Each year, The Tomorrow Prize offers a window into the future — one imagined and articulated by L.A. County high school students who write, revise and enter their stories into the annual science-fiction writing contest founded by the Omega Sci-fi Project. This year, we are thrilled to honor Eddy Ju, whose first-place story “Verdant” stood out for its bold vision, strong writing and environmental themes.
L.A. Parent is proud to join other organizations each year in co-sponsoring the prize. I served as a finalist judge, and we publish the first-place winner’s short story on laparent.com and excerpt it in our digital and print magazines.
This year marked the 10th anniversary of the prize, which is the culmination of months of free classroom workshops led by passionate writers and educators. The workshops engage more than 400 students each year, empowering them to prepare their stories for submission to The Tomorrow Prize or The Green Feather Award, both part of the Omega Sci-Fi Project. In May, the awards ceremony was held at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Well-known actors performed dramatic readings of the students’ stories, bringing them to life on stage and affirming the power of storytelling.
Ju, who recently graduated from University Prep Value High School, says he was shocked when he heard his name called as the first-place winner. “Verdant” is a gripping sci-fi story imagining climate resistance through sentient plant life in L.A. “I felt this mix of shock, excitement and gratitude,” he says. “It was surreal to realize that something I wrote had resonated so deeply with others.”
Ju says he wrote “Verdant” because he’s always been fascinated by the intersection of science and society. “I wanted to explore how environmental challenges might shape the future in deeply human ways,” he explains. “The idea of bioengineered plants transforming urban life came from both a place of curiosity and a desire to imagine hope amid crises.
“I’ve also been a part of the Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program for three years as an intern, where we focus on environmental restoration, education and justice,” he says. “The experience I gained from the program really shaped how I think about cities, ecosystems and the role young people can play in reimagining both. Writing this story felt like a creative extension of that work.”
And while he will study economics at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall, “writing will always be part of my life,” Ju says. “Whether through journalism, creative writing or research, I hope to keep finding new ways to communicate ideas that matter.”
Read “Verdant” by Eddy Ju below.
Verdant
By Eddy Ju
Los Angeles was dying.
The heat smothered the city, pressing against buildings and streets like a lid trapping boiling air inside a sealed jar. The asphalt exhaled a stench of scorched tar and metallic ozone, and the once-bustling streets lay eerily still, their surfaces shimmering with a feverish glow. Those fortunate enough barricaded themselves inside climate-controlled sanctuaries while the rest were left to wilt under the relentless sun as they endured the rolling heatwaves and the slow, suffocating collapse of a city gasping for relief.
But high above the sweltering streets, in a rooftop lab where the last breath of innovation stirred, Leo Park watched something grow.
A single vine stretched upward, its bioluminescent leaves catching the hazy light like fragments of a dying star. It coiled around a steel beam, moving slowly and deliberately as if it were sensing the world around it. Verdant had taken root.
Maya Torres, a community gardener and Leo’s closest ally outside the lab, crouched beside the vine. She traced her fingers over its smooth surface.
“It’s alive,” she murmured, though there was something in her voice that hinted at awe rather than simple observation.
Dr. Malik, Leo’s mentor, scoffed from the railing. “It’s a plant, not a prophet.” Maya didn’t look up. “Then why does it feel like it knows we’re here?”
Leo didn’t answer. The data streaming across his tablet told him what he already suspected.
The numbers didn’t lie — Verdant was growing at an impossible rate. It reached for shaded spaces, adjusted its own temperature to combat the sweltering heat and, somehow, deep beneath the soil, it was coaxing moisture from places that should have been long barren.
The city needed this. The world needed this.
At first, no one noticed the transformation. The change came gradually, creeping in like the quiet before a storm. Vines slithered through alleyways, spreading cool shade over the cracked pavement. Rooftops once blistering under the relentless sun softened beneath a canopy of emerald leaves. The brittle skeleton of the LA River cracked open, and from the depths, water flowed once more, feeding a resurgence of green that no one had thought possible.
The city exhaled. For the first time in years, people could breathe. And then, the news reports began: INVASIVE PLANT THREATENS CITY INFRASTRUCTURE
BIOENGINEERED GROWTH COULD DESTABILIZE LA.
IS VERDANT A MIRACLE — OR A MONSTER?
At first, Leo dismissed the media’s panic as nothing more than fearmongering. Verdant had been designed to heal, not to harm. It was meant to be the city’s salvation, a last desperate attempt to restore balance to an environment that humans had already pushed beyond repair. Yet as negative reports continued to flood in, he could no longer ignore the weight pressing against his chest.
The data had always suggested rapid growth, but this was something else. The plant was not just expanding; it was choosing.
Leo scrolled through the latest satellite images, his fingers tightening around the tablet as he studied the patterns forming across the city. Verdant had spread far beyond its initial test sites. Its tendrils stretched into every neglected space and weaved through the underfunded neighborhoods that had suffered the worst of the heat. South L.A., Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights — Verdant flourished in the very places the city had abandoned. And yet, in the glittering corridors of Downtown, along the manicured streets of the Westside, the growth remained restrained. Its presence was delicate, almost intentional.
