The silence after the fountain's collapse was so profound it seemed to have swallowed the sound of the world.
No birds sang. No breeze stirred the dry leaves that covered the streets.
The city seemed suspended in midair, like a memory about to disappear.
Miguel slowly opened his eyes.
He was lying in the square, surrounded by fragments of stone and dark puddles that reflected the sky.
Elisa slept propped up a few meters away, her face stained with dried blood.
Pedro lay motionless, staring at the spot where the fountain had once flowed.
And Dr. Vasconcelos wrote something in his notebook, his fingers trembling.
When Miguel tried to stand, the ground seemed to shift beneath him.
Not like an earthquake—but as if the entire city were breathing.
With each breath, the houses tilted slightly.
With each exhale, the air grew heavier.
"She's reshaping everything," the Doctor murmured.
His gaze was blank, but his voice held a dark lucidity.
"The third seal affects perception. The city is no longer just a place. It's living memory."
Miguel looked around.
The streets looked the same, but something was wrong.
The windows of the houses now reflected different places: one showed the old school; another, the interior of the church; a third displayed the image of a child's room filled with toys.
It was as if each window had become a portal to other people's memories.
Elisa woke with a start.
She groped on the floor for her clipboard and wrote:
"Where are we? It looks like the same place... but it's not."
Miguel just nodded.
In the center of the square, the newly appeared rune glowed faintly, as if it pulsed to the rhythm of the city's heart.
Pedro walked away from the group.
Since the incident, he had been different—calmer, but with a cold, distant look in his eyes.
With each step, he whispered something to himself, softly.
Miguel called out to him, but he didn't answer.
When he finally stopped, Pedro reached into his pocket.
The stone he had taken from the spring began to pulse, emitting a reddish glow.
He watched it, fascinated.
"She shows me what has been forgotten..." he murmured.
Miguel approached, alarmed. "What did you say?"
Pedro turned slowly.
His eyes were different—sunken, with a scarlet sheen.
"The Guardian is not evil, Miguel. She is trying to return what was taken from us. We are the ones fighting against the memory."
Before Miguel could respond, a scream echoed through the street.
The four of them ran toward the sound.
As they turned the corner, they stopped abruptly.
There were two versions of the same street before them.
On the left, a normal street—empty, gray, like the entire city.
On the right, the same street, but alive: children played, businesses were open, windows filled with flowers.
It was the city before the curse, perfect, intact.
Elisa looked between them, confused.
Pedro took a step toward the living version of the street—and his body seemed to dissolve into mist for a moment.
Miguel pulled him back.
"It doesn't cross! We don't know what it is."
Pedro replied with a half-smile.
"Maybe it's the memory of where we came from. Maybe we're trapped in oblivion."
Dr. Vasconcelos watched everything, muttering notes.
"The third seal opened the line between the real and the remembered. The Guardian is trying to merge the two."
Suddenly, a figure emerged from the city alive.
A woman, gray-haired, dressed in her old school uniform.
Miguel recognized her immediately.
It was Dona Teresa, his teacher—dead for years.
She looked at him, smiling tenderly.
"You've grown, Miguel..."
Her voice was warm, real, human.
But her feet didn't touch the ground—they floated lightly, as if gravity had given up on her.
— "You need to stop fighting the Guardian. She just wants you to remember..."
Miguel felt tears burn his eyes.
He took a step forward—but Elisa held his arm tightly.
He wrote quickly:
— "It's not her. It's a living memory. It will take you."
Dona Teresa's figure began to fragment, dissolving into luminous dust.
And the instant she disappeared, the living city crumbled too—leaving only the gray, dead street.
The air grew heavy.
The rune in the square glowed brightly, as if reacting to the collapse.
Back in the square, Miguel isolated himself for a few minutes.
He tried to organize his thoughts, but everything was jumbled: childhood memories, memories of the investigation, whispered voices.
It was as if his mind had cracked.
Elisa approached, worried.
She also seemed to hear something—her eyes moved as if following invisible voices around her.
Pedro watched them both from afar, increasingly absorbed, the stone pulsing in his palm.
Dr. Vasconcelos wrote frantically:
"The Guardian doesn't create illusions. She reveals what oblivion tried to erase.
The city was never just a victim. It was an accomplice."
Miguel lifted his head.
"Accomplice? Of what?"
The Doctor hesitated before answering:
"Of a pact. One that sealed the Guardian so the city could live in peace... at the cost of its own memories."
Silence.
Elisa looked at the medallion, then at the rune in the square.
She wrote:
"So... each seal isn't a release. It's a memory being restored."
Miguel felt the ground shift beneath his feet.
Everything he thought he knew was crumbling.
The Guardian wasn't just the curse—she was part of the city, perhaps what remained of its soul.
Pedro approached the group, his face calm, almost serene.
"You still don't understand. We are the mirror. And it's trying to remind us of who we were."
"Pedro, let go of that stone," Miguel said, trying to keep him away.
But Pedro smiled.
"It's too late."
The stone in his hand shattered, releasing an intense light that struck the rune on the ground.
The symbol reacted, expanding like a circle of fire.
From the ground, a voice echoed—soft, yet deep, reverberating in the bones:
"The mirror has shattered. May the memory return to oblivion."
A sharp wind swept through the square.
The faces of the people in the windows disappeared.
The houses began to dissolve like ash blown through the air.
Miguel tried to run to Pedro, but the ground opened up between them.
On the other side, Pedro simply waved, smiling—and disappeared into the light.
The third seal, finally, closed.