By the time Adrian stepped out of the car, the sky had begun to morph into a disturbing shade of orange-gray, casting an eerie hue over the landscape. Lena parked a few feet behind him, the car's engine still humming as if reluctant to surrender its warmth.
"I really hope this is worth the trouble," she muttered under her breath while making her way out of the vehicle. "And just so you know, if I step into anything foul down here, you owe me a new pair of boots."
Adrian barely registered her complaint. His gaze was fixated on the structure looming ahead—the viaduct at Calgrove Street. To the casual observer from the roadside, it might appear nothing more than a neglected overpass, yet underneath its shadowy expanse, a gaping tunnel mouth beckoned ominously, hidden behind rusted fencing and a line of homeless encampments. It seemed to yawn wide open, like some dark, waiting throat, eager to swallow them whole.
"This is where they found her?" Lena inquired, her eyes trained on the dark entrance that seemed to come alive in the failing light.
With a solemn nod, Adrian confirmed her question.
"She was half submerged in the water," Adrian explained, his voice low. "Whoever dumped her here intended for her to be discovered, just not too soon."
"Very symbolic," Lena remarked thoughtfully. "Buried yet exposed to the world."
"Exactly. It's like a message."
Lena glanced over at him then. "The same message you found in your apartment?"
At that moment, Adrian hesitated. He realized with a jolt that he hadn't disclosed the existence of the note to her—until now.
With a deliberate motion, he reached into his coat pocket, pulling out the folded paper. He handed it to her, and Lena unfolded it with careful precision. As she read, the faint ink became visible in the dying light, and a frown creased her forehead.
"'You're remembering. Good.'" Her voice dropped, nearly a whisper. "Do you believe he left this in your kitchen?"
He nodded solemnly, feeling a shiver run down his spine.
"That's not merely creepy; it's a serious breach," Lena said, her expression tight. "That means he's observing you. Very closely."
"I think he always has," Adrian replied, his voice low and filled with an unsettling realization.
They cautiously climbed over the rusted fencing and began their descent down the slope, flashlights gripped tightly in their hands. The air around them changed, the unmistakable odors hitting their noses first—stagnant water mingled with rotting leaves and an undercurrent of something faintly metallic. The tunnel opened up before them, nearly twenty feet wide, mostly dry save for a thin stream that gingerly trickled down the center. The walls were adorned with mottled, moss-stained concrete, dotted with ancient graffiti tags that spoke of lives once led within these dark confines.
Adrian paused just inside the mouth of the tunnel, feeling a sudden increase in his heart rate. There was something about the silence enveloping them that felt wrong—a thick, oppressive quiet as if the air itself were holding its breath.
Lena activated her flashlight and swept the beam cautiously ahead of them. "Which way do we go from here?"
"Follow the markings," Adrian instructed, his voice steady despite the rising tension in his chest. "Reyes said the graffiti message is located about fifty meters in."
As they ventured deeper, an uneasy silence blanketed them, broken only by the crunch of gravel beneath their feet and the occasional splash from shallow puddles. Adrian's flashlight flickered intermittently, as if in sync with his growing anxiety, each tiny pulse coinciding perfectly with a spike in his nerves.
They passed a long-forgotten mattress, now a rotted, waterlogged relic. A plastic bag filled with torn clothing lay discarded, and beer cans littered the ground beside mold-eaten shoes—signs of individuals who had once sought shelter within these walls, who perhaps called this place home at some point.
Suddenly, Lena stopped in her tracks.
"Look over there," she whispered urgently, her flashlight beam shining on the wall.
Adrian moved closer, his curiosity piqued.
There it was, the message Reyes had shown him, unmistakable.
"I AM NOT DEAD. I AM NOT FORGOTTEN."
The letters were jagged and uneven, inscribed in thick, oily chalk that seemed to cling to the wall with a sense of desperation. Below the larger letters, smaller handwriting had been scrawled in the same dark material.
"Do you still hear me, Keller?"
Adrian felt his mouth go dry, the words hanging heavily in the air.
Lena's voice tightened, tinged with unease. "He's using your name now."
Adrian stepped closer, scrutinizing the strokes of the message. They weren't hurried; they indicated careful deliberation. The spacing and pen pressure suggested a calculated intent behind them. Reaching out, he touched the wall, and a sharp wave of pain bloomed in his ribs—sudden and breath-stealing. He felt his knees weaken beneath him.
Lena quickly grabbed his arm, concern etched across her face. "Adrian—"
"I'm alright," he gasped, forcing the words out even as the pain radiated through him. "It's just… echoing. He was in pain when he wrote this. There was chest trauma. It feels like he could barely breathe."
"Could be psychosomatic," Lena suggested tentatively, unsure.
"No," Adrian replied quietly, conviction threading through his voice. "This isn't just my mind playing tricks on me. I'm experiencing what he left behind."
Lena regarded him for a moment longer, then nodded, her expression resolute.
"Alright then. Let's go deeper."
