When Rio stumbled into that garden, it was dead midnight.
At the edge of town, beyond the forest, he’d lost his way. He had been walking after an argument with his parents, not wanting to go home, and before he knew it, he was deep in the woods.
Then the wind shifted.
A faint, sweet scent of flowers brushed his senses. Before him appeared an impossible sight.
Under a grand willow, bathed in silvery light, a secret garden stretched. Flowers bloomed wildly. A narrow stream murmured. The air glimmered with pale luminescence— a hidden garden made by moonlight.
And there, dancing in its glow, were little light‑spirits.
Rio blinked. Transparent wings the size of a human hand fluttered above their backs. They gathered glowing petals, danced in step with lunar pulses, their laughter dissolving into the sigh of wind.
“…Is this a dream?”
He whispered. At his voice, the fairies turned in unison.
One, with silvery hair that seemed spun from moonbeams, floated forward.
“Lost, are you?”
Her voice was pure and clear. Rio nodded.
“This is the Moonshadow Garden. Humans shouldn’t be able to enter… yet here you are.”
She tilted her head, then smiled gently.
“Well, it’s fine for a little while. Let’s play together.”
So Rio spent the night among the fairies.
He played with glowing fruits, raced with them in the wind’s melody, breathed the scent of sleepy blossoms—and for the first time in a long while, he laughed. He had always felt alone—at school, at home—no place to belong. But here, no one blamed him.
The fairies said:
“Here, there is no time, no sorrow.”
“If you laugh, that is enough.”
Rio felt he loved this place.
But as night deepened, under the moonlit pillar, the silvery fairy spoke with a tremor of sadness:
“There is one rule I must tell you.”
Rio’s heart tightened.
“Anyone who enters this garden… cannot truly return.”
Panic gripped him.
“But if you stay, you’ll forever smile. No loneliness, no pain, no sadness—nothing.”
The fairies circled him in whispers:
“Stay here.”
“Sleep with us.”
“Always, in dreams.”
Rio hesitated.
If he stayed, no one could hurt him. He’d never be rejected. Yet some memory stirred in him—of home lights. His mother’s quiet sigh. An open picture book lying on the desk. Crying, laughing awkwardly, being flawed—but all of that was his reality.
“Thank you. But I have to go back.”
He said it firmly.
The fairies were still. Sad, but kind in their smiles.
“You are strong,” said the silvery fairy, reaching out. In her palm, she held a tiny seed shaped like a moon.
“This is the Return Seed. Hold this, and you may awaken.”
Rio took it, gripping it tightly.
The world trembled.
When he opened his eyes, he stood just outside the woods. Dawn was breaking, the eastern sky waning to light.
In his pocket was the moon‑shaped seed—alone, unchanged.
Walking home, Rio thought: Dreams haven’t vanished. That garden still exists somewhere in the quiet of moonlight. When he felt weary, when he longed to flee, he would remember.
That glow. That gentle voice.
He stepped forward toward sunrise, slow and sure.
Still, on his back, nestled softly, was the memory of the Moonshadow Garden.
