Prologue
The First Flower
There are flowers that bloom in sunlight.
Flowers that open their petals when the rain touches the earth, when the morning arrives, when the world is kind enough to give them a reason to live.
And then there are flowers that bloom in places where nothing beautiful should ever grow.
Aurelia like those flowers best.
The red spider lily.
It was strange, the way something so delicate could look like a warning.
It's petals curled backward like fingers reaching for something they could never hold. Its long stamens trembled in the slightest wind, and it's colour-
Oh, its colour was beautiful.
A red so deep it almost looked black beneath the moon.
Aurelia once read that the flower was associated with death.
She found that interesting.
Not frightening.
Interesting.
She had been sitting on the floor of her apartment when she learned about it, her back resting against the side of her bed, a book open across her lap. her long hair had fallen over one shoulder, and the skirt she had worn to school that afternoon was spread around her like a pool of white fabric.
Her phone lay beside her.
A song played softly from its speaker.
She had been reading for nearly an hour when she came across the flower.
Red spider lily.
She repeated the name once..
Then again.
She liked the way it sounded.
Like a secret.
Like something someone might whisper in a dark room.
She searched for pictures.
One flower became five.
Five became twenty.
Soon, her screen was filled with red.
She smiled.
Not because of the meaning .
Because it was pretty.
Aurelia had always liked pretty things.
Pretty clothes.
Pretty sings.
Pretty buildings.
Pretty faces.
She liked things that made her want to look at them twice.
Sometimes three times.
She did not always remember the people she met.
That was the unfortunate thing about her memory.
She could remember a lecturer's voice from years ago, the exact words of a song she had heard once, the colour of the curtains in her childhood bedroom.
But a conversation from yesterday?
A face she had passed in the hallway?
A name someone had introduced themselves with five minutes earlier?
Those things often slipped away.
People found it strange.
Some found it insulting.
Aurelia found it convenient.
She closed the flower pictures and opened her music app.
The next song began.
She hummed along.
Outside her window, the city continued moving.
Cars passed.
People laughed.
Someone shouted from the street below.
Aurelia did not look up.
She was used to the world making noise without asking her permission.
She preferred it that way.
---
The first flower appeared on a Tuesday.
At least, that was what the university records would later say.
Tuesday.
8:43 a.m.
The beginning.
But beginnings were rarely as simple as people imagined.
There had been a girl before the flower.
A girl who had spent the previous evening standing in front of her mirror, holding a white skirt against her waist.
A girl who had watched a video three times because she like the way another girl wore her hair.
A girl who had told her roommate:
"Do you think this looks good on me?"
And when her roommate said yes. she had smiled.
Of course it looked good.
She had chosen it carefully.
She had spent money she did not really have.
She had even practised they way she spoke.
The little phrases.
The small gestures.
The things that made people turn their heads.
She wanted to e noticed.
There was nothing wrong with that.
Was there?
On Tuesday morning, she walked across the university grounds waring the skirt.
It was long.
White.
Flowing.
Almost identical to one Aurelia had worn the previous week.
She had styled her hair the same way too.
She had even chosen the same colour of earrings.
She felt beautiful.
For the first time in weeks, she felt beautiful.
And when she saw Aurelia standing near the faculty building, holding her books against her chest, she smiled.
Aurelia looked at her.
Then looked away.
The girl waited.
Just for a second.
Perhaps Aurelia would say something.
Perhaps she would notice.
Perhaps she would smile.
But Aurelia only adjusted the book in her arms and continued walking.
The girl watched her go.
A strange feeling settled in her chest.
Not disappointment exactly.
Something smaller.
Something sharper.
She told herself it did not matter.
She had dressed for herself.
Of course she had.
---
By noon, nobody could find her.
Her roommate called her phone.
It rang.
And rang.
No answer.
She called again.
Still nothing.
By two o'clock. the roommate was crying.
By four, a lecturer had been informed.
By six, the university security office had received a report.
By midnight, the girl's name begun traveling through the student's groups.
Has anyone seen her?
She hasn't been answering her phone.
Maybe she went home.
Did she say anything to anyone?
What happened?
Nobody knew.
Nobody had an answer.
And somewhere, in a small apartment not far from the university, Aurelia sat on her bed with her legs folded beneath her.
She was wearing a white long-sleeve crop top.
Her skirt was slim-fitted, falling neatly around her lower waist and down to her ankles.
Her phone was in her hand.
She was watching a movie.
It was not a particularly good movie.
The plot was predictable.
The acting was worse.
