Late one evening, as they pored over the brittle pages of old documents in the dimly lit library, Elliot’s phone rang, its shrill tone cutting through the silence like a knife. The night was thick with the kind of silence that only comes when the world is asleep, and the moon hung like a quiet witness in the sky. Elliot and Vera sat outside his house, the cool evening air wrapping around them, mingling with the faint smell of old pine and damp earth. The porch light flickered softly, casting long shadows over the two of them, but they didn’t speak at first. There was something almost sacred in the stillness, as if the weight of the past hung between them, too heavy to disturb. Elliot broke the silence. His voice was quieter than usual, almost fragile. “Vera… I don’t know how to thank you for staying with me. For helping me find Lily. I couldn’t have done this without you.” Vera sat a little straighter, her heart squeezing at the sincerity in his words. She’d been by his side t

The fog had swallowed the road, shrouding everything in a thick, oppressive mist as Elliot and Vera drove deeper into the mountains. The car’s headlights struggled to cut through the swirling white, casting eerie shadows along the narrow, winding path. The silence in the car felt suffocating, broken only by the steady hum of the engine and the occasional crackle of static from the radio, which seemed to fight the weight of the atmosphere around them. Elliot’s heart pounded in his chest. Every mile they drove toward the facility felt like a step closer to a truth he wasn’t sure he was ready to confront. Vera, sitting beside him, had said little, her face etched with the same uneasy anticipation. The questions they had about the experiments, his father’s involvement, Lily’s disappearance were all starting to feel like more than just echoes from the past. The truth they were about to uncover was going to change everything. “We’re almost there,” Elliot muttered, more to himself than t

Elliot knocked on Mrs. Rachel’s door, his heart hammering in his chest. He had driven here with a sense of purpose, fueled by anger and a need for answers. But now that he was standing at her doorstep, a part of him hesitated. What if he was wrong? What if, in his fury, he had misjudged her? The door creaked open, and Mrs. Rachel stood in the threshold, her face pale, eyes red and swollen from crying. Her usually composed demeanor was gone. She looked like someone who had been carrying a weight too heavy for too long. “Elliot,” she said quietly, her voice breaking slightly. “I didn’t expect you to come.” Elliot didn’t know what to say. His anger had dulled in the face of her sorrow, but the questions were still burning. “I need to hear it from you, Mrs. Rachel. I need to understand what happened.” She nodded slowly, stepping aside to let him in. “Come inside. I owe you that much.” The house was dim, the only light coming from a flickering lamp in the corner. The air felt thick, c

Elliot’s mind was a whirlwind as he drove through the stormy streets of Harrison Creek. The rain lashed at his windshield, the rhythmic thrum only adding to his anxiety. He had to speak with his father—Robert might hold the answers, though Elliot wasn’t sure he would get them. After everything that had happened, after the cryptic journal entries and Rachel’s haunting revelations, he felt closer to the truth but also more lost than ever. He couldn’t understand why his father had been silent all these years, why he had shut himself away from the truth, from Elliot. But he had no choice. If anyone knew what was really happening, it was Robert. The hospital was cold, as it always had been, sterile and filled with the hum of machinery. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered faintly, casting a harsh glow over the corridors. As Elliot approached his father’s room, a sinking feeling gripped his chest. Robert’s condition had worsened in recent years, his stroke robbing him of speech, his b