Two flowers grew in the corner of the square, wrapping around each other and trying to support the other. They had no experience with anything outside of what they saw now, nothing before nor after the grayness. They could see nothing outside of this era, could feel nothing but each other. Perhaps it was best it was that way. Perhaps they could know each other better without knowledge of anything other.
And so the two flowers lay together at the far corner of the square, nearer to the side of the city that was leveled by the grayness. Sochu stared blankly in the direction of it, trying to not focus on anything but Sakeuru’s hair, which refused to be tamed by fingers no matter how much Sochu tried. Sakeuru lay in Sochu’s lap, staring at the sky and wondering. Sakeuru wondered often about the world without grayness, without humanity as a unit of solemnity, where things had visual life and variety.
“Was there a time before the grayness?”
“I suppose.”
“Do you suppose the sky holds memories of those times?”
“I suppose that it is much too ridden with clouds to see that the gray is even here now.”
“Clouds?”
Sochu was older, and had lived for a short time in a world where they still taught about life before the grayness. Sakeuru was never taught by anyone but Sochu, but trusted every word, even if Sochu was unsure of it. Neither of them had ever seen the sky any different than it was now: gray and bland, wrinkled like the face of the only Old One left. No one grew old anymore. No one wanted to. The Old One was much older than anyone else left, the only one who didn't succumb to misery from the grayness before living four decades.
“I suppose we should head back.” Socho felt tired. There wasn't a particular reason. They hadn't done any particularly tasking activities since they had last awoken. And yet exhaustion pulled at Socho’s bones, coming more from a drain on the mind and emotion rather than the body.
They had no indication of whether it was day or not. It was always the same. The sky never changed color, and there were no clocks in the city. There was little of anything in the city, except for a few empty souls in half empty rooms. Apathy pressed upon everyone, placed there by hopelessness, deafening them from any intensity of existence. On their way back to their room, they met few souls, and any who were wandering the city seemed lost, scanning their surroundings with an empty gaze. They looked almost disappointed with the lack of variety in their surroundings, as if they were expecting more. Yet more never came. Day after day, it was just the grayness. There was nothing there to change it, just empty wishes and coping mechanisms.
The two flowers reached their room. It was empty except for a single blanket neatly laid on the floors center and an empty table pressed against the wall as if afraid of something on the other side of the room. As per ritual, they went to sit on the blanket. They sat with their legs crossed, knees touching, breathing quiet and synced. Two flowers, planted next to each other, growing together as more than anything else in the rubble of a world around them. And yet they were still weak. So weak. For plants need light to grow, but when you have not seen the sun a day in your life, it is hard to thrive. When a plant is weak, it may need something to support it so that it doesn't break. Or something to hold it straight so that it doesn't seem like it's broken, so that it doesn't know it can be broken.
But what to do when your only support is broken itself?
Sakeuru sat there, head against Sochus chest now, occasionally trembling from silent, tearless sobs. The muted light from the still open door fell just short of where they sat. It seemed more solid than anything else in their lives. It seemed like the only thing that had not been harshly and completely washed of anything resembling life, however weak it was. It seemed to hesitate touching their combined form, afraid it may bring life to something other than itself.
It's mocking us, thought Socho somewhat bitterly. It glows. It dances in the air. While we sit too weak to move. It's abandoned our world, our bodies, and yet it still comes in this half form to watch us. Socho gently laid Sakeuru onto the blanket and closed the door. Socho and Sakeuru lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing. They were too drained from nothingness to think. They could do nothing but exist next to each other in meaninglessness until their joints grew sore from lying flat and would be forced to wander the small area of the city outside their door that they had the ambition to explore, only to return to this empty room to continue lying still. They saw so little. There were perhaps more things they could see, but their hearts didn't long for seeing any more still figures through doors stuck open.
What to do when your only support is broken itself?
Socho turned away from Sakeuru to stare at the opposite wall. Tears started falling from Socho's eyes. All was silent, except for perhaps the quiet sound of tears hitting the blanket. Socho could only let them fall. There was not enough soul left for even a trembling of the shoulders or a sniffle. Sakeuru could not turn away from the ceiling, just continued staring blankly at it.
