"Ouch!" yelled a started young Jack, who had just fallen down on the grass next to his friend Zoe. They were playing around in their parent's back yard as usual, and had managed to scramble themselves onto the ground and get dirty again. "Dinner!" their mother called out to them. "Beat you to it" said Zoe, and she started running back up to the house. "No fair!" Jack yelled back, slightly annoyed but also a little hungry he chased after his younger sister. As they were running back up the long hill to the house, they tripped over an oddly placed rock that hadn't been there the day before and fell into a puddle of mud. As they got up to brush themselves off, they both started to wonder about the rock. How did it get there? Who put it there? What was its sole purpose, just to hurt them? Of course, Jack couldn't let a rock beat up his little sister like that, so he started trying to move it and eventually budged it a couple of inches from where it originally was. It was obviously just placed down; even though it was a few inches deep into the soil, it had rained the day before, so the ground had naturally settled. As he continued budging the rock, their mother called out to them one more time. "Coming!" yelled Zoe, clearly a little hurt but now curious about the rock too. As they worked together to reveal what could have been underneath it, they found themselves uncovering a hole in the ground. As they flipped the rock over, Jack slipped back into the mud, giving Zoe the first glimpse at what could be under the mysteriously colored rock."Woah, that's crazy" said Zoe, and at that moment, she got sucked in.

Ten minutes later—armed with a flashlight, a rope, and Zoe’s absolute certainty that this was a great idea—they squeezed into a narrow tunnel beneath the rock. It sloped downward, smooth as if it had been carved long ago. The farther they crawled, the brighter it became.

Then, suddenly, the tunnel ended.

Jack and Zoe stepped out into sunlight and gasped.

Before them stretched a garden unlike any they had ever seen. Flowers shimmered as if dusted with gold. Vines climbed gracefully over stone arches, and trees bore fruit in every color imaginable—deep blue pears, silver apples, glowing red berries. A stream wound through the grass, humming softly, almost like it was singing.

“This is impossible,” Jack said.

Zoe grinned. “That’s my favorite kind of thing.”

As they explored, they noticed the garden seemed to respond to them. When Zoe laughed, blossoms opened wider. When Jack touched the stream, the water sparkled brighter. In the center of the garden stood a wooden sign, weathered but clear:

“The garden grows for those who care for it.”

They spent the afternoon watering plants, pulling gentle weeds, and tasting fruit that somehow knew exactly what they liked best. Time felt slower, kinder.

When the sun began to dip, the tunnel softly glowed, inviting them back.