Kaelith didn't remember slipping the card into her pocket.
It was there, though. Cold plastic, unmarked, the kind that didn't belong to any modern ID system. She found it inside her desk drawer—tucked beneath layers of outdated patient files and long-expired medication logs. No label. No signature. Just a magnetic strip worn smooth, like it had passed through too many unseen hands.
She shouldn't have taken it.
She definitely shouldn't have used it.
But that night, long after the rest of Saint Nerezza had fallen into institutional stillness, Kaelith stood in front of the old freight elevator near the east maintenance corridor—one that didn't exist on the updated blueprints—and held the card to the rusting access panel.
A flicker of red. Then green.
The doors groaned open.
Inside, the lights buzzed faintly, cold and yellow. Dust motes spiraled in the air like insects suspended in amber. Kaelith stepped in. She pressed no button—there weren't any, just a thin slit where a panel used to be—and still the doors hissed closed behind her.
The elevator moved.
Down.
Each second stretched.
The hum beneath her feet changed pitch, deeper now, resonating in her bones. It felt like she was descending through something older than concrete and steel. Not a building. A wound.
When the doors opened again, the air that met her was dead.
Sublevel W wasn't lit.
Only the weak pulse of emergency strips along the ceiling illuminated the long corridor ahead. The floor tiles had curled at the edges. Mold bloomed in the grout. The smell was thick—copper, mildew, something sweet and wrong.
Kaelith stepped out.
Her boots echoed sharply in the silence. With each step, she passed rusted nameplates. No names. Only numbers. Some of the doors had been welded shut.
On one wall, faint beneath layers of peeling paint, she saw something carved in a child's hand: "Ashema."
She kept walking.
At the far end of the hall stood a door unlike the others. Heavy. Reinforced. And somehow… reverent. Not just locked—sealed. Marked with the sigil she'd seen in her dreams: a sun split down the center, its rays curling like teeth.
There was no scanner here. Only a slot.
Kaelith slid the card through.
The lock disengaged with a mechanical whimper, and the door swung inward.
What greeted her was not a cell.
It was a room of boxes.
Thousands. Floor to ceiling. Some cardboard. Others metal. Each one labeled in red ink with a designation: CATEGORY THETA. Most had dates. Some didn't. Others were burned on the edges, partially melted like they'd survived a fire someone wanted them to die in.
She opened one.
Inside: a white robe. Child-sized. Singed, stained. Folded too neatly.
Another box held a tape recorder—its battery compartment empty, the casing cracked. A tape still inside. The label read: Subject A-0 | Session 03.
She didn't press play.
She wasn't sure it would even make sound. The machine looked ancient.
But the last box was different.
No label. No number. Just a loose lid and a stale scent of smoke.
She pulled it open slowly.
Inside, at the very top, was a photograph.
Polaroid.
Faded.
It showed a circle of children around a fire. Hooded figures in the shadows. But at the center, barefoot, arms raised toward the sky—
A little girl in white.
Black hair.
Eyes too wide, too calm.
Her own face.
Smiling.
Kaelith didn't move.
Her lungs forgot to function. Her fingers trembled against the edge of the box. She stared at the picture long enough for the lines to blur, the edges to swim.
That smile didn't look like hers.
It looked older.
Wiser.
Like it knew something she didn't.
A sound broke the stillness.
Not loud.
Soft.
Humming.
Male.
It came from behind the far wall.
Kaelith turned, breath shallow. The room wasn't square, she realized—it curved slightly. As if built around something.
She moved toward the sound.
Fingers tracing the wall until they found it—an edge that didn't match. A seam.
A hidden panel.
She pressed her palm against it. It gave way with a low hiss, revealing a narrow corridor that sloped downward. At the end: a window. Observation glass, aged and scratched.
She approached.
Looked through.
The chamber beyond was empty—stone walls, old torches affixed to rusted sconces. In the center, a stain on the floor—dark, spread like something once bled for days. But it wasn't the stain that froze her.
It was the mural behind it.
A painting, faded but immense, covering the full height of the wall. It showed a girl—not a woman, not quite a child. Kneeling. Arms spread. Surrounded by stars and silver knives. Her mouth open in a scream—or a song. Around her, figures knelt, hands pressed to the ground.
Beneath her feet, in curved script, was a single word.
Ashema.
Kaelith touched the glass.
Her chest ached.
And that's when it started.
The relic burned against her skin, searing hot. She gasped and staggered back. Her vision swam, tunneled, bent. The mural rippled, as if painted on water. And behind her eyes, a voice echoed.
Not from outside.
From within.
Saevus's voice.
"You found the place they made you forget."
The lights went out.
Total blackness.
Then—footsteps. Not hers. Not echoing.
Coming closer.
Kaelith couldn't see. She turned blindly, heartbeat slamming in her throat. The photograph slipped from her hand.
Something brushed her shoulder.
She ran.
She didn't remember finding the elevator again, didn't recall the sprint down the curved hallway. She just blinked—and the doors hissed closed behind her. She leaned against the wall, panting, the photograph now crumpled in her grip.
The elevator rose.
When the doors opened, Saint Nerezza looked… wrong.
Too bright. Too silent.
As if it hadn't missed her at all.
She stepped into the corridor.
A nurse passed her, blinked.
"Dr. Nyraen? Were you just down in W for the emergency audit?"
Kaelith didn't answer.
She walked past, shoes echoing.
The relic against her chest was still hot. Her coat felt heavier. The photo in her pocket thrummed like a pulse.
She didn't know where she was going.
Only that something down there had watched her.
And remembered her name.