“Don’t let him take you home.”
David stumbled away from the ventilation grille.
For several seconds, he couldn’t move.
The voice had come from inside the wall.
His mother’s voice.
He remembered it from old recordings his father kept in a locked drawer. He remembered the way she pronounced his name, softening the final syllable as if she were trying not to wake him.
But he had been two years old when she died.
At least, that was what his father had always told him.
David backed toward the door.
“Who is this?”
Nothing answered.
He waited, staring at the grille.
“Mom?”
The word escaped before he could stop it.
A low hum vibrated through the ventilation shaft.
Then silence.
David ran.
He didn't stop until he reached the control room and slammed the door behind him. His hands shook as he pulled out his phone.
There was only one person he could call.
His father answered on the fourth ring.
“David? Do you know what time it is?”
“Dad, I need you to listen to me.”
A pause.
“What's happened?”
“Do you remember a place called Station Nine?”
The silence that followed was different.
It wasn't confusion.
It was recognition.
“Where did you hear that name?”
David stared at the photograph lying beside the console.
“You know it?”
“David, answer me. Where are you?”
“At Station Nine.”
His father stopped breathing—or at least, that was what it sounded like through the phone.
Then he spoke.
“You need to leave. Now.”
“Why?”
“Don't argue with me. Get outside, find the road, and keep walking until you reach the main access gate.”
“I can't leave yet.”
“David, listen to me—”
“I found a photograph.”
The words came out before David had decided to say them.
His father said nothing.
“It was taken here. June 17, 2001.”
A faint sound came through the phone.
Not a word. Not quite a breath.
Something like a chair scraping across a floor.
“Who's in it?” his father asked.
David looked at the photograph.
“Me.”
He swallowed.
“You, Mom, and four other people.”
His father didn't respond.
“Dad, Mom is in the photograph.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She’s standing right beside me.”
“David—”
“You told me she died in 1999.”
“She did.”
“Then explain the photograph.”
“I can't.”
“Can't, or won't?”
His father exhaled sharply.
“Get out of that building.”
David closed his eyes for a moment.
“There's something else.”
He looked toward the dark corridor leading to the lower levels.
“Someone opened a vault downstairs. And I heard Mom's voice coming through the ventilation system.”
His father whispered something.
David couldn't make it out.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“You said something.”
“David, whatever you hear tonight, do not follow it.”
The warning made David's stomach tighten.
“Why would you say that?”
His father seemed to be struggling with a decision.
Finally, he said, “Because some things are better left where they are.”
“Did you bring me here when I was a child?”
No answer.
“Dad?”
The call ended.
David pulled the phone away from his ear.
Call ended.
He immediately called back.
This time, the phone rang until voicemail answered.
David lowered himself into the chair.
His father had not denied the photograph.
He had not asked to see it.
And when David mentioned his mother, the first thing his father had said was that it was impossible.
Not that it was fake.
Not that David was mistaken.
Impossible.
David turned toward the console.
The security system was still running. Rows of camera feeds showed empty corridors, the perimeter fence, and the snow-covered access road.
He needed something real. Something that hadn't spoken to him through a wall.
He opened the station's personnel archive and searched for his mother's name.
MILLER, ELAINE.
The system returned no results.
He tried again, using her maiden name.
Nothing.
David leaned back.
His father had kept her photographs. Her recordings. Even a small box of handwritten letters.
But here, inside a station that had supposedly been abandoned for eighteen years, she didn't exist.
He opened the archived personnel directory and searched for the date printed on the photograph.
17 JUNE 2001.
A list of records appeared.
Most were damaged or inaccessible. One was marked RESTRICTED.
David clicked it.
A warning filled the screen.
AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
He entered his employee credentials.
ACCESS DENIED.
He tried again.
The screen went black.
For one long second, he saw only his own reflection.
Then a line of text appeared.
YOU HAVE BEEN ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION.
David's jaw tightened.
“Then give me the right one.”
Nothing happened.
He waited, refusing to look away.
A second line appeared.
ASK YOUR FATHER WHY HE BURIED HER TWICE.
David stopped breathing.
He read the sentence again.
Buried her twice.
His father had told him there was a funeral. David had been too young to remember it, but he had grown up visiting a grave in a cemetery outside the city.
There was a name engraved on the stone.
Elaine Miller.
David had stood beside his father there every year until he turned eighteen.
He knew where she was buried.
Didn't he?
His fingers moved across the keyboard. He opened the station's maintenance records and searched for the restricted archive's file number.
The system returned a single entry.
FILE 09-117.
The same number appeared on a label attached to the back of the photograph.
David pulled it closer.
Beneath the file number, almost hidden by a crease in the paper, was a handwritten note.
He tilted the photograph toward the desk lamp.
The words were faint, but legible.
If he remembers her, we lose him.
There was no signature.
David turned the photograph over.
For the first time, he noticed a second line written along the bottom edge.
17 June 2001. Transfer completed.
Transfer.
Not arrival.
Not recovery.
Transfer.
He picked up his phone again and opened his contacts. His thumb hovered over his father's name.
He could call again.
He could demand an explanation.
But his father had already made one thing clear: he wanted David out of Station Nine before he discovered anything else.
David put the phone down.
He wasn't leaving without answers.
A soft click sounded behind him.
He turned toward the control-room door.
It was still closed.
Another click came from the console.
The archived personnel directory had reopened by itself. The restricted file was now accessible.
David stared at the screen.
Inside was a scanned document bearing Station Nine's seal and a date: 18 JUNE 2001.
The day after the photograph.
He scrolled to the bottom.
Four names had been crossed out in black ink.
A fifth had been circled.
ELAINE MILLER — STATUS: DECEASED.
Below it was another field.
CAUSE OF DEATH: CLASSIFIED.
David's mouth went dry.
Then he noticed the final entry.
It had been added to the document years later.
SECONDARY DISPOSITION: 04 NOVEMBER 2001.
David looked at the date.
Four months after her supposed death.
He read the entry again, searching for an explanation that might make sense.
There wasn't one.
His phone vibrated against the desk.
A message from his father.
I'm coming to get you. Do not open any more files.
David stared at it.
Then another message arrived.
And whatever happens, do not tell them you remember your mother.
David's hands went cold.
He hadn't told his father that he remembered anything.
He had only told him about the photograph.
Slowly, David turned toward the ventilation grille.
A faint hiss drifted through the metal.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the wall, his mother's voice spoke again.
This time, she wasn't warning him.
She was crying.
“David,” she whispered. “Why did you leave me here?”