Chapter Six
Ezra's Private Office, Argent Tech HQ
11:12 PM
When you can't trust their story, trust the metadata.
The office was quiet.
Only the sound of the server fan and faint beeps from the console were audible. From the window, the city was visible—illuminated in the darkness, but inside the room, only one light shone: the glow of the monitor in front of Ezra.
He held an old keycard. It looked ordinary—no label, no name. But it wasn't just any keycard.
Admin key. Unregistered. Shouldn't exist.
He had kept it hidden for a long time. But tonight... he couldn't sleep because of all the questions. There was only one answer:
Open it, Ezra. You can no longer live with the lie.
He pressed a small toggle under the desk—a small port appeared, almost invisible to the eyes of other employees. He inserted the keycard. A low beep.
The prompt appeared:
ADMIN OVERRIDE - CLEARANCE LEVEL ALPHA.
Proceed?
Ezra sighed. "Let's see what you've been hiding."
[ENTER]
The interface suddenly opened. Access granted.
The archive folders he had wanted to look at for years appeared—all labeled in red:
CLASSIFIED
INCIDENT_03
FIRE_LAB_WING_C
He clenched his fist. He reviewed the metadata of the files one by one. Last access: "Never."
This means it has never been opened, or they didn't want anyone to know that it had been opened.
He chose the oldest feed. CAM_04_CORRIDOR_EAST
Timestamp: March 17 - 1:03 AM.
Loading...
Static. Then. Play.
Black-and-white footage. Grainy. Smoke rising from the ceiling. Emergency lights blinking every five seconds. No one was there.
Ezra leaned forward.
A figure passed through the frame—quickly, almost invisible. Rewind. Play. Pause.
Frame by frame, he examined the movement.
A woman. Wearing a white coat. Running. She was gasping, looking to her left—as if looking for something.
"Selene?" Ezra whispered softly.
But as he watched, something bothered him.
She was too young.
She looked only eighteen. Her face was smoother. Her movements were lighter. It was obvious she wasn't yet at the age of the lead researchers. She resembled Selene.
She resembled Selene. But it couldn't be her. She was only eighteen… seven years ago.
He pressed pause. Enhanced the frame. Long hair. Wearing a white lab coat. Obviously injured. Scared. But still running.
Then—a glitch. Only one frame—the woman looked back.
Ezra froze.
He couldn't be wrong.
"Luna…?"
His hair stood on end.
"Seven years ago... she was just a kid."
The frame was too blurry. Pixelated. The upper-left quadrant of the feed was corrupted.
I'm not sure… but if it's not her—who is it?
And if it's not Luna—maybe they haven't told us something else.
He tried to boost the image using the forensic plugin.
And there he saw it.
Another person behind the woman.
He rewound again. Slowly. Every second, every frame, he examined it.
Until he saw a man following. Taller. Wearing the same thing—a white lab coat. But his face was blurry. Always covered by glare or smoke. No clear detail.
He paused on the frame where the man turned. Short hair. Broad shoulders. But in one glitch—only one frame—he seemed to look at the camera.
The video quality was poor… and the detail of the face was even more blurred.
A pixelated shadow. No identity.
"Who are you…" Ezra whispered.
"You don't know me… but you know the surroundings are on fire. Why did you stay?"
He slid back in his chair, as if the whole office suddenly got cold.
"This isn't Selene… she's too young."
Only one name suddenly popped into his mind. Luna… Mendez
He paused on the frame where the woman ran. Long hair. Injured. Almost falling.
Then—a hand appeared from the edge of the frame.
Not part of the fire. The lab coat was clean. Helping. Opened the exit door. Pushed the woman out.
Ezra leaned forward.
Glitch. Flicker. Only one frame. The one who helped her—also wore an ID badge. But it was unreadable. And as the woman went out, the helper looked back...
…Directly at the camera.
But the frame was corrupted. As if deliberately scrambled.
Ezra clenched his jaw.
"She didn't make it out alone. Someone made sure she lived…
…But they stayed behind."
He paused. Scanned the metadata.
Frame ID: 317-FC-291. Last edited: Never. Timestamp mismatch detected.
His eyes widened.
"Someone edited the timestamps," he whispered. "But they didn't erase the flicker. The truth."
He watched it again. Whole. No skips.
