The Third Level
The stairwell was darker than the others.
Brynn could feel it before she saw it—a cold, heavy pressure that seemed to push against her chest, her throat, her lungs. The air was thick with dust and something else. Something metallic. Something old.
Kael’s grip on her hand tightened.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Yes, we do.”
“If we go down there, we might not come back.”
“I know.”
She stepped onto the first stair.
The whispers stopped.
The silence was worse than the voices. It pressed against her ears, her mind, her soul. She could hear her own heartbeat, her own breathing, the rustle of her clothes. Nothing else.
Kael followed.
The stairs groaned beneath their weight. The walls were cold, damp, slick with something she didn’t want to identify. The darkness was absolute—not the absence of light, but the presence of something that had swallowed the light whole.
They reached the bottom.
The third level was not a hallway.
Not a room.
Not anything she had expected.
It was a cave. A natural cavern, carved into the bedrock beneath the city. The walls were rough stone, streaked with mineral deposits. The ceiling was high, lost in shadow. The floor was uneven, covered in dust and debris.
And in the center of the cavern, a door.
Not a wooden door, like the ones upstairs. This was a door made of metal, rusted and ancient, set into a frame of iron. It had no handle, no keyhole, no way to open it from the outside.
“This is where the whispers come from,” Kael said. “I’ve never been this far, but I’ve felt them. Pulling me. Calling me.”
“What’s behind the door?”
“I don’t know.”
Brynn walked toward the door.
The air grew colder with each step. The pressure in her chest grew heavier. She could feel something watching her from the other side—not with eyes, but with presence.
She reached the door.
It was warm.
Metal should be cold, down here, in the dark, in the damp. But this metal was warm. Alive.
She pressed her palm against it.
The door swung open.
Beyond the door was a room.
Small. Circular. Walls of stone. A single ceiling light, flickering, casting weak shadows. And in the center of the room, a figure.
A woman.
Dark hair. Pale skin. Small scar above her left eyebrow.
Corinne.
But not the sixteen-year-old girl who had vanished. This was a woman of twenty-six, dressed in a white gown, sitting in a wooden chair. Her eyes were open. Her hands were folded in her lap.
She looked peaceful.
She looked dead.
“Corinne?” Brynn whispered.
The figure didn’t move.
Kael stood behind her. “Is that her?”
“I don’t know. It looks like her. But older.”
“Could it be her? Could she have been down here all this time?”
“How? How could she survive?”
The figure blinked.
Brynn gasped.
Corinne’s eyes moved. Her head turned. Her lips parted.
“Brynn,” she said.
Her voice was soft, familiar, warm. The same voice Brynn had heard a thousand times in her dreams.
“What happened to you?” Brynn asked.
“I waited.”
“For ten years?”
“I didn’t know it was that long. Time is different down here. The whispers keep me company.”
“The whispers are the patients. The forgotten.”
“Yes. They’ve been here longer than me. Some of them have been here for a hundred years.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
Corinne smiled. It was a sad smile, hollow.
“I couldn’t. The door won’t open from the inside. I’ve been waiting for someone to open it from the outside.”
“Who locked you in?”
Corinne’s eyes flickered to Kael.
“He did.”
Kael’s face went pale.
“You’re lying,” he said.
Corinne shook her head.
“He brought me here. He said he wanted to help me. He said he knew a place where I would be safe.”
“That’s not true.”
“He comes down here often. He talks to the whispers. They tell him things. They told him about you, Brynn. They told him you would come.”
“I’m not—” Brynn started.
“He brought you here to trap you. To keep you. To add you to his collection.”
Kael stepped back. His hand slipped from Brynn’s.
“Kael?” Brynn turned.
He was standing in the doorway, his face twisted, his eyes dark.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he said. “I was going to let you go. I was going to let you leave.”
“What are you talking about?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. The same iron key that fit the door.
“The whispers promised me someone,” he said. “Someone to keep me company. Someone to stay with me in the dark. I’ve been down here for so long. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to be alone.”
“So you took my sister?”
“I took her. And she’s been here ever since.”
“Let her go.”
“I can’t. The door won’t open from the inside, remember? And I’m not opening it from the outside. Not anymore.”
He stepped back through the door and pulled it closed.
The lock clicked.
They were trapped.