Vespera
This is the Valerius estate. This is my new home. And as the flickering light above finally dies, plunging us into a heartbeat of total, terrifying darkness, I realize that the scent of copper is the only thing I have left to guide me.
The passage of time in Sub-Level 4 is not measured by the movement of the sun or the ticking of a grandfather clock; it is measured by the slow, agonizing retreat of the stains. My back is a singular sheet of throbbing pain, a dull roar of protest from muscles that were never designed for this kind of mechanical brutality. Every time I dip the wire brush into the bucket of lye, the movement feels heavier, as if the liquid itself is gaining weight, absorbing the gravity of this cursed room. I have lost track of how many quadrants I have scrubbed. All I know is the rhythm: dip, scrub, rinse, repeat. The world has narrowed to a three-foot radius of wet concrete and the hiss of chemical steam.
Martha is a silent phantom in the fog. She moves with a terrifying, rhythmic efficiency, her silhouette occasionally cutting through the yellow haze of the flickering lights. She doesn't check on me. She doesn't offer encouragement. She simply exists as a grim reminder of what I will become if I stay here too long—a woman who has replaced her soul with the cold necessity of the scrub brush.
"Switch to the high-pressure alkaline," Martha's voice cracks through the silence, amplified and distorted by the acoustics of the room. "The central drain has... organic buildup. It requires the corrosive."
I move toward the heavy iron cabinets at the back of the room. My boots feel like leaden weights, splashing through a shallow pool of runoff that hasn't yet found its way to the central drain. I open the steel locker and pull out a different canister, this one marked with a jagged red skull and crossbones. The weight of it tells me it's concentrated power. As I hook it up to the steam hose, I feel a tremor in my hands. It's not just the physical fatigue; it's the realization of what "organic buildup" means in a place like this.
In a normal Mafia hit, there is a body, and then there is a clean-up. But as I direct the nozzle toward the central drain, I see things that defy my understanding of a "normal" crime scene. There are patches on the concrete that aren't just blood. They are thick, iridescent smears that catch the jaundiced light in a way that reminds me of oil on water. When the alkaline steam hits them, they don't dissolve like human blood. They sizzle.
A sound rises from the drain—a high-pitched, harmonic whine as the chemicals eat through the residue. It sounds like a faint, dying scream caught in the plumbing. I pull back instinctively, my heart hammering against the inside of my ribs. What kind of person leaves behind blood that screams? What kind of man bleeds in colors that don't belong to the visible spectrum?
I think of the stories the other maids told me during the brief orientation. They spoke of Don Malphas in hushed, terrified tones, calling him a "Collector" and a "Huntsman." I had assumed it was Mafia bravado, a way to make their boss sound more intimidating than a common thug with a gun. But staring at the shimmering foam sliding down the drain, the metaphor begins to feel dangerously literal.
I force myself to lean back into the task. I cannot afford to be curious. Curiosity is a luxury for those who have a home to go back to, a family to protect them. I have neither. I am Vespera Vane, a girl who died to the world six months ago to escape a different kind of monster. If I have to scrub the blood of the "executed" to keep my new life, I will do it until my fingers bleed.
"Don't stop," Martha warns, appearing suddenly at my shoulder. Her visor is clouded with condensation, making her look like a faceless entity. "If the residue hardens, it becomes permanent. The Master does not like permanent reminders of his work. He expects the floor to be white enough to eat from by the time he returns."
"Is it always like this?" I whisper, the words barely audible over the roar of the steam. "Does he... does he do this every night?"
Martha stays silent for a long heartbeat. I can hear her breathing—a wet, labored sound through the filters. "The Don is a man of vast appetites, girl. Sometimes the room is empty for a month. Sometimes we are down here for a week straight, rotating shifts while the drains choke on the volume. Do not look for a pattern. Just look for the dirt."
I scrub. I scrub until the violet-grey foam turns white. I scrub until my vision begins to pulse with the rhythm of my heartbeat. The silence of the Killing Room is not a lack of sound; it is a presence. It is a heavy, velvet-wrapped weight that presses against my ears, making me feel as though I am submerged in a vat of cold oil. I start to hallucinate sounds in the white noise of the hose—whispers of names I don't know, the scratching of nails against the other side of the concrete walls.
By the time the floor is finally white, my legs are shaking so violently I have to lean against the cold wall for support. My respirator filters are nearing their end; the air coming through the valves is tasting metallic, a sign that the lye fumes are winning the battle.
"Shift change," Martha finally announces.
I return to the locker room and begin the grueling process of decontamination. I spray down my rubber apron with neutralizing agents, watching the grey sludge slide off into the floor drain. When I finally pull off the respirator, the air of the hallway—cold, damp, and smelling of concrete—feels like the freshest oxygen I've ever tasted. I take deep, gasping breaths, my lungs burning.
My face is marked with deep red indentations from the mask, and my hair is matted with sweat. I look into the small, cracked mirror above the sink and barely recognize the girl staring back. Her eyes—my eyes—look hollow. There is a hardness in them that wasn't there this morning. The Killing Room has already started to hollow me out, carving away the soft edges of the girl I used to be.
I change back into my clean grey tunic, though the smell of iron and lye seems to have seeped into my very pores. No matter how much I scrub my hands with the abrasive soap, they smell of copper. It's a permanent brand.