This time, he let himself feel the nervousness, the weight of the footage. Like a ghost inside the file.
Behind the smoke and chaos, a shadow was helping her, and as the camera zoom approached, the question in his mind deepened:
If Luna is alive, who did we bury? Then what the hell really happened that night?
His phone rang beside him. Unknown caller. He didn't answer.
A moment later, someone passed in front of the glass wall of his office.
But when he looked—there was no one there. Empty hallway.
He felt a chill.
He returned to the screen. Stood up, approached, stared at the paused frame.
A pixelated face. Turned. As if looking directly at him from within the footage.
"Digital ghosts don't lie," he whispered. "They just flicker in silence."
Selene's Apartment, 12:01 AM
Some warnings don't come as words. Just envelopes.
The elevator door closed behind Selene as she stepped back, carrying her tote bag, drenched in the rain. The ends of her hair were still dripping as she unlocked her phone using her thumbprint. No new notifications.
But she felt something she couldn't explain.
The kind of feeling—like someone was watching. Like someone followed her.
She gripped her bag tighter. Her breathing slowed.
She stopped in front of the door of apartment 9B. She had been living there for three years. Quiet. Always safe. Always consistent.
But tonight...
Different.
When she inserted the key, there was some resistance. The lock wasn't broken... but it seemed like someone had used it.
She opened it. Turned the knob.
When she opened it, the light flickered.
On. Off. On. Then steady.
She stopped at the threshold. There was no obvious forced entry. Everything was fine. But something was wrong.
"Hello?" she called softly. Even though she knew no one would answer.
She entered slowly, closed the door behind her, pressed the switch again to make sure the light was stable.
The whole unit was quiet.
Until she noticed it.
An envelope. On the floor.
Right inside the door, as if deliberately placed where she would surely look.
White. No name—nothing. No trace of passing through the mailbox. It didn't look like it came from the mailbox or delivery. Thinner, more intentional.
She knelt down. Picked it up.
Dry. No trace of rain.
But her palm suddenly got cold while holding it. Literally as if ice had slipped between her fingers.
She opened it.
It only contained one thing. Photo. Black-and-white. Grainy. But clear: Her. Selene. In the lab. On the night of the fire.
She was wearing a lab coat. The background was filled with smoke. She was holding her left side of her stomach, there was a wound. Her forehead was furrowed. Terrified.
The photo was taken from above.
High angle. Not CCTV. Not security footage. Closer. More personal.
As if someone was waiting above.
As if she had someone inside that she didn't see.
She stepped back. Her tote bag fell.
She couldn't breathe. Not just because of the shock—but because of the fear that the picture might be true.
"This isn't possible..."
That lab was on lockdown.
No one could enter. No one could leave. And she was sure she ran out alone that night.
How could someone take a picture... if there was no one else inside?
She got nervous. Looked around. All the windows were closed.
The hallway? No sound. No footsteps.
The night was quiet, but it felt like someone was breathing on the wall.
She picked up the photo again, trembling. Turned around. Went into the kitchen. Holding her phone, she almost called security but stopped.
She noticed something written on the back.
Colorful. Red ink. Almost blood-red handwriting.
"You weren't supposed to survive."
She couldn't move.
It was as if the floor swallowed her where she stood. And only one question kept repeating in her mind.
How did someone take a picture from inside... if no one else got out?
Suddenly, something made a sound inside—like something fell in the bathroom.
She looked at the door. Closed.
She stepped forward, slowly, holding an umbrella—the closest thing she could use as a weapon.
The light was on under the door.
But before she could get close, the sound stopped.
Only her breathing could be heard.
And the ticking of the clock on the wall.
"Who's there?" she asked loudly.
No answer. But the envelope was still there. She still held it.
And the picture. And the letter.
Someone knocked. Three times in a row. Slow. Steady. Not on the front door. On the bedroom wall. Someone was knocking on the other side of her room. But it was only her unit. There was no adjacent door. No access.
She approached the wall. Slowly.
No sound. But she felt a presence on the other side. Worse than a ghost.
Who had access to the inside of the lockdown lab? Who saw her? And why did they want her removed from the story?
She sat down on the floor, trembling, still holding the photo, while the one line she couldn't erase kept coming back to her mind:
How can someone take your picture from inside a locked-down lab... unless they never left?
Argent Tech's Surveillance Room.
12:32 AM.
