CHAPTER 1: THE FORGOTTEN LETTER

Scene 1: Mira’s Routine Interrupted

Mira Donovan leaned over her littered desk, her fingers hovering over her keyboard. Her apartment was covered in the pale, flickering light of her computer monitors, which displayed lines of encrypted data. Papers, books, and notebooks were scattered everywhere, with notes that were hastily scribbled filling the margins. Her small desk lamp, which is the only other source of light, cast sharp shadows across her face.

Outside, the city was busy with its usual crisis of activities, horns blaring and voices blending with the musical instruments, piercing through the thin apartment walls. Inside, the low noise of her computer was the only sound. She preferred it this way, noise on the outside, silence in the inside.

Mira’s mind was sharp-focused on breaking an encryption algorithm for a client, a high-profile tech company with more money than patience. She was close to a success when a sharp knock rang through her apartment.

Her fingers froze. She looked at the clock, the time was 9:47 PM.

She doesn’t like surprises.

Rising from her chair, she tiptoed to the door and peered through the peephole. Standing outside was Mr. Chambers, her building’s elderly superintendent. His face was worn and mixed with curiosity, and in his hand, he held an envelope.

“Mira, it’s me,” he said. “You’ve got some mail. And I think it is an important one.”

Relieved, she pushed the door and opened it slightly. Mr. Chambers handed over the envelope with a weak smile.

“I brought you the mail for today,” he said. “Looks old.”

Mira nodded, murmuring a quick “Thanks” before shutting the door. She locked it and carried the envelope to her desk.

It was unlike any envelope she’d received before. The paper was rough, yellowed with age, and bore a faint stale scent. Her name and address were in an elegant script she had not seen about ten years. Her chest became stiffened.

It is her father’s handwriting.

She dropped into her chair, with her hands trembling slightly as she opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of parchment.

The words, written in the same precise hand, were both mysterious and frightening:

The answers you seek are inside the forgotten. Trust no one. Find the Cipher before it is too late.

At the bottom of the page was a line of numbers and symbols. Mira looked at them, with her mind racing. The order was incomplete, but the patterns were unmistakable, it was a cipher, one designed to disguise something important.

The room seemed to cover her up as the full meaning of the note settled. Her father, Alexander Donovan, had been missing for fifteen years. No calls, no letters, no clues. And now, this?

She took hold of a notebook and began copying the symbols, her mind shifting into problem-solving mode. Questions spinned through her mind: Was this really from her father? Why now? And what, exactly, was “the Cipher”?

Scene 2: The Letter’s Mystery

The symbols were simple but deceptive, letters, numbers, and shapes, but they followed no readable order. Mira understood the technique. Her father had taught her about substitution ciphers as a child, turning their boring weekends into mysteries.

This was different because this was advanced and it's purposeful.

She wrote with her pencil on the notebook as she jotted possibilities. Was it a date? A location? A set of coordinates?

She leaned back, looking at the note again. Her father had always been so much involved with mysteries. He called himself an adventurer, though her mother used less flattering terms, like “reckless,” “irresponsible,” “selfish.” Mira’s feelings about him were no clearer now than they had been when he disappeared.

Her mind quickly ran through memories: her father sketching maps at their kitchen table, studying and reading over dusty books, and speaking in half-whispers about ancient secrets. He had claimed he was at the point of discovering something that would “rewrite history.”

And then he was gone.

Now, the past was forcing its way back into her carefully ordered life. Her father’s handwriting. His mysterious message. The Cipher.

Mira pulled up her laptop and typed the symbols into a decoding program she’d developed. The software went through algorithms, searching for patterns. She looked at the screen, as her pulse quickens.

A sharp knock at the door disrupted her concentration.

Scene 3: A Sudden Visitor

Mira’s heart leaped. There was another knock, which was louder this time. She approached the door with the utmost care, her mind recalling through worst incidents that had happened in the past. Peering through the peephole, she saw a man in his mid-thirties. His hair was untidy, his suit a little rumpled, and his eyes sharp with purpose.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Mira Donovan?” the man replied. “My name’s Ethan Kael. I need to talk to you. It’s about your father.”

Her stomach tightened. How did this stranger know about her father?

“I’m not interested,” she said.

Ethan sighed. “Look, I know this may seem strange to you. But I’m not here to waste your time. I think our families have something that connects them together. Please, just listen to me first.”

Reluctantly, Mira pulled the door open. “You’ve got only five minutes.”

Ethan stepped inside, looking around the littered apartment. He carried a small leather handbag, which he placed on the coffee table.

“Your father, Alexander Donovan, worked with my brother, Sam Kael, fifteen years ago,” Ethan began, as he brought out a photograph and gave it to her.

The picture showed two men standing at an excavation site, with dirts on their clothes. One was without doubt her father.

“This was taken a month interval before they both disappeared,” Ethan said. “I have been following up my brother’s movements, and everything points to your father’s last project.”

Mira stared at the photo, her mind doing a lot of calculations. “Why are you coming to me now?”

Ethan opened his small handbag and brought out a letter. The handwriting and symbols resembles the one she had received earlier.

“I got this last week,” he said. “It’s part of a cipher. Your letter compliments mine.”

Scene 4: Sharing the Cipher

Ethan placed the two letters side by side. The symbols matched perfectly well, creating what looked like a fragment of a map.

“This looks like coordinates,” Mira said in a very low voice.

Ethan nodded. “It’s pointing to a location in Romania. The site my brother dug last.”

Mira’s doubts were conflicting with her curiosity. “Why would someone send us these letters now? And why not just give us the full cipher?”

“Because whoever sent them doesn’t trust us,” Ethan said. “It may be they are testing us, or warning us.”

Mira’s instincts pressed hard at her to leave to he place. This was exactly the kind of crisis she had been avoiding for many years. But the image of her father in the photo troubles her.

Before she could respond, the noise of shattering wood sounded from the front door.

Scene 5: Intruders in the Night

Two men wearing mask bursted into the apartment, moving very fast and intentional. One went straight for Mira’s desk, rifling through her papers, while the other checked the room.

Mira froze, clutching the letters. Ethan took hold of her arm. “We need to go. Now!”

They pressure the door for the fire escape, Mira holding tight her laptop and the letters. While this was going on, below, the city vibrated with its usual manner. They went down as the intruders shouted behind them, with the sound of their footsteps being heard.

Once they reached the alley, Ethan pulled Mira into the shadows. “Who the hell were those guys?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said. “But they’re after the cipher.”

Scene 6: Deciphering the Clues

At a quiet café, Mira and Ethan study and read through the fragments of the cipher. Mira’s fingers ran over her laptop keyboard as she cross-referenced the symbols with known codes.

“It is a map,” she said finally. “It is pointing to something buried somewhere in Romania.”

Ethan nodded sternly. “The Cipher. It’s more than just a puzzle. My brother believed it is keeping secrets that could change the world.”

Mira’s phone tried to ring. She looked at the screen and caught cold.

You’re not the only ones looking for the Cipher. Be careful whom you trust.

Her blood ran cold.

Scene 7: Reluctant Allies

While going through the subway back to Ethan’s hotel, Mira struggled with her decision. This was like madness, but the many ideas of answers coming to mind were not what she could resist.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked Ethan. l’m doing it “for my brother sake,” he said. “And maybe for your father, too.”

Mira nodded, holding tight to her resolve. “Fine. But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it the way I want it.”

Ethan smiled faintly. “Deal.”

As the train bang through the underground tunnels, Mira focused at the cipher fragments. The forgotten truth lies ahead, but so did unimaginable danger.