They slipped through a gap in the chain-link fence at 2:47 AM. The silence inside the construction site was different—thicker, like the air before a lightning strike. Piles of rebar looked like fossilized ribs. A crane’s hook swayed gently, though there was no wind.
The Gardener stopped. He turned his blank face toward them. Urban Legend
The urban legend said that the Gardener wasn't a person. He was a reaction. The city, choked by steel and forgetting its own soil, had begun to breathe. And the Veridian Spire had pierced a lung. Now, every night at 3 AM, the Gardener came to tend to the wound. He didn't plant flowers. He pruned the city’s mistakes. They slipped through a gap in the chain-link