flat in Paris, the faint hum of the city muffled by steady drizzle. Her notebook lay open, yesterday's questions bleeding through the page:
If M-07 survived…
If H-01 was real…
What door had Aunt Mai left open, and for whom?
Her fingers brushed over the cloth labeled M-07. The edges had stiffened overnight, as if absorbing the gravity of what was awakening.
A knock startled her.
She crossed the room cautiously and peered through the peephole.
It wasn't the landlord.
It wasn't room service.
A woman stood outside—middle-aged, dressed in nondescript office wear, umbrella dripping by her side. She carried no badge, no clipboard. Just a calm smile—and a single envelope tucked under one arm.
Linh didn't open the door.
The woman, unbothered, slipped the envelope under the door, gave a polite nod, and walked away without a word.
Linh waited. One minute. Then another.
Only when the hallway remained silent did she pick up the envelope.
No return address. No sender.
Inside: a simple card.
"La mémoire n'est jamais effacée. Seulement cachée." (Memory is never erased. Only hidden.)
And beneath it—a code:
Cité des Fleurs. No. 19. Midnight.
Linh's pulse quickened.
The Cité des Fleurs—an old, gated neighborhood, rarely accessible even to Parisians.
Why there?
Why her?
Midnight fell like a held breath.
Dressed in plain black, Linh carried nothing but the cloth folded in her coat's inner lining.
She hailed a cab but asked to be dropped two streets away.
She preferred to walk the last stretch—silent, unseen.
The iron gates of Cité des Fleurs loomed ahead, locked and silent.
But tucked into a hedge was a narrow opening, just large enough to slip through.
Someone had prepared for her.
She entered.
The cobbled street stretched before her, ghostly under the yellow haze of gas lamps. Roses heavy with rain bent low over weathered stone walls.
Number 19 was easy to spot: a shuttered townhouse, no lights, no sound.
Taped to the door: another card.
"Follow the thread."
She turned.
Across the street, barely visible against the vines, a thin red yarn stretched along a rusted fence.
A thread.
Like the ones from her dream.
With steady hands, Linh followed—through overgrown gardens, past crumbling fountains, under broken archways.
Every few meters, a scrap of cloth was tied to the thread.
Each embroidered with a letter.
Each charred at the edges.
M.
H.
D.
S.
Names, erased but not forgotten.
The thread ended at a derelict greenhouse hidden behind the last house.
Inside, everything was abandoned—cracked pots, misted glass.
But in the center stood a table.
And on it: a box.
Old. Scarred. Bound in twine.
Linh hesitated.
Then opened it.
Inside:
- A stack of ancient cassettes, their labels fading.
- A photograph—three women standing under a bamboo grove.
- A file marked: "Projet Phoenix – Survivant(e)s." (Phoenix Project – Survivors.)
Her breath caught.
On the back of the photo, written in crooked French:
"They erased our names. We built new ones."
She sifted through the documents.
Decrypted reports.
Relocation plans.
Lists of missing persons from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia.
And on the final page:
"M-07: Last active 2009.
Status: Unknown.
Directive: Protect Subject H-01 at all costs."
Linh gripped the edge of the table.
H-01.
Not just a survivor.
A key.
And the initials—
H.
Huyền.
Everything snapped into place with a sharp, almost violent clarity.
Aunt Mai hadn't just saved Linh.
She had hidden something.
Someone.
And that someone wasn't just another survivor.
She was the one Mai had risked everything for.
A crack of wood.
Linh spun.
At the entrance stood a woman—the same woman who had delivered the envelope.
No umbrella now. No smile.
Only a calm, watchful presence.
"You've seen enough for tonight," she said in soft, accented French.
Linh's voice was steady. "Who are you?"
The woman didn't answer.
She simply stepped back into the shadows—disappearing like mist swallowed by night—leaving the door open behind her.
An invitation.
Or a warning.
Either way, the message was clear:
This wasn't over.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
The air smelled of wet roses and secrets too old to bury.
Linh tucked the box beneath her coat, guarding it like a flame against the wind.
As she slipped back through the hedge, she glanced once over her shoulder.
The greenhouse stood silent—its cracked glass glinting like a wound under the scattered stars.
Softly, she whispered:
"I'm ready, Aunt Mai.
Whatever you left behind—
I will find it."
And for the first time, the night didn't feel so empty.
It felt alive—with whispers, with threads, and with doors still waiting to be opened.