
The group exchanged uncomfortable glances, the weight of impending vulnerability settling over them.
"Most vital truth?" Dr. West asked carefully, his silence breaking for the first time.
"The secret that defines you. The moment that broke you. The choice that damned you." Victoria's smile was predatory, revealing teeth that seemed to be covered in vines. "Anything less, and your plant will be too weak to compete against the others."
Miss Blackwood stepped back, shaking her head with desperate denial. "I... I can't. There are things I've never told anyone. Things I can't say out loud."
"Then you'll die," Victoria said mockingly."I'll go first," Erel said suddenly, surprising himself with the decision.
‘Get it over with. We will reach nowhere like this. And maybe for once I’ll say it out loud.’
The watering can felt unnaturally heavy as Erel lifted it, the weight of more than just liquid inside. He poured it over his planted seed, the liquid seeming to seep into the soil with hungry eagerness.
"My parents died inside a Tier 3 plane." His voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence of the conservatory, everyone heard every word with utmost clarity. "Everyone thinks they died because the plane was too dangerous, because they weren't prepared for the supernatural threats. But that's not what happened."
He could feel his hands starting to shake, years of carefully buried memories clawing their way to the surface. "They had already figured out how to overcome the plane's narrative. But I was dead weight, barely a toddler who couldn't understand the danger and accompanied them inside without permission."
The words felt like they were tearing his throat apart, each syllable costing him blood. "They... they could have saved themselves, could have let the plane claim me and escaped together. But they chose to sacrifice their lives for mine instead."
"All because I was curious about planes, I was just a scared child hiding behind his parents while they died for me.”
The water hit the soil, as the earth blazed with light, and his plant emerged strong and vital, nourished by the deepest pain he'd ever known.
"I can't follow that," Captain Stone said hoarsely, his composure completely shattered, “It was a mistake coming into this plane.”
"You have to," Miss Grey said quietly, her voice gentle but implacable. "We all do."
Miss Blackwood's hands were shaking so violently she could barely hold the watering can without spilling its contents. "Sarah didn't just disappear," she finally choked out, her voice breaking like glass. "She... she ran away because of me. Because I was supposed to be her guardian after our parents died, but I was so lost in my own grief that I completely failed her."
Her voice broke completely, dissolving into sobs that shook her entire frame. "She tried to tell me how much she was hurting. She'd come to my room at night, crying, wanting to talk about Mom and Dad. But I was so wrapped up in my own pain that I'd tell her to go back to bed, that I couldn't handle her grief on top of my own."
The tears were streaming down her face now. "The night she left, she begged me one last time. Said she felt like she was drowning and needed her big sister to save her. And I... I told her I couldn't save anyone, not even myself. That she needed to grow up and stop being so needy."
Her sobs made it hard to understand the next words. "She said she wished she'd never had a sister who was too selfish to love her. And she was right. I failed the one person who needed me most because I was too broken to see past my own suffering."
The soil accepted her anguish with brilliant light, her plant emerging fragile but determined, fed by genuine remorse and a sister's love.
Captain Stone stared at his watering can for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with barely controlled emotion. "Seven good men died because I couldn't admit I was wrong."
His weathered hands began to shake as memories he'd tried to bury clawed their way to the surface. "We were hunting escaped entities that had infested a city, but it was impossible to handle by just us. But I'd failed on my previous mission assigned by Concordat, and I was so desperate to prove myself, so terrified of being seen as indecisive, that I ignored every warning sign."
His voice cracked entirely, "I led them straight into the horde because I was too proud to admit uncertainty. Seven good soldiers screaming on the radio for extraction that would never come while battling frenzied creatures that tore them apart. I can still hear Martinez calling for his mother as he bled out. Still hear Rodriguez begging me to tell his baby daughter that daddy loved her."
The water fell from his trembling hands onto the soil, his plant growing to be strong and sturdy under its dazzling light.
