The city was nothing like the quiet forest, and yet the silence between them had followed. Emma stood on the balcony of the small apartment they'd rented, watching as life unfolded beneath her. Cars passed with indifferent speed. A child cried out somewhere, distant and blurred by the glass and concrete. She could feel the spiraling hum even here.
Jessica sat inside on the worn couch, scrolling through her phone, eyes vacant. Nora stood at the kitchen counter, pretending to be busy with dishes that had already been cleaned. The three of them were together—and yet not. Something had shifted in the cabin, and though they had left the trees behind, they had not escaped the spiral.
Emma closed her eyes and tried to ground herself. Inhale. Exhale. The city smelled of exhaust and hot pavement. A far cry from pine and moss, yet the pressure in her chest remained the same.
"Do you feel it?" she asked, turning her head slightly to where Nora stood.
Nora didn't respond at first. Then, without looking up, she said softly, "It's quieter here. But not gone."
That was the problem. The spiral hadn't disappeared—it had retreated, burrowed deep. And they each carried a piece of it.
Emma stepped back inside, letting the glass door click shut behind her. The air conditioning buzzed. It should have been comfort. It wasn't.
Jessica looked up from her phone. "I saw someone outside the store yesterday," she said. "He had the same pendant."
Emma froze. "Are you sure?"
Jessica nodded. "I couldn't stop staring. He looked at me like he knew everything."
Emma exchanged a glance with Nora, whose face remained still, unreadable.
They had burned the original pendant. Thrown it into the fire on their last night in the cabin. Watched it crack and twist and finally shatter into ash. But the symbol… the spiral… it had already taken root elsewhere. And maybe, just maybe, someone else had picked it up.
Emma's sleep had been shallow. Images returned in slivers—the dark lake, the endless trees, whispers that had no mouth. She hadn't told the others, but sometimes when she blinked, she saw the cabin hallway again. Sometimes she heard the floor creak even when she was alone.
That night, as rain smeared the city in streaks of silver, they sat in silence, the three of them. They didn't talk about what they had seen. They didn't talk about what they feared. But it was there, thick in the room between them.
"Do you think it ever ends?" Jessica whispered.
Emma didn't answer. Neither did Nora.
Because none of them knew.
Instead, Emma reached into her backpack and pulled out the notebook. The one she'd almost left behind. The one that had shown up on the cabin's attic floor, brittle and water-damaged, filled with that same spiraling symbol again and again.
She opened to a blank page and slowly began to draw.
The spiral.
And as she did, her hand began to tremble—not from fear, but from recognition. The spiral wasn't just a shape. It was a question. And they had only just begun to understand it.
In the distance, thunder rolled.
Outside, the lights of the city flickered.
Inside, something shifted again.