Himawari Wa Yoru Ni Saku ⇒

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.

The next night, there were two.

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. Himawari Wa Yoru Ni Saku

The night was long. But the sunflowers had only just begun. The soil of Sector 7 was dead by noon

The sunflowers didn't care.

She went back to the hydroponic bays and began filling her pockets with more seeds. Nothing had for forty years

It had been lodged in a crack of the old pre-fall greenhouse, a tiny black teardrop no bigger than her thumbnail. She almost threw it away. But there was something about the shell — a faint whorl, like a fingerprint, like a promise.