Timestamp: January 28th, 20XX — 4:09 A.M.
Location: Sub-Basement Alpha Exit Passage – VEX-7 Underground, South Dakota
Status: Candidate 0 retrieved. Unknown observer suspected.
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The ceiling moaned.
Steel bent overhead as heat bled from the deeper levels. The old power system flickered and failed with every echoing step.
Ash swept his light slowly across the corridor.
"I keep expecting him to lunge."
"He won't," Derik answered.
Zero followed, barefoot, silent. His eyes didn't scan the walls. They followed only Derik — like he was tracking his reflection through a dream.
Derik's mind was elsewhere.
There was someone watching.
Not just guards. Not a camera. Not even drones.
Someone had been inside the vent above Zero's cell. And Zero remembered faces like scars.
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The Room That Wasn't on the Map
Midway through the extraction tunnel, Zero suddenly stopped. Turned his head.
Then said, without looking at either of them:
"He slept there sometimes. I heard him breathing."
Derik looked up. There, half-buried behind decaying insulation and wiring, was a crawl vent barely large enough for a child to fit through. A faded handprint — recent — marked the rusted panel.
Derik climbed.
The space was tight. Enough to drag a body, not enough to stand. After five meters of crawling, he found it.
A hollowed space. Old wires pulled back. A small mattress. Crumpled food wrappers. A child's toy soldier — fingers melted off. A tape recorder, cracked but intact.
He turned it on.
The hiss of static.
Then a voice. Not mechanical. Not professional.
A boy.
"I see him. He's not like me.
He doesn't blink. I tried to count how long once. I got to four hundred."
"He scratches the walls when he's dreaming.
Not when he's awake. When he's awake… he doesn't move."
Then silence.
Then laughter. But wrong. Forced.
Not Zero. The other boy.
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Ash's Doubt
Ash studied the tape in Derik's hand.
"So there's a third. Not a ghost. A survivor."
"No," Derik corrected. "A leftover."
He handed the tape to Zero.
"You ever see him?"
Zero didn't answer right away. His eyes darkened.
"He's the part they tried to fix with kindness.
They kept him soft, just to see what would grow."
"Did it work?"
Zero shook his head.
"He got better at pretending."
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The New Trail
Back in the main corridor, Derik accessed the facility console again. He rewired a cold boot using salvaged circuit cores. After two minutes, the database buzzed alive.
He searched unauthorized maintenance entries.
One name appeared, and only once.
"D-087 - Auxiliary Custodial Shadow"
No bio. No rank. No record of creation.
Just one note in the clearance logs:
"Subject granted secondary clearance by Internal Overseer [REDACTED].
Instructions: DO NOT ENGAGE. Observe only.
Codename: Cheshire."
Ash read the name aloud.
"Cheshire… like the cat?"
Zero responded, voice almost whisper.
"No. Like something that watches, even when it isn't there."
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Final Beat — Bloodlike Memory
As they prepped to leave the facility, Zero paused. Then spoke clearly:
"He still watches. But not through the walls."
Derik turned.
"Then how?"
Zero reached out — slowly, gently — and pressed two fingers to Derik's temple.
"He's in here."
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End of Chapter Thirteen