After taking twenty measured steps along the damp, echoing passage, they stumbled upon the second message etched into the wall. This one was even more enigmatic than the last.
"The basement was never closed."
Lena squinted at the words, a frown knitting her brow. "What on earth does that mean?" she asked, clearly perplexed.
Adrian, transfixed by the inscription, felt a surge of discomfort washing over him, as if a weight was pressing down on his chest. "I think he's referring to the orphanage," he replied after a moment, his voice low and contemplative. "While the actual building has been shut down for some time now, the... systemic implications remain untouched. The experiments that were conducted, the dark truths buried within those walls? They linger on in the lives of those they harmed. That basement, metaphorically speaking, continues to exist in the minds and hearts of the victims."
A heavy silence settled over them, absorbing the gravity of what they had just uncovered. Just as the tension in the air thickened, Adrian's flashlight flickered ominously, casting erratic shadows along the cold walls. Moments later, it sputtered out completely, plunging them into darkness.
"Damn it," he cursed softly under his breath, frustration evident as he banged the flashlight against the palm of his hand in a futile attempt to revive it.
Lena, unfazed by the sudden loss of light, raised her own flashlight high, illuminating the path ahead. "Just stay close to me," she instructed firmly. "I'm not about to let you collapse in this sewer tunnel." Her determination was palpable, and Adrian couldn't help but feel a spark of reassurance as he took a step closer to her.
Adrian remained motionless, rooted to the spot as an unsettling change rippled through the tunnel stretching before him. An electric tension hung in the air, making the atmosphere feel almost charged, like a storm ready to break. With a tentative resolve, he took three deliberate steps forward, then abruptly halted. His foot pressed against something unexpectedly soft beneath him.
Curiosity piqued, he knelt down, directing the beam of Lena's flashlight to illuminate what lay hidden in the shadows. To his astonishment, he discovered a small stuffed bear, its fur matted and water-stained, one eye tragically missing. A thin piece of thread was tied carelessly around its paw. Intrigued and unsettled, Adrian gently lifted the bear, carefully turning it over, only to unearth a small note tucked beneath it.
With utmost caution, he began to unfold the note, the paper feeling fragile and somewhat soggy to the touch. The ink had smudged slightly, but the message emerged, hauntingly clear:
"You weren't supposed to leave me."
A wave of emotion surged through him, tightening around his chest. It wasn't the familiar sensation of synesthesia that caused his heart to constrict; it was something much deeper, more visceral.
Lena had crouched down beside him, her expression grave as she took in the scene. "This isn't just a random message, Adrian. This is intentional. It's a memory he's crafted—he's reconstructing the past piece by piece for a reason."
With his gaze locked ahead into the darkness, Adrian slowly rose to his feet, absorbing her words.
"He doesn't want me to merely remember," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
Lena met his eyes with understanding. "No, he wants you to relive it," she echoed, completing his thought.
As they made their way back toward the tunnel's exit, Adrian paused once again, unable to shake the feeling that something significant awaited him just beyond the darkness. Near the entrance, at the lowest part of the wall, he noticed a new symbol etched into the stone—a fresh marking. It was a crescent, slightly elongated, accompanied by a jagged slash and a small circle.
Lena leaned in closer, her brow furrowing. "That definitely wasn't there when we came in," she stated, a hint of apprehension coloring her voice.
Adrian nodded affirmatively, a grim realization dawning upon him. "It's a response," he replied, a chill running down his spine.
"A response to what?" she asked, her eyes wide with concern.
"To my presence," Adrian responded, the weight of the situation settling over them.
Lena's voice wavered slightly as she processed this revelation. "He knows we were here. And he wants us to come back," she said, a sense of foreboding enveloping her words.
Adrian's gaze remained fixed on the new symbol, absorbed by its implications. Beneath it, scrawled in thin red chalk, was a chilling command:
"Bring the files. I want you to see what they did to us."
That night, as darkness enveloped the apartment, a heavy silence lingered between Adrian and Lena. They sat across from each other at the cluttered table, the orphanage files sprawled open before them. Each page unveiled fragments of an obscured narrative: names transmuted into codes, memories flagged for erasure, and accounts of punishment recounted in an unnervingly clinical language designed to numb the soul.
Adrian's finger traced the text, landing on a name that sent tremors through his hands. B7. First name: Elijah.
His voice came out barely above a whisper, thick with emotion. "That's it," he breathed. "That's his name."
Lena raised her gaze, seeking confirmation in his expression. "You're absolutely sure?"
With unwavering certainty, Adrian nodded. "Elijah. He used to hum it, you know? It was the only thing he ever said during that first week we knew each other, almost as if he were terrified that someone might take it away from him."
For a brief moment, Lena closed her eyes, lost in thought, processing the gravity of the revelation.
Quietly, as if speaking to himself rather than anyone else, Adrian murmured, "Elijah is alive." The words hung in the air between them, charged with a mixture of hope and dread, echoing the fragmented memories they were only beginning to piece together.