They stepped into the city again.
But it had changed.
The streets were breathing.
Skyscrapers bent like old trees,
and windows blinked like eyes.
No one walked.
They floated,
tethered by vines growing from their spines.
AmeliaAlexis—no longer just two names—
felt the hum beneath their skin.
> "We are not in the city," the voice within them said.
"We are in its dream."
And dreams remember everything.
---
In the center of the spiral plaza,
a man sat calmly on a stone throne.
He wore a crown of glass leaves.
His hands were covered in soil.
Behind him, hundreds of roots pulsed like breathing wires.
> "Welcome, my daughters," he said.
"You've bloomed well."
The voice was soft.
Too soft for someone who had built the nightmare.
> "Are you the Gardener?" AmeliaAlexis asked.
He smiled.
> "I am the seed.
The Gardener is what remains
when the spiral forgets its center."
He raised a mirror.
Not to show them their reflection—
but to show them their beginning.