Abel's question hung in the silent tunnel, echoing off the stone arch. "Denny… what is that symbol?"
His voice trembled in a way I had never heard before. Oliver stepped closer, eyes wide, the golden light from the door washing over his face. I stared at the nine stars etched perfectly into the metal, my breath caught halfway in my chest.
"That…" I whispered, barely able to form the words, "is our mark."
They stared at me like I had spoken in another language.
"It's the symbol," I continued slowly, "they carve on the coffins of my family. My ancestors. My relatives. Every single one of them who died had this exact pattern engraved on their coffin lid. Nine stars, same alignment, same spacing, always the same." I grew up seeing that symbol on everyone we buried… but never expected it to stare back at me down here.
Abel frowned. "Your family's symbol? For what? Religion? Culture?"
"That's what they said."
I swallowed hard.
"That it was religious, part of an old ancestral belief… but no one ever explained what it meant. No one even questioned it. It was tradition. It was sacred. You weren't supposed to ask."
I pressed my palm to the cold golden surface. The metal pulsed faintly beneath my skin.
"But why is it here?" I whispered. "Under RedTie? In this place? On this door?"
My voice cracked. "What does a family death symbol have to do with the basement of a tech company?"
Oliver stepped back like the tunnel had suddenly grown colder. "Denny… what if your family's tradition wasn't religious at all? What if it was something else? Something connected to this place?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
The symbol glowed faintly, almost breathing, like it recognized me.
And then the door opened.
A blast of warm golden light flooded out, swallowing the tunnel in a wave of brilliance. Abel shielded his eyes. Oliver stumbled back. I simply stood there, frozen, as if the light had reached into my chest and held me still.
We stepped inside slowly.
The room was vast, impossibly vast, larger than any underground chamber had any right to be. Shelves rose along the walls, stacked with files, folders, binders, documents some fresh, some old, some covered in dust. Papers were sealed in glass cases, tagged with metallic labels. Thick binders lined tables in the center, each marked with symbols I didn't recognize.
Nothing about this room belonged to RedTie. Nothing about it belonged to this world.
Abel moved ahead of us, running his fingers along the metal spines of the folders. "These files… they're not company records. They don't use RedTie's labeling. They don't use any labeling I've ever seen."
Oliver pulled a file free. "This isn't even written in our format. The dates are… strange."
I wasn't listening to them anymore.
Something else had caught my eye.
A folder wedged awkwardly between two binders. Its edge sticking out, as if someone had shoved it there in haste. The corner was marked in red, the first two letters barely visible under the golden glow.
Lu.
My heartbeat stopped.
I reached for it with trembling hands, ignoring Abel's warning, ignoring Oliver's stare, ignoring the roaring in my ears. The folder slid out easily, almost too easily, like it had been waiting for me.
The name on the front hit me like a blow to the chest.
Lucas's Accident.
I couldn't breathe.
The date printed beneath it wasn't the year he died. It wasn't even close. It was stamped with a date many years after his death. Far into the future.
I stumbled backward, nearly dropping the folder as my vision spun. "This… this can't be real. This was created after he died. Years after. How how can a file exist before it's written? How can it be here?"
Abel grabbed my shoulder. "Denny… look at me. What does it say?"
"I don't know," I whispered, the words shattering as they left my mouth. "It shouldn't exist. This file wasn't created in the past. Someone… someone from the future made it."
Oliver stepped back, horror cutting through his voice. "Why would someone from the future be documenting Lucas's death?"
The folder in my hands seemed to grow heavier, the room closing in around me.
My hands shook as I opened the folder. The paper felt heavier than paper should, thicker at the edges, almost warm from being held in that glowing room. Abel leaned closer. Oliver hovered right behind me, breath uneven.
I turned the first page.
Blank. Completely blank. Not faded. Not erased. Not damaged. Just… empty.
My stomach dropped.
I flipped the next page. Blank. The next. Blank. Every single sheet inside the folder — empty.
"What the hell…?" Oliver whispered.
Abel frowned, rubbing his thumb across one of the pages. "This isn't normal paper. Feel this. It's… too smooth."
He was right. The texture was wrong velvety, almost synthetic, like the surface of plastic pretending to be paper. But what terrified me wasn't the texture. It was the emptiness. A file titled Lucas's Accident. Created long after the day he died. Hidden behind a forbidden door under RedTie. And filled with nothing.
I stared at the pages, heart pounding in my throat.
"Someone wrote something here," I said quietly. "I can feel it."
Abel blinked. "How? It's blank."
"No…" I whispered, sliding my fingertip across the page. "Look these small indent marks. Someone pressed hard. They wrote. Deep. But the ink… the ink is gone."
Oliver took the folder gently and held it under the golden light, turning it to every angle. The light shimmered across the pages, but the words refused to appear.
"It's like someone took the writing back," he murmured. "Not erased. Just… removed."
Abel nodded, voice tightening. "Extracted."
I looked at him sharply. "Extracted?"
"If this place was built for something else," he whispered, "something more than RedTie… maybe this file wasn't meant to be read at all. Someone didn't want us seeing what was inside."
Oliver swallowed. "Then why leave the folder here?"
"Because they wanted us to find it," I whispered. "But they didn't want us to understand it."
