I don't remember falling asleep. When I woke up, my body ached like it had been wrung out and left to dry.
The overhead lights flickered on and off in rhythmic pulses, as if even the electricity was exhausted. Prudence sat slumped in the corner with her knees to her chest, blinking slowly at nothing. Her face was sickly pale, but not the same pale from running. This was something else.
As I looked down, I noticed a puddle of puke in front of her.
"... Hey," My voice came out quieter than I meant it to, "You okay?"
She didn't answer right away. Just shook her head slightly, like a fly was buzzing in her ear.
"I had a dream," she finally said.
My throat tightened, "... What happened?"
Her eyes flicked to me, uncertain, "There were... was this pale black-haired woman— No eyes. Just holes. She was calling me, but not with words; humming. She... felt the same as that last thing from earlier."
The silence that followed was loud.
"Okay," I said, standing up slowly, "I think I know where we need to go next."
She looked up at me, eyebrows raised.
"There was a room shown on the cameras. Didn't match the rest of the lab. Had artifacts. Statues. Stuff that didn't belong here. That room's been bothering me since we saw it."
Prudence exhaled shakily, then stood, "Right. Let's go, then. I'm not sleeping again until we're out of this place."
We left the security room in silence.
The hallways had shifted again. Less wrong than before, but not right either. Some lights were broken, others tinted faintly purple. A wet smell lingered— almost salty and musty.
We just kept walking, looking through rooms. Twice we doubled back. Once we passed the same hallway three times in a row. The third time, we didn't speak. We just turned and kept walking like the wall wasn't breathing.
Eventually, we found it. The door had looked more extravagant than the rest. Heavy, wooden, carved with strange symmetrical shapes I didn't recognize. Dust hung in the air like it had been waiting. I reached out to push it open.
The room was quiet. Dust hung in the air.
Stone walls, not concrete. Archways carved into impossibly smooth curves. The room glowed with soft purple and crimson lights, even though there were no visible lamps or bulbs. Shelves held items wrapped in cloth or cradled in glass.
There was a shield carved with a sprawling tree whose roots stretched into a coiling pit of mouths. A cracked mirror framed in bone. A helmet shaped for something that clearly wasn't human, with curling horns and no eye holes. A gauntlet, fused to what looked like blackened stone— no, not stone. Flesh turned to ore. A broken sword with writing that looked like scratches. A book with a cover made of something that looked disturbingly like skin.
There was a strange pictograph showing humans with distinct faces, "ascending", then shifting into abstract symbols.
Prudence blurted out, "I think it's showing people turning into ideals. Or maybe the other way around?"
"That one's definitely war. And that's... love? But the last one..."
"Doesn't feel human."
"I've seen that before," Prudence said, pointing to the side. I turned.
A symbol on the wall. The same spiral we'd seen carved into the stitched creature's chest.
"How?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I don't know. But I swear I saw it when I was a kid. Maybe in a dream."
I walked toward the spiral. Beneath it sat a pedestal, and on it— a tablet, thin and scarlet with a dark undertone, etched with deep black ink in a language I didn't recognize. It was as if the block was made entirely of blood. When I looked at it, something in my head ached. Like something behind my eyes wanted to get out.
"You okay?" she asked.
"No."
We explored deeper.
There were also objects from different time periods and cultures— Roman coins, an Egyptian knife, what looked like a Central American death mask. Some things had no origin I could place. Others looked fake due to unnatural glows at first— until you looked again and realized they were made of genuine materials.
The longer we stayed, the more everything began to feel less collected and more curated. Arranged. For something.
Prudence whispered, "Could this be another collection of your dad's?"
I stared at the glass box nearest to me. Inside was a human skull, split in half. Instead of a brain, there was a polished red stone where the cerebrum should've been. It pulsed softly with light, as if breathing.
"There's something wrong with this room," I said, "It's like... it's not from here."
Prudence didn't respond. She had frozen mid-step, eyes locked onto something tucked in the back corner of the room.
Another book, this time a light, soft gold. Warm but distant, like a star or memory. There were flowers dried into the binding, with ribbons torn and faded. The way the book was displayed— it didn't feel like a relic. It felt like a grave.
She walked toward it slowly, almost entranced. I followed, uneasy.
The book sat open on a raised platform, its pages fluttering even though there was no wind. The text moved. Shifted. Rewrote itself. The longer I looked, the more I noticed a voice— Something was hushing softly, just at the edge of hearing. Not outside. Inside.
I looked at Prudence, her shaking stills— as if soothed.
"... I think this is also from somewhere else," she whispered.
On the open page, the ink rearranged again. This time, not into words, but symbols. A figure rose from the bottom margin, drawn in delicate curves. She had no face, just a glowing outline. At her chest bloomed a heart-shaped glyph, radiant and soft. From her back unfurled flowing ribbons that gradually darkened, fraying as they tangled upward.
And at the top of the page, hovering like a wound in the parchment— a collection of crimson spirals, looking like it was about to consume the woman. It pulsed unevenly, like it didn't belong with the rest.