[Narrative Log – Post-Archive Infiltration | Sometime in the dead of night]
Katherine shut her dorm room door with a soft click, the weight of the archive box heavier now that it sat in her arms. Dust clung to the lid like forgotten memories, like something sacred that had no business being disturbed. She placed it gently on her desk, her fingers lingering on the worn edges as her heart pounded in her chest—not from fear exactly, but from the anticipation that bordered on dread.
She stared at it.
And it stared back.
For several long moments, she didn't move. The adrenaline from her secret mission still surged through her veins like static under skin, her thoughts racing, her muscles coiled tight. Her instincts screamed to dig in, to unravel the mystery immediately—but her body had other plans. She needed clarity. She needed control. She needed to breathe.
Without another word, Kat turned away from the box and disappeared into her bathroom. The hiss of running water filled the silence. She undressed in a daze, shedding not just her clothes but the weight of the night's decisions. The hot water cascaded down her back, scalding, purifying, anchoring her in the present. Her thoughts returned again and again to the word painted on the metal door—REDACTED—and the whisper of a voice that knew her name.
She didn't know if she was ready for answers.
But she knew she couldn't walk away.
A few doors down, Caspian stood under his own stream of water, steam curling around his face like ghosts. His thoughts weren't on cleansing—they were on her. Katherine. He'd seen her slip away with that box. He'd followed just far enough to confirm what he needed, then let the darkness swallow him before she could notice.
It unsettled him—how much he cared. This was supposed to be routine: observe, report, move on. But she wasn't routine. She was unpredictable, like a variable in an equation that refused to be solved. And that box? It wasn't just historical junk. It was dangerous. It hummed with old magic, with secrets buried too deep for ordinary hands to hold.
He clenched his jaw. No matter what, he had to earn her trust. Not just to fulfill the mission—but because something deep inside him told him the path forward wouldn't just be about observation anymore. It would require a choice. One he wasn't sure he was ready to make.
Sleep would not come easy tonight. Not with her on his mind.
Far beneath the school, in a forgotten labyrinth older than the foundation stones of Greystone itself, Adrian Vale moved through corridors carved from shadow and blood memory.
He did not sleep. He had not truly slept in centuries.
Unseen by Nightshade. Unacknowledged by his ancestral House, Noctis Sanctum. He moved like breath in a crypt, unseen, hunting not for prey—but for sustenance. For strength. For loyalty forged in secrecy.
The old rites still whispered in his veins. And he would feed—but only on the willing.
He found them: the fringe students, the broken ones, the lonely and overlooked. Those aching for meaning. They came to him in dreams, drawn by his pulse, compelled by something they couldn't name. And when they awoke, they remembered only fragments: crimson eyes, a voice like velvet sin, a promise they didn't fully understand.
Adrian was rebuilding. Quietly. Patiently.
The moment was coming.
She was here now.
And with her, the past had begun to stir.
KATT'S POV
Finally—after the longest day I could remember, after a night thick with silence and too many questions—I had it. The box. The thing that had pulled me like gravity since I first laid eyes on it.
It sat in front of me now, covered in a thin film of dust that looked almost sacred, like it had been waiting to be disturbed. I hesitated. Not out of fear, but reverence. Like opening it meant crossing a threshold I couldn't come back from.
Maybe I already had.
With trembling fingers, I undid the rusted latch. The hinges groaned, protesting their first movement in years. The air around me shifted, like something invisible had been released. Dust burst into the light above my desk, spinning lazily before settling onto the surface like ash from a fire.
I coughed and waved it away, wiping down the desk instinctively—as if a clean space could somehow brace me for what was coming.
Inside the box, among brittle folders and what looked like decaying notes, was a single cassette on the top. I pull out the rest on my desk.
My hand hovered over the single cassette on the top, for a second before I picked it up. The label, smeared and faint, read:
Audio Transcript – Tape 1A | Unmarked | Archive Date: that same date
Today's date.
That stopped me. My skin prickled.
How could it be dated today?
The ink looked old, like it had been scrawled decades ago. But the timestamp—September 3rd—was now. Here. Me. This moment.
My pulse quickened, but I didn't let myself spiral. Not yet. I slid the tape into the small, portable player I'd dug out of a box of childhood junk earlier. The lid clicked shut with finality.
For a breath, I did nothing. My finger hovered above the play button. Once I pressed it, there was no undoing this. No pretending I hadn't heard what I was about to hear.
And still—my curiosity won. Or maybe it was something else. Fate. Instinct. Obsession.
I pressed play.
The tape began to spin.
And the past began to speak.
Audio Transcript – Tape 1A | Unmarked | Archive Date: 09/03
(Initial playback distorted. Static crackles like dry leaves underfoot. The reel stutters, then begins to spin evenly. A low inhale, followed by silence. Then—)
ADRIAN (V.O.):
You always saw the cracks.
The fractures in silence. You listened, Kat—even when the silence was unbearable.
