Himawari Wa Yoru Ni Saku -

The next night, it had grown six inches.

The night after that, a foot.

A child wandered down one night and saw the flowers. She didn't scream. She sat down in the middle of the golden light and laughed.

The sunflowers didn't care.

Oriko turned off her headlamp.

She went back to the hydroponic bays and began filling her pockets with more seeds.

The buds had appeared on the stem's branches overnight, and now they opened in sequence — first one, then another, then another — until the plant was crowned with a dozen soft, glowing blooms. The light reached the walls now, pushing back the shadows. Oriko noticed something strange. The concrete around the pot was cracking. Tiny green shoots were pushing through — weeds, she thought at first, but no. They were more sunflowers. Dozens of them. Sprouting from the dead floor. Himawari Wa Yoru Ni Saku

She sat there until her shift started, watching the sunflower burn in the dark.

Oriko smiled.

The light spread.

But as she looked at the child's face — lit up for the first time in her life by something that was not a screen or a lamp — Oriko realized something.

Then, on the fifteenth night, she saw it.

But one month ago, she found the seed.