On Earth, the atmosphere was thick with a humid, grey fog that clung to the windows of the St. Jude's Medical Center. While Gerry, Zippo, and Shetan were prowling the neon-lit streets of the town—sniffing out leads in dive bars and dark alleys—the hospital was eerily quiet.
Inside the ICU, the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor suddenly accelerated.
Cael opened his eyes. The light was blinding, and his lungs felt as though they were filled with crushed glass. He sat up, his head spinning, and realized the nurses' station was empty—distracted by a strange, localized power surge that had flickered the lights throughout the building.
Ignoring the IV line tugging at his arm, Cael swung his legs over the bed. He had heard the whispers of the orderlies through his coma. They said his mother, Mrs. Drustin, had lost her mind. They said she was screaming about "monsters in suits" and "the girl with the blood-stained hands."
He found her in the psychiatric wing, sitting on the floor of a dim room. Her hair was matted, and her eyes were wide, darting toward the shadows. But as Cael slipped through the door, the "madness" vanished instantly. Her face smoothed into a look of sharp, terrified intelligence.
"Cael!" she hissed, lunging forward to grab his hands. Her grip was like iron. "You shouldn't be out of bed. They'll see you."
"Mom, they said you were... they said you'd broken," Cael whispered, his voice cracking.
"Listen to me," she interrupted, her voice a low, urgent rasp. "I am sorry, my boy. I am so sorry for all of this. But you have to listen if you want to stay alive. There are three of them. Three men who aren't men. They are looking for the truth about Marianne. They are looking for you."
She pulled him closer, her eyes fixed on the door. "I am pretending, Cael. I am playing the madwoman so they stop asking me questions. If they think I'm broken, they'll look elsewhere. But you... you are the link."
"What do I do?" Cael asked, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"You must feign memory loss," she commanded, her voice trembling with maternal desperation. "Total amnesia. You don't remember the accident. And most importantly, you do not remember Marianne. If you speak her name, you'll endager our lives. Do you understand? To the world, you are a boy who remembers nothing."
Cael looked at his mother's frantic eyes and realized the scale of the danger. Marianne wasn't just a neighbor who had died; she was a secret that could get them killed.
"I don't know who she is," Cael practiced, his voice flat and hollow.
"Good," Mrs. Drustin whispered, leaning back as the sound of heavy boots echoed in the hallway. "Now go back to your room. Hide. The wolves are coming."
The heavy, pressurized air of the hospital wing seemed to curdle as Gerry, Zippo, and Shetan materialized in the corridor. Their presence felt like a cold draft from an open grave, causing the fluorescent lights to hum and flicker.
They found Cael sitting on the edge of his bed, his eyes glazed and vacant, just as his mother had instructed.
Shetan, the most aggressive of the trio, leaned over the boy, his shadow stretching unnaturally across the white linoleum floor. The scent of sulfur and old coins wafted off his suit.
"We're going to make this simple, kid," Shetan growled, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "We're here for a woman named Marianne Thornveil. People say you were her shadow. They say you were the only one she didn't want to kill. What do you know about her?"
Cael tilted his head, his expression a perfect, hollow mask of confusion. "Marianne?" he repeated, the name sounding foreign on his tongue. "Who is that? Is she a nurse?"
Zippo narrowed her eyes, stepping forward.She produced a blurred photograph of Marianne—her eyes sharp, her beauty undeniable even in a grainy print. "Don't play with us. You lived next door. You spent every afternoon in her kitchen. Your heart rate is steady, boy. Too steady."
"I don't know her," Cael whispered, his voice steady despite the terror screaming in his chest. "I don't know anyone here."
"What about the woman in the psych ward?" Gerry asked, his tone deceptively soft. "Mrs. Drustin. Your mother. She's been screaming for you. Surely you remember the woman who gave you life?"
Cael looked Gerry straight in the eye, a chill running down his spine as he delivered the ultimate lie. "I don't have a mother. I woke up here alone. I don't know who any of you are."
The air in the room suddenly turned freezing. Shetan's face contorted with a primal, demonic rage. He lunged forward, his hand clenching into a fist, the knuckles turning a sickly grey. He was inches from shattering Cael's jaw—ready to beat the truth out of the boy's skull.
"You lying little—"
"Shetan! STOP!" Gerry bellowed, his hand snapping out to grab Shetan's wrist.
The force of the movement cracked the bedframe, but Shetan froze. The three of them stood in a tense, vibrating silence, the memory of Dreese's warning echoing in their minds like a curse.
Shetan let out a frustrated, guttural snarl, his fist trembling just an inch from Cael's nose. He slowly retracted his hand, his eyes burning with a hateful, violet light.
"He's lying," Shetan spat, turning away to pace the small room. "He's been coached. The mother isn't mad, and the boy isn't empty. They're mocking us."
"Perhaps," Zippo said, . "But we cannot touch him."
Gerry looked at Cael one last time—a long, searching look that seemed to peel back the boy's skin. "Keep your silence then, boy. But remember: the afterlife is already crumbling. If you don't speak the truth, there won't be a heaven or a hell left for you to go to when we eventually meet again."
The three agents vanished into the grey fog of the hallway, leaving Cael shaking in the sudden silence of the room.