Apophysis..

The city was breathing. I could feel it in the tremor of the ground, the shuddering of the ferrocrete under my boots. Even the air crackled with an unseen energy. They called it the 4th City—the ‘Rewilding’—but it felt more like a cage was being built around us.  

It started subtly. A fine mesh, shimmering with an oily iridescence, woven between the buildings. The Architects—those gaunt figures in their chitinous masks—called it ‘Apophysis,’ the bridge between nature and structure. They spoke of harmony, of a return to the source. But their words rang hollow against the hum of the ever-growing network.  

The trees, once stark against the steel and glass, were the first to be consumed. The mesh enveloped them, their leaves turning into bioluminescent panels, their branches hardening into conduits. Then came the animals—birds with metallic wings, dogs with glowing fur, their eyes vacant orbs reflecting the city’s warped metamorphosis.  

I watched from my window, the world outside twisting into a fever dream. The mesh tightened, the gaps between the buildings shrinking, the sky a fractured mosaic of light and shadow. The Architects, their forms growing more insectile by the day, patrolled the streets, their whispers echoing in the deepening gloom.  

One night, the hum intensified, the ground vibrating with a monstrous rhythm. I looked out to see the mesh coalescing, forming a dome over the city, sealing us in. The stars—once a distant promise of escape—were now just pinpricks of light in the suffocating canopy.  

The Architects had achieved their Apophysis—a city turned into an organism, its inhabitants trapped within its monstrous shell. And I, along with the rest, was left to wonder if this was a rewilding or a return to some primordial prison.