Night fell over the house like a curtain, thick and uneasy. The oak's branches clawed at the sky, casting warped shadows that didn't quite match their shape. In the living room, Amaira traced her spiral sketches, murmuring numbers under her breath. Kayla hovered nearby, watching with wide eyes as the drawings aligned perfectly with pages from Elena's journal—entries that hadn't existed until this morning.
Elias connected the recorder to a power node, enhancing the last fragments of Elena's message. "The Spiral," she had warned, "predates us. It's not an invention. It's a memory. Time remembers pain." The idea shook them—something not created, but awakened.
Tylor and Lina returned to the oak at midnight, guided by a faint pulsing in the soil. The roots formed a spiral beneath the ground, circling something metallic and ancient. Kayla arrived breathless, holding a torn photo: Tylor, as a child, standing alone beneath that very tree—except he didn't remember it.
"It's changing the past again," she whispered. "But now, it's rewriting memory too."
From the crater of soil, a glow emerged—deep red and throbbing. Not a fracture, not a device. A seed. And it was beating.