It didn't end with an explosion.
Or a scream.
Or even a final clue.
It ended in silence.
The city fell asleep.
Not dead—
but dreaming.
---
Alexis stood at the entrance of what had once been a subway station.
Now it was a wound in the earth, pulsing with light and scent and sound that didn't belong to any human world.
> "We can still go back," she said.
> "There's no 'back' anymore," Amelia replied.
She was barefoot.
The roots had taken her shoes days ago.
And her shadow had split in three.
Above them, the monolith of Room 303 opened like a flower.
Petals of stone peeled away, revealing a spiral staircase that twisted down into light.
They descended.
---
In the center of the spiral was a child.
Not quite human.
Not quite plant.
Eyes closed. Heart growing.
A seed of memory.
Amelia knelt before it.
She recognized its heartbeat.
It was the same one she'd felt every time she couldn't remember her childhood.
> "Who are you?" Alexis whispered.
The child stirred.
And spoke.
> "I'm what they planted."
---
Suddenly, every mirror in the city shattered.
From the cracks, vines grew.
Each one whispering names—some familiar, some forgotten.
The city was being rewritten, memory by memory, life by life.
The spiral had not been solved.
It had been awakened.
And Amelia & Alexis?
They weren't detectives anymore.
They were witnesses.
To a city reborn in its own haunted garden.
To the truth that could never be proven.
To something older than mystery itself.