Himawari Wa Yoru Ni Saku -

Instead, she brought more soil. More pots. She worked faster, quieter, smuggling nutrients from the hydroponic bays, rerouting a trickle of water from a leaky pipe. Every night, she came back. Every night, the garden grew.

For two weeks, nothing.

Oriko turned off her headlamp.

By the end of the month, the entire sub-level was a forest of glowing sunflowers, their soft radiance filtering up through the grating, spilling into the lower corridors. People began to notice. At first, they were afraid — the arcology had taught them to fear anything that grew without permission. But fear turned to curiosity, and curiosity to wonder.

The sunflowers didn't care.

The soil of Sector 7 was dead by noon. For twelve hours, the artificial sun of the arcology blazed down, a merciless eye that bleached the concrete and boiled the last nutrients from the earth. Nothing grew in the day fields. Nothing had for forty years.

In the absolute darkness of the sub-level, the sunflower began to glow. Himawari Wa Yoru Ni Saku

Then, on the fifteenth night, she saw it.