They had no energy to save themselves. They were watered with tears and fed emptiness, the sun a distant fantasy. They could not thrive with no resources. They knew nothing other, and tried to live regardless. But it was only as much of a life as a feather is heavy. Those around them often ceased to exist as their minds drained of anything but the grayness.
And yet still the two flowers lived, however weakly. They lived for each other. That was all they knew. That was all they could feel. They longed for a touch of the sun but settled for the touch of each other, trying to help the other more than they helped themselves.
It was time to rise from the floor again, and so their figures rose up. They left the door open behind them. There wasn't a reason to close it.
As they neared the square, the flatness of the other half of the city met them. Sakeuru stood still for an extra moment, staring at it, then pulled at Socho. Socho wasn't sure of what was going on, but nonetheless followed, too indifferent to really protest or wonder. Sakeuru pulled towards the edge of the square, where the edge tiles of the clearing met the crumbled streets of the ruined half of the city. They each took a breath before stepping over.
The ground crunched softly underfoot. It felt somehow lighter than the other half, as if the Earth itself was hollowed there, and the ground elastic. The buildings looked like they had been stepped on, metal beams folding out like a flower's petal, everything in pieces and strewn around. Sakeuru picked up something. It reflected what little light they had, but somehow more brightly than they had ever seen before. They stared at it in slight shock. It was… so solid. So sharp and real. Everything around them was jagged and sharp and somehow more alive in its death than the life in anything in the other half of the city. Something in Sakeuru had finally died enough to bring them here, which awoke something completely new, something raw and incredible, and full of a potential.

Ending I

They felt like they had violated something they were never meant to see. This city was too empty of indifference, too real and alive. They turned and walked back to their city, looking back and longing to stay, but forcing themselves back. They couldn't allow themselves to the grips of life, not yet. Not today.
They fell as soon as they crossed back into the square. They lay with their backs to the sky and looked at each other. They connected in their thoughts. There was no need to say anything when they both thought the same thing. They were both afraid of what was in that city, it was much too different to what they were used to. But, its emotion and sharp edges held an attraction in them, pulling at them to come back, for them to lurk further.
They trekked across the flat, dusty ground for some time, passing collapsed building after another. Slowly, the rubble of the buildings they passed grew taller and taller. In fascination they ran their fingers over all the sharp edges, even when their fingers were bleeding, even when their very cores called for them to return home. They kept marching towards… nothing they knew to be there. They may come to a flat land, with nothing but dust to feed them. And yet they kept walking. They had done nothing but lay still since they were born. They had nothing to look forward to. Death was better than emptiness, they finally realized. They had tasted something that wasn't full of apathy and blandness, they couldn't go back to normal.
And so they walked. At some point they saw something rise in the distance, taller than the ruins around them, a single pillar to the sky. Higher than anything they had ever seen, higher than anything left. They did not tear their eyes from it, ignoring exhaustion and injuries, secretly afraid it may disappear from existence if they looked away for existence, a fever dream produced by hope.
Finally they stood at the foot of the building. 30 floors of black concrete, contrasting harshly against the pale sky. They walked in and started climbing the stairs. Floor after floor blurred together as they robotically walked to the top. Two flowers blindly growing up, to the light, towards the light and away from all they knew.
The rooftop gave them a view like no other. They could see the blank desert going on in one direction, then a sudden line of destroyed buildings, all building up to this one pillar of hope, or the closest thing to it that they could get. They were, really, empty of any joy, sapped of hope, drained of life. The grayness still pressed all around them. It would never change, never could change. They were doomed to live a dry life. The blood leaking from their skin felt so real, so warm and alive. And yet it was life in the form of destruction. They could never reach a full life, they would be doomed to a half existence until they perished.
And so perish they must. They stood at the edge of the rooftop, hand in hand, like they had stood at the edge of the square only a day ago. They looked down at the crushed buildings below, imagining themselves crushing that way themselves, never to be seen until some other poor soul crumpled enough to venture.
And so they fell. They saw only each other as the ground rushed up to meet them and join their embrace with a deadly touch.

Ending II

“This feels the furthest from the grayness we've been.”
“This is the half that was flattened by the oncoming of the grayness. It's the one that didn't survive.”