(A slow, rhythmic tapping begins. It sounds like fingers drumming on wood—or bone.)
ADRIAN (V.O.):
They say memory fades. That time dulls the edges. But not yours. Not ours.
I know you're listening. I feel it. Just like I felt you at the door.
(Pause. The reel whirs. Then, the voice shifts, softer now—closer.)
ADRIAN (V.O.):
I was Adrian Vale. I was yours. But that part of me... it burned away.
You survived. That's why I'm here. You deserve to remember. You deserve to know what I gave up to find you again.
(The tape clicks—then resumes without pause. The static fades to a low hum.)
ADRIAN (V.O.):
Don't run, Kat. Not yet.
The truth doesn't always arrive kindly. Sometimes it bleeds its way back.
KATT'S JOURNAL ENTRY
I sat motionless for nearly a minute after the tape ended. My fingers hovered over the stop button, even though the reel had stopped spinning, the final hiss of static long faded into nothing. The only sound left was the deafening thud of my heartbeat crashing in my ears—like a warning I couldn't understand.
I couldn't breathe. Could not think. My thoughts had scattered like startled birds, flapping frantically in a sky I couldn't see. But one thing was clear. One undeniable truth was carved into me now:
The voice on the tape was Adrian's.
Not a version of him. Not someone else with a similar cadence. Him. The same haunted calm, the same edge in his tone that suggested he knew too much and had said too little for far too long.
And yet—how?
The tape was old. Ancient, practically. The box it came in was crusted with dust, its corners soft with time. It had been sealed, untouched, a relic. But the voice?
It felt alive.
Immediate. Intimate. Like it hadn't been recorded at all, but spoken in real time. Directly to me. Like a secret whispered into my ear while the world slept. Like he knew where I'd be and when I'd find it.
Like he knew me.
Not from a distance. Not in some vague, metaphysical "I sense your presence" kind of way. But truly, personally. He didn't call me Katherine. He called me Kat.
Only my mom used to call me that. And she's gone. She's been gone.
No one at Greystone knows. No one should know.
But he did.
I should have been afraid. Any normal person would've been. Should've reported it. Should've run. But the fear—if it was even fear anymore—had fused itself with something else now. Curiosity. Obsession. A need.
I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. All I knew was that this wasn't just some forgotten relic. This wasn't just a tape. It was a thread. One that had wrapped itself around my wrist and was pulling me backward—into something old. Something buried. Something that maybe never wanted to be found.
The worst part? Some part of me wanted to follow.
Sleep didn't come. I didn't even try.
Instead, I just sat there, staring at the box like it might whisper again if I waited long enough.
But what came next wasn't rest. It wasn't peace.
It was something worse.
THE DREAM
A room with no windows. No light. No exit.
The air hung thick, like smoke without fire—choking, heavy, unmoving. Shadows clung to the walls like they were alive, coiled and waiting. In the center stood a mirror, fractured from top to bottom, a jagged line splitting its face like a scar.
Before it, a boy. Barefoot. Pale. Unmoving in that unnatural way that made your skin crawl and your instincts scream to run. His frame was thin, almost brittle, like glass held together by sheer will. But it was his eyes that arrested me—eyes that wept blood, slow and steady, like tears that had forgotten how to be anything else. He wasn't crying from pain. No. It was deeper than that. He was bleeding from knowledge. From memory.
He smiled.
But his reflection did not.
The glass did not mimic him. I watched. Unblinking. Cold.
And then—he turned.
His head moved first, too slowly, as though the body were just catching up to a thought that had already wandered far ahead. His gaze met mine. He spoke.
The words were warped—distorted, bent like old vinyl dragged across rusted needles—but I understood every syllable like they were etched directly into my bones.
ADRIAN (V.O.):
Remember what was taken.
You'll find me in the ruins. Beneath the oath.
The hunger... began with us.
Find me, Katt
And then—silence.
I woke with a scream caught in my throat, gasping like I'd been underwater too long. The sheets wrapped around my limbs like restraints, sticky with sweat. My heart was a thunderclap against my ribs.
The dorm was silent. Too silent.
Not peaceful—charged. Like static before a lightning strike.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, grounding myself with the cold press of tile against my feet. My eyes darted to the box. The archive box. Still there.
Still real.
I crawled across the room and laid my palm on the lid, as if feeling for a heartbeat beneath the cardboard.
"Tapes don't talk," I muttered. "Tapes don't dream."
And yet, I whispered like a madwoman.
"Who are you?"
No answer. Just the hum of silence pressing against the walls.
But it wasn't empty.
Something was listening. I could feel it—like breath on the back of my neck.
I wasn't alone. Not anymore.
Caspian's POV
Sleep didn't come easily anymore. Not with everything I knew. Not with the things I'd done.
I sat at the edge of my bed, hunched over, elbows on my knees, fingers woven together like I was praying to something long dead. The steam from my shower still clung to the air, curling in lazy ghosts across the ceiling. It couldn't wash it away—the weight. The ache. The hunger.
