— Nolan's POV —
The drive back to the hospital felt longer than usual.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other clenched in my lap, fingers stiff and cold. My mind wouldn't stop circling the same things — the director, the photo, Varek. The way everything seemed to twist around each other like a knot I'd never noticed before.
It didn't make sense. Not yet. But there was something there. A connection beneath the surface, and the more I thought about it, the more it started to feel intentional — like these pieces had been placed carefully around me. Like someone wanted me to never put them together.
But I was going to.
I parked, walked into the hospital with my coat barely buttoned, and headed straight to my office.
Didn't even sit down.
I opened my laptop and began digging — not like a doctor, not like someone researching a case.
More like someone trying to wake up from a dream that didn't belong to them.
I searched the hospital director first, flipping through news archives, donation records, medical interviews. Most of it was polished — the kind of clean, hollow surface built to distract people.
But I dug deeper.
Eventually, I found a local interview posted on a forgotten news blog almost eleven years ago.
Most of it was about funding and renovations.
Except one line.
Just one.
"The property was once home to a state-funded asylum, shut down quietly due to budget cuts and rumors of unethical practices. Nothing was ever proven."
My eyes stopped there.
My breath did, too.
Mental asylum.
I had never heard that before. Never seen it listed anywhere in the hospital's official documentation.
But the word… it rang in my skull like a warning.
I didn't remember ever being there — but I didn't have to.
My body remembered.
It felt like standing on a grave I didn't know I'd dug myself out of.
Suddenly, I remembered the director's face in the photo — the one from the orphanage. How he was standing in the background like he didn't belong. I pulled it from my drawer.
He was more than a donor. I knew it now.
I needed answers.
And only one person could give them to me.
I left my office and walked straight to Room 13.
---
— Varek's POV —
He came in like a storm. No knock. No hesitation.
Eyes wild. Breath uneven. Like something inside him had just snapped.
He walked up to me and dropped the photo in front of me. His hand trembled.
"You knew," he said. "Didn't you?"
I glanced at the photo.
The director.
Of course.
He pointed at it. "You know who he is. You know what this place was before. You know something and you're not telling me."
His voice cracked at the edges — not from anger, but something worse. Betrayal. Fear.
"There was a mental asylum here before. I found it in some old article. But I… I feel like I've been there."
My chest tightened.
"And that's not all," he said quieter now.
"I think someone's following me."
That's when it hit me.
That cold, slow terror that sinks straight into your bones.
He wasn't talking about me.
He would've known if it were me. He could always tell. The way the air changed. The way my presence lingered too heavy to ignore.
No, this wasn't me.
And I knew exactly who it was.
The moment I saw that flicker of panic in his eyes — something shattered inside me.
I'd said those things to him — "Don't you want to know what happened?" — because I was desperate. Because he was pulling away and I didn't know how to make him stay.
But now?
Now they knew he was digging.
And they were watching him.
Because he was starting to remember.
And they didn't want that.
He's only survived this long because his memory was broken. Because I kept them away.
But now… he was in danger.
Because of me.
Because I opened my mouth.
Because I couldn't leave him alone.
He was supposed to be safe.
And now… he wasn't.