“It didn't survive because it had too much life. Do you not sense the life, even within the wreckage? Don't you see that any life on the other half is flatter, less alive, than this destruction?”
Socho couldn't answer, because however incorrect it should be, Sakeuru’s words were accurate. They had never lived in the other half. They had existed. They had done nothing, yet this city had lived enough to be destroyed.
Never letting go of each other's hands, they ventured deeper into the city, even though every step felt like a violation of the existence of anything they ever knew. And yet they continued, because there was nothing to return to. They now knew life, and if they couldn't bring it back with them, they would rather die among the ragged edges than live in the flatness.
A buildings grew less and less destroyed, and taller and taller, as they walked further from their old home. They breathed in the air, the air which still held life in it, which seemed to pulse at its own accord against their skin. They savored the death around them, running their fingers over the rubble, letting their fingers bleed for the first time. Pain was something so new, so shocking, that they didn't know how to react to it. They watched the bright streams of color drip out of their own fingers and fall, crashing to the ground that whispered of ages past, of lives that had been crushed under the running feet of time. They walked still on, their steps almost ceremonious. They dared not dream of a salvation, but still a weak glow of hope flickered in their hearts. The buildings grew taller and taller, their crowns of ragged edges reaching for the sky. In the distance a single dark, unharmed building loomed  out from between its damaged peers.
At last they stood at the foot of the building, and everything else seemed to melt away. The huge form seemed to challenge them, if they dared to enter, and asked what they would do with that entrance. The flowers tightened their hands in each other's, took a deep breath, and stepped through in.
The inside They couldn’t decide if it was intimidating or welcoming, and yet either way it beckoned at them, it’s body darker than even its shadow.
At last they stood at the foot of the building. A single window at the top reflected the weak light, a single eye overlooking its fallen world.
And so they stepped in. The air was cold, and the flowers’ skin prickled into thorns. Though the only light source should have been the distant window, and yet there was a gentle glow from the walls. The building seemed to breathe and live around them, pulsing and whispering.
They climbed up the stairs, one by one. Light hinted at its own existence from above, stronger and stronger, until it flooded their sight. They reached the very roof of the building, overlooking the rest of the world, which seemed to hold its breath and stare, waiting for them.
In the center of the roof was something… different. It's delicacy contrasted the harsh urban destruction that surrounded them below, and it had something that they had never quite seen before.
A flower.
A small daisy, rooted in the cracks of the harsh concrete. It jutted upwards, seeking a sun long forgotten, it's petals weak but holding on for life. It held life. It was a weakened life, by all means. A life that knew no other, but which was more meaningful than anything which Sakeuru and Socho had lived before. It had a purpose: to reach for the sun. To live despite all the forces fighting against it. The human flowers had simply survived because there was nothing to actively kill them. They did not aim actively for either side of the divide which we all cross. This flower was surviving as well but it was so much more difficult, it required growth to catch what little light the dull sky provided.
They knelt down beside it, fascinated. They didn't dare to touch it at first, scared of tearing away what life they had discovered, afraid of breaking themselves with the flower.
They made eye contact. Wonder and want lingered in their gazes alike, and a silent decision was made. They each slowly reached for a leaf of the flower, brushing it gently with their fingers. Life began to seep into the world.
Color began returning to the earth: their skin became less ashen, the heavy clouds that plagued the skies lifted. Flowers began to sprout all around them, growing in seconds, splitting the brittle rock they hid behind and reaching for the new sun.
It wasn’t obvious at first. They first noticed Sakeuru’s hair changing, turning a blonde that reflected dully in the hazy sunlight. Above them the stormy sky split to show a pale blue sky, and as the clouds moved away everything beneath them slowly gained life. Small flowers pushed to show themselves, to sprout, splitting the brittle rock they were trapped under and reaching for the new sun.
A new reality slowly revealed its face to the two human flowers, standing among their botanical peers. The Grayness was reluctant to give way, but the new light no longer wanted to lie dormant. It had been trapped away for too long.
The horizon still rang with paleness, been too long without light for it to quickly regain color in its cheeks. Yet it was a start. A new life, not a new survival. The change they seeked had showed its face and greeted them.