You can delete files. But not what the fire saw.
Access Granted.
The reinforced security door of Argent Tech's Surveillance Room opened. The lights inside, all emergency blue, dim, cold, almost like underwater. In the middle of the large monitors and blinking panels, Ezra entered, carrying his laptop and a purpose:
He went back to the fire.
He approached the main console. Input the override code. Plugged in his external drive. And on the screen, the file he had just opened in his own office appeared again:
FIRE_EVENT_LAB03_RESTRICTED.avi
Now, it wasn't just a replay. It included infrared mapping.
He activated the plugin. FLIR-X Thermal Layer, developed in-house by the very lab that burned down.
"Let's see what the flames didn't erase," Ezra whispered.
The footage played.
Black-and-white cam. Timestamp: 1:21 AM.
Flames rising, corridor bathed in smoke. The ceiling tiles collapse in one corner. Screams—barely audible. Static. Then silence.
But as the thermal overlay kicks in...
Something new appeared. Movement.
Not at eye level. Not at standing height.
On the floor. Slow. Almost crawling.
He paused. Zoomed in.
It wasn't an animal. Not a shadow. But a person.
Frame by frame. Forward.
In the heat of the fire, there was a contrast in the body. The upper torso was barely lit, but the neck had an intense flare.
Infrared glow. Metal. Stone. Necklace.
"Wait..."
He watched that portion again. Added thermal highlight.
There was a bright circle in the chest area of the crawling figure. Suspended. Swings slightly. Bounces as she crawls.
Ezra froze.
"Could it be..."
He minimized the image. Enhanced it. Adjusted the contrast. Applied noise reduction.
Pixel by pixel, slowly, the shape appeared.
Moonstone pendant. Silver chain. Delicate setting. Almost heart-shaped.
His heart dropped.
Luna's necklace.
This wasn't an ordinary piece of jewelry. Custom made. Limited release. A gift he gave her on their project anniversary.
Only Luna had one.
And he remembered. She never took it off. Even in the lab. Even in the field. Even in simulation tests.
"She wore it the night of the fire..."
And here it was. In the middle of hell. On a body crawling away from the camera.
But wait, Luna died. They said she burned. Her whole body wasn't found. Only partial remains. Dental match.
Official file: Assumed fatal, 93% likelihood.
But now, something was moving. Still wearing the pendant. Inside the lockdown lab.
Dead girls don't wear pendants..."
He touched the screen. Unless they're not dead.
His phone rang. *Unknown Number. He didn't answer.
An error prompt appeared on the screen.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. SYSTEM WILL LOCK IN 90 SECONDS.
"Shit—no, no, no—" He immediately copied the portion of the frame to the drive. He opened two USB ports, backing up simultaneously.
But while processing, he noticed something else.
On the right side of the screen, in the background of the crawling figure. A shadow.
Standing. Not moving.
The body temp wasn't hot. Almost no thermal reading.
But there was an outline. A woman's face. Tall. Holding... a clipboard? Or a syringe?
"Who the hell are you..."
He tried to isolate the frame. Enhance again.
But the screen glitched. Suddenly pixel scramble.
All frames, red tint.
System Override. Attempted Backtrace.
"Shit—someone's monitoring my access..."
He ran out of the surveillance room, carrying the external drive.
But before he closed the door, he stopped, took a deep breath, and looked inside.
The footage was frozen on one frame. Luna.
Or whoever was crawling.
There was blood on her leg. Burns on her arm. But alive. Fighting. Crying.
And she was still wearing the moonstone pendant he himself gave her.
When he returned to the office, he immediately sat down, opened the copy of the footage on his laptop, and pressed pause.
Frame 291. Infrared on.
Still glowing. The pendant wasn't a ghost. She was real. She was alive.
And if Luna was alive, why did they say she was dead?
And notably, Why did they try to burn this evidence?
A notification suddenly popped up on the laptop.
MESSAGE RECEIVED.
SENDER: UNREGISTERED NODE
Stop digging.
Attached: Another photo.
It was Ezra.
Taken from the surveillance—of the very moment he watched the video.
This means... someone was watching him while he was watching. Real time.
He stared at the pendant frozen on the screen. Then looked at his own reflection on the dark screen of the monitor.
Only one question he couldn't answer:
If Luna is alive... why doesn't she come out?