I returned to the storeroom beneath the dissection hall with a chipped lantern and three excuses prepared.
None were needed. No one saw me.
The corridor was cold. A thin dampness curled between the bricks like something alive.
I shut the door behind me and lit the flame.
The old robe lay where I'd hidden it days ago under the decayed linen stacks, near the cracked plaster wall. But I didn't come for the robe this time.
I came for the ledgers.
There had once been three locked drawers under the alchemical shelf.
Two were empty now. The third was sealed with a rusted pin and red wax, stamped with a half-smeared crest.
I pried it open slowly.
Inside were dozens of folded papers—crumbling at the edges, water-stained, half-written in code. Dosages. Symbols. Trial numbers. An inked sketch of a human spine with blackened joints.
And this,
"Trial #67 – Subject failed to respond to the distillate. Loss of sensation began at the wrists. Breathing irregular. Marks reappeared. "Z"advised cessation."
The Z wasn't a signature.
But it felt like one.
And beneath it, one line scribbled in haste:
"Protect the survivor. Or it will all be for nothing."
Zhen.
Not an observer.
A participant.
A witness.
Or something deeper.
I closed the drawer and re-set the wax as best I could.
But when I turned to leave, the lantern flickered.
Someone was standing in the corridor beyond the door.
Tall. Motionless. Waiting.
I didn't breathe.
And then nothing.
The shadow disappeared.
When I opened the door, the hallway was empty.
Except for a slip of charcoal tucked between the stone and the frame.
On it, three words written in flawless script:
"Still watching. Continue."