Fourteen

From Agent Sneed's point of view, Sapphire Karadjian had vanished along with the girl. The moment they stepped into the hole they were gone, just like that, like the bird she had seen earlier, raven or not. It meant a headache of a report to be filed, but file it she did, and the paperwork made its way into that vault where everything to be gladly forgotten was eventually placed. And forgotten it was, because not long after Sapphire vanished, the End Times themselves also came to an end. The fires went out in the hole. The pit stopped its burning and smoldering. The smoke cleared, and the heat went away. By the weekend it was only an eyesore.
In the months that followed, decisions had to be made. You couldn't keep the security going forever, especially now that nothing was happening and there wasn't any more point in it. First the television cameras drifted away, as the ratings sagged and the viewers got bored. The number of guards was steadily whittled down to a few. Then the fences began to come down as the city planners met and planned hearings and even more meetings. They brought in trucks with gravel and dirt and filled in the hole so it wouldn't be such a hazard anymore. Eventually a contract was put out for bid. Anyone with ideas on what to do with the place was invited to submit a proposal. There was one from a firm called Hedgeley and Kirkham. It was Argus' idea to cover the thing with a meadow, no buildings or structures at all, just a field, basically. This notion was rejected as being impractical.