The sun hadn't yet broken the horizon when Isabelle burst into Théo's cluttered apartment, the photograph of her mutilated childhood smiling up at her from her coat pocket like a ghostly warning.
Théo startled from his half-doze at the kitchen table, scattering a pile of hand-drawn maps and old city blueprints. His dark eyes widened when he saw her, pale and shaking, silhouetted against the misty light bleeding in through the doorway.
"I found it," she rasped. "I found... something."
Without waiting for him to answer, Isabelle slammed the photograph down on the table.
Théo leaned in, his mouth tightening into a grim line. His fingers hovered above the scratched-out eyes, the gouges like old wounds.
"They've been following you longer than we thought," he said, voice low.
"How long, Théo?" she demanded. Her voice cracked. "How long have I been part of this?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he swept aside the maps until he found a heavily marked blueprint of the city's old underground infrastructure—networks of hidden streets, sewer tunnels, forgotten rail lines. He tapped the page, drawing her attention.
"I think I finally understand," Théo said. "The victims, the movements—they were never random. Every single person disappeared near one of these old access points."
Isabelle followed his finger, heart racing.
The connections were undeniable. The vanished women. The masquerade club. The cathedral. Even the lighthouse.
All nodes, like points on a rotted web strung beneath the city's skin.
Théo pulled out another sheet—one hastily drawn last night, showing traffic patterns for the past three days.
"You remember the van caught on camera outside the lighthouse?" he asked.
Isabelle nodded, the image burned into her memory. A white van, plates blurred out, pulling away moments before she and Théo had arrived.
"Well, it reappeared. Briefly. Near the old market quarter two hours ago. Then it dropped off the grid again."
"And you think it's using the underground streets," Isabelle realized aloud.
Théo's lips pressed together grimly. "It's the only explanation. They're moving through places the public doesn't even remember exist."
Hope flared—wild, desperate.
"If we find the van," she said, "we might find Vivienne."
Théo nodded once.
"I've got a contact," he said, grabbing his jacket. "Someone who's mapped parts of the underground that even the city records forgot. If the van went below, he'll know."
The morning air was dense and heavy with damp as they drove in Théo's battered Renault through the crumbling back streets. The city seemed to hold its breath around them, windows shuttered, alleys empty except for the occasional gust of trash-tossed wind.
Théo's contact turned out to be a wiry man named Marc, who met them beneath an overpass, glancing nervously over his shoulder the whole time.
"There's movement," Marc said without preamble, passing a folded map into Théo's hand. "Something's stirred them up. I tracked a van yesterday—white, no plates—heading down by Rue des Oiseaux. There's an old merchant tunnel there. Goes deep."
Théo didn't wait for more. With a muttered thanks, he and Isabelle raced back to the car.
The directions led them into the oldest part of the city, where cobbled streets sagged under the weight of centuries, and iron street lamps leaned drunkenly overhead.
They found the tunnel entrance hidden behind a collapsed market stall, overgrown with ivy and graffiti.
It yawned open, a black wound in the earth.
Isabelle hesitated, glancing at Théo. He gave a grim nod.
Together, they slipped inside.
The tunnel air was moist and metallic, echoing every step with hollow persistence. Rusted pipes ran along the walls, and the floor sloped downward at a slow, steady angle.
After twenty minutes of careful progress, Isabelle caught the faintest whiff of engine oil.
She grabbed Théo's sleeve and pointed.
Faint tire tracks cut through the dust ahead.
And there—half-hidden behind a bend—was the van.
It sat abandoned, its white paint spattered with dirt, one of its rear doors hanging slightly ajar.
Isabelle's stomach twisted as they approached.
No sound.
No movement.
Théo circled cautiously, flashlight raised, checking for traps.
When he gestured that it was clear, Isabelle pulled the rear door open fully.
She sucked in a breath.
The inside of the van was a nightmare rendered in charcoal.
Every surface—walls, floor, ceiling—was covered in drawings.
Hundreds of them.
All sketched in frantic, desperate strokes.
Faces.
Bodies.
Women.
Each one wore an expression twisted between agony and fear.
And in the center, again and again, was Vivienne.
Her face, recognizable even under the smeared, frantic lines.
Sometimes she was laughing.
Sometimes crying.
Sometimes her eyes were black pits, empty and endless.
The drawings bled together, overlapping, layered so thickly that the interior of the van felt like stepping into someone else's fevered mind.
And in the very center of the chaos, pinned to the driver's seat, was another drawing—different from the others.
A single figure, sketched in precise, deliberate lines.
It was Isabelle.
Her back turned.
Her hands outstretched as if reaching for something unseen.
Beneath the sketch, in thin, spidery writing, was a message:
Witness what you were always meant to see.
Isabelle reeled back, heart hammering against her ribs.
She had no time to collect herself.
A scraping sound echoed from the dark tunnel behind them.
Footsteps.
Not one set—many.
Coming fast.
Théo grabbed her arm, yanking her toward a side passage.
They stumbled into the darkness as shadows spilled into the tunnel like a living tide.
Men and women in featureless masks.
Each holding something gleaming and sharp.
The last thing Isabelle saw before plunging deeper into the underground was the van, lit briefly by a swinging flashlight—
—and the charcoal drawings seemed to move, shifting and twisting like they were alive.
To be continued...