But she liked the main character's clothes.
Aurelia paused the ,ovie.
She looked at the screen for a moment.
Then she opened her messages.
There were several new ones.
Some from her classmates.
Some from people she did not remember giving her number to.
One message appeared at the top.
Have you seen her?
Aurelia stared at it.
She knew who they meant.
She thought.
Then she remembered.
The girl in the white skirt.
The one who had been standing near the faculty building.
The one with the hair.
Aurelia tilted her head.
She had spoken to her once.
Hadn't she?
Or had it been someone else?
She opened the message.
Typed:
No.
Then deleted it.
Typed:
I don't know.
Deleted that too.
Finally, she wrote:
No, sorry.
She sent it.
Then she returned to her movie.
The next morning, the university was different.
Not visibly.
The buildings were still there.
The classrooms were still there.
The trees still moved when the wind passed through them.
Students still complained about assignments.
Lectures still arrived late.
Someone still argued with a food vendor over the price of food.
But underneath all of it, something had changed.
People were looking at one another differently.
They were checking their phones more often.
They were asking questions in quieter voices.
They were watching the entrances.
And when someone walked past wearing a long skirt, heads turned.
Not because it reminded them of the girl who had disappeared.
Aurelia noticed.
She noticed everything.
She stood outside her department with a book in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
A group of girls passed her.
One of them was wearing a skirt almost identical to hers.
Another has styled her hair the same way.
The third was using the little phrase Aurelia often used without thinking.
"Everything has a pattern."
The girl laughed.
The other girls laughed too.
Aurelia looked at them.
For a moment, she wondered whether she knew them.
She probably did.
They probably knew her.
Most people did.
She smiled politely.
The girls walked past.
One of them glanced over her shoulder.
Aurelia was still watching them.
The girl turned away quickly.
Aurelia looked down at her book.
She had forgotten the title.
She had forgotten why she opened it.
She turned the page anyway.
Three days later, another student disppeared.
This time, a boy.
He was popular.
Everyone knew him.
He had a loud laugh, a nice car, and a habit of standing outside the department building whenever Aurelia passed.
He had once asked her to go out with him.
She had said no.
He had laughed and said:
"You're difficult, you know that?"
Aurelia had smiled.
"Am I?"
He had looked at her for a long moment.
Then he smiled back.
"Yeah."
She had forgotten the conversation by the following morning.
He had not.
He remembered everything.
The way she smiled.
The way she tilted her ehad.
The way she looked at him as though he were someone worth listening to.
He had told his friends about it.
He had told them she was different.
He had told them she was worth the effort.
He had told them he would get her eventually.
On Friday afternoon, he sent her a message.
You looked beautiful today.
Aurelia read it.
She did not reply.
She was busy choosing a song.
That evening, he disappeared.
By the end of the week, the university had become a place of whispers.
Some students believed the missing people had left voluntarily.
Others believed someone was kidnapping them.
Some said it was a cult.
Some said it was a ritual.
Some said the university was hiding something.
Nobody had proof.
Nobody had answers.
And then. on Monday morning, every phone on campus received the same message.
No sender.
No number.
No explanation.
Just four words.
WHAT IS MY FAVOURITE COLOUR?
For a few seconds, nobody understood.
Then the screen changed.
A timer appeared.
00:30
Thirty seconds.
A second line appeared beneath the question.
SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER.
Students began laughing.
Some thought it was a prank.
Others tried to close the message.
The screen would not close.
The timer continued counting down.
Twenty-five.
Twnty-four.
Twenty-three.
Aurelia stood in the middle of the university courtyard, her phone held loosely in her hand.
She looked at the question.
Then at the people around her.
A boy beside her said.
"What kind of nonsense is this?"
Someone laughed.
Someone else said:
"Maybe it's a school thing."
Aurelia looked back at her phone.
The timer reached ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Sven.
She knew the answer.
Of course she knew the answer.
It was not a difficult question.
The screen flashed.
TIME'S UP.
A sound came from somewhere behind the crowd.
A scream.
Then another.
The laughter stopped.
Aurelia turned her head.
For the first time that morning, her smile disappeared.
---
The first flower bloomed at 8:43 a.m.
The second bloomed at 8:44.
The third bloomed at 8:45.
By the time the university gates locked, nobody was laughing anymore.
And somewhere inside the crowd, a girl in a white skirt stood very still.
She looked at the red spider lily blooming on the screen.
Then she looked at the people around her.
Then, slowly-
she smiled.
Everything has a pattern.
