Chapter 23: After Lights-Out
The halls looked different at night!.
Not darker...
The lights were still on, pale and clinical — but emptier in a way that made them feel wrong. Like walking through a place that had been abandoned mid-sentence.
Arwa didn't speak as they moved.
Neither did Zayaan.
Words, somehow, felt too loud here. Even the sound of their footsteps... soft-soled and cautious — seemed to echo more than it should've. Like the building itself was listening.
They took the long route — down through the old med corridor, past the storage lifts that hadn't worked in years. Zayaan moved like he'd done this before.
Maybe he had.
"Room 317 should be just ahead," he said quietly and gesturef to a door at the far end.
There was nothing special about it!.
No markings. No surveillance panel. Just a plain metal door... that looked like it hadn't been opened in years. Dust had gathered in the seams.
But when Zayaan touched the handle — it turned.
The door wasn't locked.
He glanced at Arwa once before pushing it open.
And inside —
There was nothing.
No furniture. No monitors. No remnants of a once-functioning-lab. Just white walls and a faint chemical smell, that didn't quite fade, no matter how long you stood there.
But Arwa didn't move.
Her breath had caught in her throat.
Zayaan noticed. "What is it?"
She didn't answer right away. She took a step forward...one, two until she was in the center of the room. Then she slowly crouched, ran her hand across the floor.
"There was something here," she said, eyes unfocused. "A chair. With straps."
Zayaan's chest tightened.
She looked up at him. "I don't know how I know that."
He didn't respond — just walked the perimeter of the room, trailing his fingers along the wall.
Halfway around, his hand caught on a groove.
Barely visible — a hairline crack that didn't belong.
He pressed his palm against it.
A low click.
The wall slid open — just slightly. Enough to reveal the edge of something else behind it. Another space, tucked inside the first. Smaller. Hidden.
Zayaan looked back at her. "Are you sure you wanna see this!?"
Arwa didn't hesitate.
"No," she said. "But I have to."
He pulled the panel wider.
Inside, it was cold.
A single chair sat in the middle. Not the kind meant for comfort. The kind meant to hold someone in place. Monitors lined the walls — most powered off, but a few still blinking faintly.
And on one of them —
A frozen frame.
Her face.
Eyes blank.
Her mouth was slightly open, like she was mid-sentence...
But it wasn't now.
It wasn't her now.
It was her… younger.
Maybe fifteen. Sixteen.
Arwa staggered back, hand against her mouth.
Zayaan caught her before she could fall. His grip was firm and grounding.
She looked up at him with wide, wet eyes...
"I've been here before."
"I think they wanted you to forget;"
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Then why I didn't forget?"
Zayaan didn't answer.
Because maybe it had — for a while.
And maybe now it was all starting to come undone.