LOCUS-9: Until The Last Leaf Fell

Rhyse Aurelan had three months left. Eryth Vale had forever to hold his silence.
In a crumbling outpost at the world's edge, a solitary scientist tends a plant that should not exist.
Its roots are sunk in ash. Its leaves drink a poisoned wind.
Still, it blooms-year after year.
Among the dust, he finds a box of unsent letters.
Each one is addressed to a name he's never spoken.
Each one ends the same way: Come home.
Through winters when frost bit through the glass, through summers when the air turned to steam, he tends the garden as if the world depends on it. Perhaps it does.
He reads the letters when the nights are too long.
He waits for someone who will never return.
Some things grow because you love them.
Some things grow because you can't let them go.
And some things... wither the moment you learn the truth.
Some things are kept alive out of hope.
Others, out of grief.
And sometimes, it's impossible to tell the difference.