Dr. West approached his watering calmly, yet his steps seemed to falter.. "I stopped seeing patients as people years ago. They became opportunities, stepping stones in my quest for medical advancement."
His voice grew quieter, more human, as if rediscovering his humanity was physically painful. "Mrs. Henderson was seventy-three, dying of cancer that was perfect for my research. Her granddaughter begged me to let her go home, to spend her final weeks with family instead of being hooked to machines. But I convinced them that aggressive treatment was their only hope."
He stared at the watering can as if it contained liquid poison. "She died alone in a sterile room, connected to monitors and tubes, screaming for her granddaughter in her final moments while I harvested tissue samples. Three months of agony so I could publish a paper that might win me a research grant. Her granddaughter sent me a thank-you letter afterwards, grateful I'd 'done everything possible.'"
"I keep that letter in my desk drawer. I read it whenever I need to remember what I've become: a monster who feeds on human suffering."
The soil accepted his confession with a sickly, dim glow.
Madame Ravenwood clutched the watering can like a lifeline. "Margaret's son died at Verdun. She came to me every week for six months, spending money she couldn't afford, begging me to contact him."
Tears streaked through her face, revealing the broken woman beneath. "The spirits... my abilities, they showed me nothing. Just empty, mocking silence. But she was so desperate to believe he was at peace that he'd forgiven her for their terrible fight before he shipped out. She was spending her grocery money on sessions, going hungry just to hear from her dead boy."
Her voice broke completely, dissolving into sobs. "So I lied. Week after week, I gave her false messages from beyond. Told her William forgave her, that he was proud of her, that he watched over her from heaven. I let her spend her life savings believing every fabricated word."
She was sobbing now, her voice barely audible. "When she died, alone and penniless because she'd spent everything on my lies, she left me her house in her will. Said I was the only one who truly understood her connection to her son. I still live in that house. Sleep in her bed. Surrounded by pictures of the boy whose death I exploited for profit."
Her plant sprouted with unexpected vigour, fed by genuine remorse.
Miss Grey's confession came in clipped, sharp tones, but her hands trembled. "David Morrison was nineteen years old, an honour student, completely innocent of Rebecca's murder. I knew it within hours of investigation, timeline didn't work, alibi was solid, witness descriptions didn't match."
Her professional mask was cracking like ice under pressure. "But the real killer was Judge Crawford's nephew. Crawford had connections to the Concordat. Arresting him would have destroyed my career and accomplished nothing."
Her voice grew raw with self-hatred. "So I planted evidence, painted him as the one who was the culprit."
"David hanged himself in his cell three days before the trial. Used bedsheets torn into strips. Left a note saying he couldn't live with his mother, thinking he was a killer. Mrs. Morrison still sends me Christmas cards every year, thanking me for 'finding justice' for Rebecca."
Her voice was barely a whisper now, each word a blade twisted in her own heart. "She has no idea I destroyed her innocent son to protect the real monster."
The soil blazed with fierce light, accepting her self-hatred and corruption like a starving beast.
Professor Thorne adjusted his spectacles, seeming oddly detached from the emotional devastation around him. "I've sometimes adjusted and fabricated experimental data when results don't adequately support what I am trying to prove or what I know to be correct.”
His plant emerged looking small and pitiful compared to the others. Dwarfed by all the others.
Finally, Adren spoke, his voice hollow as an empty grave. "I ran away. I hated living in that house with all those monsters, so I ran away. She begged me to take her as well, my sister Mira, but I left her there. I left her in that hell of a house with all those fuckers who only care about fake family status and pretence, who will take away everything from her just as they did from me."
He poured the water with steady hands, each drop seeming to carry the weight of abandoned love.
His plant sprouted immediately, strong and bright, fed by his guilt.
"Magnificent!" Victoria clapped her hands together, seemingly delighted by their collective suffering. "All seven seeds watered with authentic truth. But now... now they will compete."
The plants began growing at supernatural speed, their growth visible to the naked eye as stems lengthened and leaves unfurled.

Chapter end