They left the Spiral Room just after dawn, but the city hadn't brightened.
The sky remained a thick shade of iron, and the rain kept falling—though neither woman could remember seeing clouds.
Back in Alexis's car, silence stretched long between them. No jazz on the radio. No cynical jokes. Just the sound of tires slicing through shallow water and the occasional flick of Alexis's lighter as she toyed with it, unlit cigarette dangling from her lips.
"You heard it too," Amelia finally said.
Alexis didn't answer.
"The voice," Amelia pressed. "It wasn't imagined."
Alexis lit the cigarette and inhaled, hard. "Yeah. I heard it. Like a whisper stuck between channels."
Amelia pulled out her notebook. The page she flipped to was blank.
Or had been.
Now it held a single spiral, drawn in clean, perfect lines—not her handwriting. She froze.
"Did you…?" Alexis leaned over. "When did you write that?"
"I didn't." Amelia's voice had gone cold. "Someone—or something—is using me."
Alexis exhaled a slow stream of smoke. "You ever think maybe we're being profiled now?"
They drove in silence again, destination unclear—until Amelia said, "We need to see the first victim again."
Alexis blinked. "That case was closed three weeks ago."
"And buried too quickly."
---
Three Hours Later – City Morgue
The fluorescent lighting buzzed above as the body drawer slid open. The first victim: male, early 30s, found in an abandoned subway tunnel.
No obvious cause of death. Tongue missing. Spiral etched under the skin of his scalp—discovered postmortem.
Dr. Mirea, the morgue attendant, watched them from behind glass with mild distaste. "This is highly irregular."
"Add it to the list," Alexis muttered.
Amelia pulled on gloves and leaned over the corpse.
"We missed something," she said. "Back then, we were still treating this like a traditional homicide."
Alexis scanned the room. "What are you looking for?"
"Not what—who."
The lights flickered.
Then a voice crackled through the intercom speaker. One that didn't belong to Dr. Mirea.
"Amelia."
She stiffened.
Alexis turned sharply toward the glass. The morgue attendant was gone.
"Do you remember the fire?"
The air went cold. So cold the mirrors began to frost.
Amelia's breathing grew shallow. Her hands trembled.
Alexis grabbed her shoulder. "Amelia. Talk to me."
But Amelia was elsewhere.
---
Memory Fragment – Unknown Time
Flames licked the sky. Screams echoed in the distance.
A small girl stood barefoot in ash, staring at a spiral drawn in chalk on a wall that should have collapsed.
The chalk glowed.
Someone called her name.
Not Amelia. Amia.
She turned—eyes wide, unblinking—
And saw her own reflection whispering: "You were born remembering."
---
Present
Amelia gasped and staggered back. Blood dripped from her nose. Her eyes were wide.
Alexis caught her.
"Okay," Alexis said, "we're way past serial killer now."
Amelia wiped the blood with her sleeve. "They're not killing at random. They're selecting."
"Selecting what?"
Amelia stared at the spiral burned into her notebook.
"Witnesses."