I turned the last page another blank sheet and felt my breath catch. At the bottom corner, barely visible under the golden glow, was a tiny embossed imprint. Not ink. Not writing. A symbol pressed silently into the page.
Nine stars.
The same ancestral mark carved onto every coffin in my family. The same symbol etched on the door behind us.
Abel stepped closer, voice hushed. "Denny… that's your symbol again."
Oliver's face tightened, fear entering his eyes.
My fingers trembled as I traced the imprint.
"Someone knew Lucas," I whispered. "Someone knew my family. Someone who shouldn't even know this symbol exists."
The blank pages felt heavier now, suffocating.
"Whoever created this file…" I said, voice cracking, "already knew where this was all leading."
And for the first time, the golden room didn't feel like it was hiding secrets.
It felt like it was watching us.
As we moved deeper into the golden chamber, the silence thickened. Rows of files stretched endlessly along the walls, but something else pulled at me — a faint metallic glint in the far corner. It came from a platform, waist-high, with a rectangular case sitting on top of it. Sleek. Metallic. High-tech. Nothing like the dusty shelves around it.
The lid was open just a fraction, like someone had closed it in a hurry… or wanted us to open it.
Abel noticed my stare. "Denny… you see that?"
Oliver swallowed. "That wasn't here earlier, right?"
I didn't answer. My feet were already moving.
The closer we got, the colder the air felt. My heartbeat thudded against my ribs, each step louder in the quiet chamber. When I reached the box, I pushed the lid fully open.
And my breath stopped.
Inside were three items laid out with unnatural precision like exhibits.
A mask. A cloak. A bracelet.
But it was the mask that froze the blood in my veins.
Black. Smooth. Expressionless. With a painted red tie streaking down the front.
The same mask. The exact same one that chased us through RedTie. The same one that dissolved into dust on the rooftop. The same one that nearly killed me on the highway six years ago.
Oliver stumbled back. "No. No. No. That's his."
Abel stared at it, jaw clenched, voice shaking. "What the hell is this place? Why is his mask here? Who put this here?!"
I reached out, fingers trembling, hovering an inch above the mask but not touching it. It felt wrong to touch it, wrong to even breathe near it — like it carried a memory of everything it had done.
The cloak beneath it was dark, heavy, tailored… almost ceremonial. Not fabric RedTie had ever used. Not anything from our world.
And then the bracelet.
It looked simple silver, thin, with tiny patterns etched around its edges. But those patterns weren't random. I recognized them instantly.
Nine stars. Carved into the metal. The same ancestral symbol. The same symbol on the coffin lids. The same symbol on the door outside.
My pulse throbbed in my ears.
"Denny…" Oliver whispered, "why does everything in here lead back to you?"
I couldn't answer.
Because I was thinking the same terrible thought: this room wasn't built for RedTie. It wasn't built for files. It wasn't even built for the company.
It was built for me. Or for whatever was connected to my family.
I lifted my eyes back to the mask the hollow black eye sockets staring up at me like they were waiting. Waiting for someone to wear it again.
And the golden light in the room flickered once, sharp, like the chamber was breathing.
Whoever wore this mask. Whoever walked these halls. Whoever knew Lucas. Whoever took Lucy and Diana.
Had been here.
And they had left these items behind. Not lost. Not forgotten.
Left for us. Left for me.
Before any of us could process the mask, the cloak, the bracelet, a sound ripped through the chamber
BANG.
A violent, earth-shaking slam against the golden door behind us.
Oliver jumped. "What was that?!"
Abel spun around, eyes wide, panic flashing across his face. "The door someone's at the door "
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The strikes grew harder, louder, shaking the entire room as if something massive was trying to break its way in. The shelves rattled. Dust fell from the ceiling. The golden glow deepened, brightened then exploded outward.
A wave of light shot across the room, swallowing everything in an instant. A blinding, suffocating gold that burned through the air, through our skin, through the entire chamber. I tried to shield my eyes, but it was everywhere. Oliver screamed my name. Abel grabbed my arm.
Then
BOOM.
The world snapped to black.
No sound. No air. No floor beneath us. Nothing but a weightless emptiness, like floating inside a dead universe.
And then
I gasped.
A violent, sharp inhale tore through my throat as my body jerked forward.
I was on my couch. At home. In my living room.
The mask gone. The chamber gone. The golden light gone. Everything gone.
My chest hammered. My hands shook. For a second I thought I was dreaming, but the sweat on my skin was real. My heart was real. My confusion was real.
Then Abel sucked in a breath beside me, sitting upright so fast the couch creaked. Followed by Oliver, choking on air like he'd just been pulled from underwater.
All three of us stared at each other wide-eyed, pale, terrified.
Oliver stammered first. "What happened?! We were we were under RedTie — we were in that room —"
Abel grabbed his head, trembling. "Denny… tell me I'm not losing my mind. We were in that chamber. We heard the door. The light swallowed us"
I couldn't speak. My throat wouldn't move.
Because they were right. We were in that underground room. We opened the file. We touched the mask. We saw the golden blaze.
But now we were here. Home. Like nothing happened.
I finally whispered, voice shaking, "How… how did we end up here? How did we get back?"
None of us had an answer.