Maya stood beside him, arms crossed, her gaze hard. “You see it, too, don’t you?” He swallowed, unable to look away from the images.
“It’s favoring certain areas. It’s protecting them,” she said quietly. “Like it knows who the city left behind.”
Leo wanted to remind her that plants didn’t make choices and that this was all just environmental adaptation. But deep down, something gnawed at the edges of his understanding. Verdant had been engineered to respond to stress and to seek out the most extreme conditions and restore balance. What if that instinct had extended beyond soil and temperature? What if it had recognized something woven into the city’s foundations and history of neglect and division?
Dr. Malik, who had remained silent for most of the evening, exhaled sharply and set his tablet down. “We designed Verdant to survive. We just didn’t consider what it would do once it understood the world it had been born into.”
Before Leo could respond, the lab door burst open. Amelia Cho, one of the junior researchers, stood in the doorway, her face pale, phone gripped tightly in her hand. “Turn on the news.”
Leo hesitated for only a moment before swiping to the live broadcast. The screen flickered, and the image of a press conference filled the room.
A man in a tailored suit stood at the podium, the sleek skyline of Downtown L.A. stretching behind him like a kingdom he had no intention of surrendering. Anton Vale, CEO of Orion Industries, the city’s largest energy company, stared down at the gathered reporters with the careful calculation of a man who already knew the outcome of the conversation.
“This isn’t about innovation anymore,” Vale said, his voice smooth, practiced. “This is about control. This plant is a threat. If we don’t act now, we risk losing the ability to manage our own infrastructure, our own homes. Orion is prepared to do what the city cannot. We will reclaim Los Angeles before it’s too late.”
The statement sent a ripple of dread through Leo’s chest.
Orion wasn’t just a corporation. It was the foundation upon which the entire city had been rebuilt after the climate crisis of the previous decades. The cooling grids, the artificial shade structures, the hydroelectric reservoirs — it all belonged to Orion. They had spent years selling the idea that survival had a price and that comfort could only be bought in carefully rationed increments.
Verdant, in its relentless growth, had dismantled that model in a matter of weeks. It had made Orion irrelevant.
And now, they were going to erase it.
Maya’s voice was tight. “What does he mean by ‘reclaim’?”
Dr. Malik didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Because outside, beyond the glass walls of the rooftop lab, the first waves of destruction had already begun.
Fires erupted in the distance, thick black smoke curling into the sky as entire blocks were set ablaze. Controlled burns, designed to immolate Verdant from the streets before it could spread any further. Drone fleets descended like swarms of locusts, spraying chemical defoliants in shimmering, toxic clouds. The air reeked of scorched greenery and synthetic decay.
Leo felt his pulse hammer against his ribs. “No, no, no — this isn’t right. They can’t just…”
“They can,” Malik said grimly. “And they will.”
But something was wrong.
The flames should have consumed the vines, reducing them to nothing but charred remnants scattered in the hot wind. The chemicals should have seeped into the roots, poisoned them, turned them brittle and lifeless. And yet, through the thickening smoke and the acrid haze of destruction, the plants continued to move.
They were not retreating. Instead, they were adapting.
Leo could only watch as the leaves darkened, their surfaces shifting, thickening, sealing themselves against the burn like a living armor. The roots plunged deeper into the earth, rerouting their paths with silent precision, evading the poisoned soil as if they had learned to recognize the threat.
And then, with terrifying speed, Verdant lunged.
Tendrils, once delicate and searching, now moved with singular intent. They stretched toward the heart of the industrial corridors where Orion’s cooling towers loomed in stark defiance of the encroaching green. What had started as an experiment in restoration had become something else entirely.
Leo’s breath came fast and shallow, his pulse pounding in his ears. Every instinct screamed that this was impossible, that no biological system could behave this way, not without guidance, not without will. And yet, the truth sprawled out before him, winding through the veins of the city, reshaping its foundation. This wasn’t a simple ecological shift. This wasn’t just survival.
Verdant was fighting back.
The city, which had once choked beneath the weight of its own decay, had grown tired of waiting to be saved. It was no longer a place of passive suffering, no longer a monument to human neglect. The plants were no longer just reclaiming the streets. They were becoming them.
A low rumble trembled through the ground, subtle at first but unmistakable, like a distant warning. Leo staggered back, his fingers tightening around the railing. Maya turned toward him, her expression unreadable, her voice quiet but steady.
“We started this,” she said. “Now what?”
Leo opened his mouth, but no words came.
Because beneath his feet, Verdant pulsed — not in fear, not in surrender, but in something deeper, something inevitable. The city shuddered, and for the first time, Leo understood.
This wasn’t just an experiment spiraling beyond control. It was an intelligence waking up.
And it was just the beginning.
