Page 42 of Lost Echoes
The door is heavier than it looks. It resists, grinding against its frame, as if it knows I don’t belong here. I wedge myself through the gap before it can close.
Inside, the stairwell continues down. The distant hum of the laundry fades, swallowed by something deeper. A low vibration that feels alive in my bones.
I glance up once, back toward the faint light of this door I shouldn’t have opened. My throat is dry, but I whisper anyway, “You wanted this.”
Then I step into the dark. The hallway winds lower than I thought possible, concrete sweating damp against my fingertips. My boots scuff softly, too loud in the silence. Each step feels like it might betray me.
At the bottom, another door waits. No sign this time, just brushed steel and a keypad glowing faintly green. It’s already unlocked. The maintenance man must have come this way.
I press the handle. The door swings open with a sigh. The hallway beyond is narrow, walls painted a sickly off-white that’s yellowed with age. Fluorescent strips buzz overhead, some flickering. The air is colder here, carrying a tang of disinfectant and something metallic, like old blood under tile.
I move slowly, ears straining. The hum I heard before is louder now, layered with distant, muffled voices.
Turning a corner, I glimpse rooms behind stained, reinforced glass. Most are dark, empty, filled with abandoned equipment—metal chairs bolted to the floor, cracked mirrors, peeling posters of smiling children. A theater mask lies forgotten in the dust.
My breath hitches. This is real, all of it.
A sound jerks me forward—footsteps. Not the maintenance man. These are lighter, slower, as if someone’s pacing.
I flatten against the wall then peer around the corner.
A woman stands in the glow of a single overhead light, her hair streaked with gray but her profile unmistakable. Her posture is tense, her hands trembling as she flips through a file.
My mouth goes dry.
It’s my mother. The woman I thought had nothing to do with Radley. The one whose handwriting said to ask about the Radley grant. She really meant this Radley.
Not something else.
She turns slightly, and for one disorienting second our eyes almost meet through the glass.
I stumble back into the shadows, my pulse thrumming in my ears so hard I can’t hear the hum anymore.
Everything I thought I knew collapses in an instant. The one person I trusted as a child knew about it all.
And she’s been here this whole time.
22
Ember
The chat thread explodes so fast I can barely keep up. Phoenix’s words come clipped, urgent:
They’re scrubbing faster. Whole archives gone in minutes. Not just old files—current chatter, live streams, kids’ accounts.
GhostNode replies immediately:
I traced one deletion chain. It originated from an internal server still active. That means Radley’s not dead yet—they’re live, running ops.
My stomach knots.
Compass14:
Then there are still subjects.
N1ghtingale:
Children. Like we were.
