Kenji's question, "How do I start planting?", transformed the atmosphere of the hospital room. It was no longer a space of illness and fear, but a command center for a war that only the two men present understood. Mateo leaned in closer, his blue eyes burning with the intensity of a forty-year mission that, for the first time, saw a new and unexpected possibility.
"You start at the beginning," Mateo said softly. "Not the beginning of your journey in Purgatory. The beginning of your recovery. You have to rebuild your mind here, in this world, on foundations of truth, not on the shifting sands of self-deception that led you there in the first place. The therapy Dr. Serrano offers you... don't reject it. Use it. The medication... take it as a temporary scaffold that helps you bear the weight while you rebuild. But the real work, the gardener's work, is something only you can do."
The theory was so vast, so overwhelming, it threatened to push me back to the brink of madness. To transform an extradimensional hell by planting flowers of kindness. It sounded like a madman's delusion. But the memory of the white flower in the forest... it was real. It was the only piece of evidence that mattered.
"But how do I know what to plant?" I asked, my voice a thread of uncertainty. "How do I know what acts here affect the ground there?"
"Purgatory gave you the map," Mateo replied. "Every level you overcame was a lesson about a specific weakness. Indifference, anger, selfishness, neglect, bitterness... spiritual laziness. The first seed you must plant is that of radical honesty. With yourself, and with those whom the roots of your weakness have hurt."
"My family... Valeria..." I whispered their names, and felt a pang of panic. "Do I have to tell them this? The truth?"
"No," Mateo said firmly, shaking his head. "Not the literal truth. Telling them about dimensions and purgatories would only drive them away, make them believe you're still delusional. The truth you must tell them is the emotional truth. The truth you learned at each level. You have to explain the why of your pain, not the where. And to do that, you have to understand your own journey. You have to order it. You have to be the cartographer of your own hell."
Mateo leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowed in intense concentration.
"There's something that doesn't fit, Kenji. I've spoken with the other three returned ones. Their journeys, though unique, followed a similar progression. Pain, acceptance, liberation. But your case... it's different. The depth of your break, the violence of your psychotic episode... it's exponentially worse. The system broke you in a more fundamental way. To begin planting, we have to understand why."
He leaned in, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. "Think about it. Retrace the path back in your memory. The forest, the feast, the burning city... each had an exit door, a staircase. And then, you reached the nothingness. The void. And there, you found the last door. The oak door. The door to your house."
I nodded, reliving the moment. The loneliness, the despair, the farewell to Koro.
"The other returned ones also describe that final door," Mateo said. "It's the threshold of return. But in their stories, the level immediately preceding that final door was the climax of their journey. The final battle against their greatest personal demon. And after that battle, they found the door as a reward. But in your case... the battle against your reflection, your laziness, occurred before that. There was one more level. A level that shouldn't have been there."
Confusion clouded my mind. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it, Kenji," he insisted, his voice urgent, pressing. "After breaking the mirror in the burning city, you fell into the void, where you forged your resolve. And from there, you took the seventh staircase. What happened next? What level was just before the final door? The level after the forest of wounds?"
The question baffled me. My mind was a labyrinth of overlapping horrors. I tried to order the memories, to put them in sequence. The forest... the thorns... the tree of myself. And then...
"The suburb," I whispered. "The fake house. The backyard. The grave..."
"Your dog's grave," Mateo completed. "Koro."
"Yes," I said, and the memory of my faithful friend brought with it a wave of warmth and sadness. "He appeared. And he guided me. He guided me to the next staircase."
"Exactly," Mateo said, and his tone was not one of relief, but of mounting tension. "He guided you to the eighth staircase. And then to the ninth. And after that ninth climb, you found the door. Do you see it? It should have ended after the seventh. The level with Koro was an addition. An epilogue no one else experienced. Something in that level, something about that loss, was different. It was the key to everything."
Mateo rose from his chair and began to pace the small room, his energy filling the space.
"REMEMBER, KENJI!" his voice, normally quiet, was now a thunderclap. "Not the memory of your dog dying! You've already processed that grief! Remember the level! The plastic house, the fake lawn, the dead perfection! What did it teach you? What truth did it force you to confront?"
The sudden shift in his demeanor startled me. But his urgency was contagious. I closed my eyes, pushing aside the hospital present, and plunged back into the memory of the suburban diorama.
I felt the artificial turf beneath my knees. The smell of fresh paint. The overwhelming sense of fakery. And the grave. And the grief for Koro, for my neglect.
"It was about my neglect," I said. "About how I took his love for granted..."
"NO!" Mateo exclaimed, so loudly it made my heart jump. "That was just the catalyst! The theme! Think about the lesson of the level! Each level had a core, a fundamental truth you had to accept for the next staircase to appear. What was that one's? What happened after you cried for your dog?"
The door to my room burst open. My father, who must have been waiting outside, entered, alerted by Mateo's shout. Behind him were my mother and Valeria, their faces pale with alarm.
"What's going on here?" Haruki demanded, his voice a low growl. "What are you doing to him?"
Mateo ignored him completely. His eyes were locked on me, piercing, demanding.
"KENJI, REMEMBER!" he repeated, his voice echoing in the small room. "You were in the perfect farce, crying a real grief. And what happened? What did the system grant you? Think! It was the only act of grace you received in your entire journey!"
Everyone in the room looked at me, a terrified audience to the spectacle of my mind being forced open.
And then, I remembered. The grace. The miracle.
"He came back," I whispered, my voice filled with awe. "Koro... he appeared. He was healthy. He was happy. And he guided me..."
"He guided you!" Mateo yelled, slamming his fist into his other palm. "That's it! That's the difference! In every other level, you had to find the way out yourself, through your own pain and acceptance. But in that one, after you finally expressed a pure, selfless grief, not for yourself, but for another... the system gave you a guide. It gave you help."
He turned to my family, his face a mask of epiphany.
"Don't you see?" he told them. "That's the key! The way to plant the flowers! It's not just about him healing. It's about us helping him! Your love, your patience, your presence... those aren't just medicines. They are interventions! They are acts of grace that can penetrate hell. The white flower he saw... Valeria, that was when you took his hand! Your love broke through!"
I stared at him, stunned. My family stood with their mouths agape, trying to process the incredible connection this stranger had just made. The Gardener's Hypothesis wasn't just about me working alone. It was about us. It was about the power of connection to heal not just a man, but a world. It was about Koro. It was about love.
"The oak door..." I said, my own voice trembling with the revelation. "The door to my house... It had all the scratches. All the scars. It wasn't a perfect door."
"Because the exit is never perfection," Mateo said, his voice now soft again, the storm having passed. "The exit is the acceptance of our imperfections. The exit is home. And home is not a place. It is the people waiting for you on the other side of the door."
I looked at my family, at Valeria, their faces now not fearful, but tentatively awestruck. And for the first time since I returned, I didn't see just the ghosts of my past. I saw my fellow gardeners. I saw my rescue team. I saw my way home.