The dolls blinked.
Their eyes weren't glass—they were alive.
Watching.
Mirroring.
Amelia took a step forward, but the woman raised her hand.
> "They are what remains.
The first versions.
Imperfect. Curious.
But they remembered too much, too early."
Alexis felt her breath catch.
> "You made them."
> "No. I harvested them."
The woman's smile was bark-thin.
> "This city is a garden.
And gardens need pruning."
Behind her, the roots pulsed—
thick, wet, like veins under skin.
One root curled around the dolls, lifting them gently.
The golden-haired doll whispered:
> "Room 303 is not a place.
It's a beginning."
Then the cavern shuddered.
The spirals on the wall began to spin.
Faster.
And in the spinning, faces emerged.
Thousands of faces.
Crying. Laughing. Screaming. Remembering.
Alexis turned to Amelia.
> "We can't go back, can we?"
Amelia didn't answer.
She was watching her own reflection form in the spinning spiral.
And it blinked.