The sculpture's silence

Chapter 5: The Sculptor's Silence

Elias Voss

Silence. Beautiful, sacred silence.

Dr. Elias Voss stood alone in the basement of the old, decommissioned St. Marrow's Hospital, gazing at the flickering monitor displaying Luna's vitals. Her pulse was steady—too steady. A strange, persistent rhythm he'd come to find… annoying.

She should've flatlined by now.

He chewed on the end of his glove, a habit from med school that still lingered. The surgical light above buzzed, casting sharp shadows across his pale, sunken face. Luna's body lay in the cot like a sleeping statue, pale as porcelain, with a single IV drip feeding into her arm.

"I gave you peace," he whispered. "I made sure you wouldn't feel a thing. And still, you linger."

He paced, his polished shoes echoing against the blood-stained tiles. Behind him, steel lockers lined the walls, each one labeled with a cryptic name: "Julia B," "Noah K," "Evelyn," and so on. Works of art, he called them. Lives reborn, reshaped, misunderstood by the world above.

But Luna was different.

She wasn't grateful.

She resisted.

Voss approached her bedside again, tilting his head as he watched her eyes twitch beneath their lids. REM sleep. Dreams. It was like she knew—like her spirit was trying to crawl back into the world he had carefully removed her from.

"You said no one would notice if you vanished," he muttered, voice rising with agitation. "You offered yourself to the void, Luna. I'm not a villain. I just… heard the call."

He reached out, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead. Cold. Still.

Perfect.

But the dreams—those dreams—they were dangerous.

His thoughts twisted back to the boy. John Carter.

The detective who wouldn't die.

The one who could see.

Voss turned to the wall and slammed his fist against it, laughing bitterly. "Of course it had to be you."

John had been the thorn in his side since the Carter girl. Lillian. Sweet, delicate Lillian. Her ghost had haunted the hospital's corridors for months after the botched surgery. He could still remember her tiny, bloodless fingers gripping the edge of the operation table as her spirit screamed through the veil. It was his first encounter with the inexplicable.

But he'd silenced her.

Or so he thought.

Until John started asking questions.

Now, a decade later, John was back, and this time, he was following the trail too closely. Ghosts clung to him like parasites. Luna's spirit was active—too active. That heartbeat… it shouldn't exist. She was between realms, yes, but somehow still partially here.

He sat in his leather chair, eyes glazed as he stared at the scribbled diagrams on the wall. Nervous sketches of brains, faces, shifting souls. Dozens of connected strings tied Luna, John, and his past victims into a single horrifying constellation.

"You're special," he murmured. "Both of you."

Suddenly, the lights flickered. A cold gust swept through the room.

Voss froze.

A whisper.

He stood slowly, eyes scanning the darkness. Behind the oxygen tanks, he saw it—just a flicker. A figure.

A girl.

Lillian.

She stepped out slowly, her feet not touching the ground. Her eyes, glassy and hollow. Her mouth didn't move, but he heard her scream inside his skull, clawing at his sanity like rusted nails against bone.

"No," he muttered. "You're gone. I buried you."

She hovered closer, translucent fingers outstretched. Her presence brought with it the scent of antiseptic and rot. And then she vanished—like always.

But not before he heard it again:

"John is coming."

He staggered backward, knocking over a tray of scalpels.

"No. He doesn't know where this is. He has no proof."

But the fear—it was rising. Cold and wet inside his chest, sticky like embalming fluid.

He walked over to the far locker and opened it. Inside lay the stitched remains of the Jane Doe he'd prepared to replace Luna. Same height, same weight, same hair color. The resemblance was uncanny, if not for the dead stare and loose jawline.

"Soon," he whispered, gently closing her eyelids. "You'll be her."

He would make the world believe Luna had died in a car crash. The corpse was almost ready—one more surgery to adjust the jawline. After that, he'd burn the basement. Burn the records. Bury the evidence.

John would have no choice but to let go.

He always thought he was the hero. But heroes don't last in Elias's world.

As he returned to the operating table, Luna's eyes fluttered—just barely. It was the first time since he induced the coma that her body had responded.

He stared at her, heart racing.

Then she whispered, hoarse and broken:

"John."

Voss staggered back, clutching the tray beside him. It crashed to the floor.

Her lips moved again.

"Lillian."

His blood turned to ice.

She was talking in her sleep. Communing. Dreaming of the dead. Crossing the veil.

He didn't have much time.

His mask of control cracked. He needed to act—now.

Tomorrow, Luna would vanish for good.

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