Buried Files, Buried Truths

The chill of the train depot still clung to Tricia’s skin as she stood in the war room, if it could even be called that, of Gabriel Knox’s underground haven. It was a makeshift bunker carved out of the crumbling concrete beneath Warsaw’s forgotten rail lines. Electricity flickered unreliably from old halogen lights, casting everyone’s face in half-shadow.

There were seven of them now, Tricia, Joseph, Gabriel, Casey, Rowan, Ava, and a wiry man named Luc who rarely spoke but watched everything. All survivors of Project S.O.L.A.C.E. All harboring scars, both visible and hidden, that tethered them to the same nightmare.

Gabriel tossed a dusty box onto the metal table in the center of the room, its edges scorched as if it had narrowly escaped fire.

“I found this in Berlin. Hidden behind a false wall in what used to be the Ministry of Defense’s lower archives. Took a blowtorch and a week of digging to get it out,” he said, cracking the lid open.