And now, there was her.
Katherine Swartzchild.
I'd watched her leave with the box. I saw the way her hands trembled when she lifted it, even if she tried to hide it. She didn't know what she was holding. She had no idea what kind of trap she'd just stepped into.
But that wasn't what haunted me.
It was the way she looked at it.
There was recognition there. Like some part of her already knew the voice behind the veil.
And that scared me.
No one came back from the ruins. No one was supposed to. And yet here we were.
I leaned back against the wall, letting the cold surface anchor me. My dorm room was dark, save for the faint glow of the moon pushing through the high window. I hadn't even bothered to draw the curtains. What was the point? Night had always been my companion.
But tonight... it felt like the night was watching back.
I closed my eyes, trying to force stillness into my mind. Images flickered anyway—Katherine's eyes widening as she pulled out the first tape, the way she bit her lip when she thought no one was looking, the raw edge of fear under her curiosity.
She was brave. But bravery got people killed in this place.
I needed to act.
Not to stop her. Not exactly.
To guide her. To earn her trust before someone else did
But how? How do you earn the trust of someone who might already suspect what you are?
What are you capable of?
(Adrian's POV)
Time Unknown. Location: Somewhere Beneath.
I moved like a shadow through the corridors, every step swallowed by stone and silence. The air down here was dense—damp with memory, thick with the scent of mildew and something far older. Blood. Oaths. Time.
I should've been dead. I think they thought I was. But they underestimated me. Again.
The Redacted Room had cracked me open, not broken me. Chains may have held my body, but never my will. The pain had been real, the torment designed—but it was clarifying. In the quiet, in the dark, I remembered who I was. What we were. What they took from us.
Now, I'm free.
Not entirely. Not yet. But enough. Enough to move. Enough to find her.
I paused beneath a jagged archway where moonlight sliced through the stone in pale slivers, dust spiraling like lost souls. I closed my eyes, listening.
Katt.
Her name wasn't just a memory. It was a vibration in the marrow. A truth stitched into my blood. She'd opened the box. I felt it. Like a tether tightening, pulling something ancient forward through time.
She heard me.
The thought curled something sharp inside me. She remembered—or she would. Time was folding in on itself again. It always does when she's close.
"They didn't stop you," I whispered to the cold stone. "Good."
But I had to stay quiet. Stay hidden. Noctis Sanctum would never allow this. Not if they knew. Not if they sensed what I was becoming again. What we were destined to wake.
I pressed my hand to the wall. The stones pulsed, almost as if they recognized me. A low hum answered deep in the ruin—something old… and hungry.
I needed more.
More power. More blood. More willing minds to open the way. This was just the beginning. Not everyone at Greystone would survive what's coming, but some… they'd transcend.
They'd remember what was stolen.
I stepped deeper into the dark, the corridor swallowing me whole. Behind me, the ruin trembled—just slightly—as if it had not forgotten what we buried here.
And neither will she
Adrian – The Dreamlink
Time: Between Realms. Location: Dreamspace.
I found her in the in-between.
Dreams are fragile things—soft, shifting, easily forgotten. But if you know where to look, if you know how to speak beneath the surface of sleep, you can leave a mark. A message. A memory that isn't quite one.
Katt.
She lay tangled in her sheets, her mind already fraying at the edges of exhaustion and fear. But it was open. That mattered. Her walls were thin tonight. The first tape had done what I needed—it cracked something in her. Curiosity is more dangerous than fear. It digs deeper.
I stepped into the space her mind had made:
A room with no windows. A cracked mirror. Dust like ash in the air. Familiar.
This wasn't my doing. This was hers. Somewhere, buried under the noise of her waking life, she remembered.
I stood barefoot on the cold floor. My reflection in the mirror was wrong—off by just enough to unsettle. The mirror didn't smile when I did. That was how she'd know it was a dream.
She saw me, but she didn't move. Her breath hitched. Her eyes tried to make sense of me.
Bleeding eyes. Pale skin. Stillness that only the dead know. I looked like memory. I was memory. But I wasn't gone.
When I spoke, it wasn't with my mouth—it was with everything else. The voice twisted through the space, disjointed, broken like warped vinyl. But she heard me. I know she did. I felt her heart stutter.
"Remember what was taken."
"You'll find me in the ruins. Beneath the oath."
"The hunger… began with us."
Each word was a blade into the fog. I saw her shiver. I saw her eyes widen as recognition began to form like frost on a window.
And then—I had to go. The longer I stayed, the more they'd notice. The more she'd remember. It was too soon for her to remember everything.
I stepped back. The dream began to unravel.
Before it all dissolved, I whispered—not into the air, but into her.
"Find me, Katt."
And just before the darkness reclaimed me, I saw it: her lips parting. A whisper of my name.
She still knows me.
She just doesn't know why yet.