The stairs groaned like a dying animal.
Each step Nolan took downward felt like it aged him by a year. His flashlight flickered — once, twice — then steadied into a weak, nervous beam that barely scratched the darkness below.
The basement wasn't just cold.
It hummed.
Not with sound, but with memory.
The kind of memory that doesn't belong to you, but forces itself into your mind like a nightmare trying to become real.
As he reached the bottom step, his boots met concrete. Cracked. Damp. Covered in strange circular patterns that hadn't been there ten years ago. Symbols. Glyphs. Like ink burned into stone.
And then came the smell.
Rot.
But sweet.
Like dead flowers. Like something buried — and recently dug up.
His light caught something on the far wall. A door. Steel. Unmarked. It hadn't been part of the original house plans. Nolan would've sworn on his badge it wasn't there the last time. But here it was.
He approached, and as he did, his ears popped — like the air pressure had changed.
Etched into the metal was a line of words in Latin:
"Quod sub tectum iacet, vigilat."
(That which lies beneath the roof… watches.)
His breath caught. He placed a hand on the door.
It was warm.
Suddenly — a scream.
Not from inside the door. From behind him. Upstairs.
A woman's voice. Desperate. Familiar.
"NOLAN!"
He turned to run — but the basement had changed.
No stairs.
Just endless black brick walls, stretching in all directions.
He turned back to the door. It was now open.
A red glow pulsed from inside like a heartbeat. A voice beckoned:
"You've come for answers. Step through."
He entered.
Instantly, the air shifted.
This wasn't a room.
It was a chamber.
Cylindrical. Walls covered in old newspaper clippings and photographs — all suspended midair, as if floating in water. The photos twisted slowly to face him as he walked past.
One showed himself — younger, standing over the corpse from the last case, the one with the missing heart.
Another showed a little girl. Blonde. Crying.
Behind her stood… something. Faceless. Wearing the same uniform Nolan wore. But its hands were backwards.
Then, at the center of the chamber, stood a man.
Or what was left of one.
Tall. Thin. Skin like old parchment stretched over bone. Eyes white and unblinking.
He spoke before Nolan could.
"You opened the door again. You were never meant to."
"J. Kinsley?"
The man smiled. Or tried to.
"That name died a long time ago. Now, I'm just what remains. The Keeper. The last witness."
"To what?" Nolan asked, raising his weapon — which now weighed nothing.
Kinsley pointed to the ceiling. There, carved into the stone in massive letters:
"SEVEN ROOMS. SEVEN GATES. SEVEN VICTIMS."
Kinsley whispered, "You're in the second."
Nolan took a step back.
"And I suppose you're gonna tell me how to stop it?"
Kinsley laughed. A wet, cracked sound.
"You don't stop it, detective. You feed it."
Suddenly, the red light flared. Kinsley screamed — not in pain, but in ecstasy — as his body disintegrated into ash, his bones bursting into flickers of floating letters that swirled around Nolan.
Then, in the silence, Nolan heard a child's voice echo through the chamber:
"You left me last time, remember?"
He turned.
There, in the doorway, stood the little blonde girl from the photo.
Her eyes were bleeding.