Ashcroft Asylum didn't have echoes when it was alive. But now, the place spoke back.
Every step Amelia took after the man vanished felt wrong—like she was treading across something sacred and sick at the same time. Alexis stayed silent beside her, but the way her hand hovered near her concealed weapon said everything.
"I saw it," Amelia finally said. Her voice was low, strained. "In his mind. A room. Red walls. A man without a face. The Hollow Man isn't just a killer."
Alexis glanced at her. "Then what is he?"
Amelia paused.
"He's a survivor. Of something worse."
---
Elsewhere. Unknown Coordinates.
A figure stood before a wall of photographs—most of them grainy, pulled from traffic cams, old files, or morgue shots. All had one thing in common: the spiral carved somewhere into them.
The figure was neither tall nor short. Male nor female. It was wrapped in layers of shadow like a cocoon.
On the table behind them: a heart, still beating in a glass jar.
The figure whispered:
"Two keys. One lock broken. And still... she interferes."
They picked up a new photo.
This one was of Alexis.
"Time to test the other one."
---
Later That Night – City Morgue
The bodies from the earlier killings had been moved—quietly, under Amelia's request. She and Alexis met the coroner in secret, deep beneath city streets. His name was Jonas Merrow, and he owed Amelia a favor that dated back to something neither of them liked to remember.
"What am I looking for?" Jonas muttered, pulling open the drawer.
Amelia leaned in. "Anything unnatural. Spirals. Scarring. Changes in... material."
Jonas peeled back the sheet.
What they saw shouldn't have been there.
The corpse's skin had changed. Not decayed—transformed. Like tree bark, or stone.
Alexis recoiled. "Wasn't this a living person two days ago?"
Jonas shook his head slowly. "This ain't rot. It's metamorphosis. His insides are still soft. But the outside... it's armor."
Amelia stared. "He was being preserved."
"For what?"
She looked up.
"For return."
---
Apartment – 3AM
Amelia couldn't sleep. The spiral in her notebook had stopped moving—but in her dreams, it turned and turned, like a drill through bone.
She got up. Walked to her window.
Across the street, someone was watching her.
No movement. Just a figure in a coat. Thin. Still.
Amelia didn't flinch.
She turned off the light.
Let him watch.