The tunnels led them deeper than Arin had ever gone. The air grew colder. Damp stones gave off a faint, clean smell like old paper. The light was thin, coming from lanterns held by quiet people. Arin walked close to Lysa. His paws felt the roughness of the steps. Every small sound echoed.
Lysa moved with purpose. "This place is old," she said softly. "Not many know it is here. It holds records the city does not want shown." Her voice was calm but her fingers squeezed Arin's cloth for a moment. He felt the small pressure and knew she was serious.
They reached a heavy door set into the wall. Symbols were worn into the wood, barely visible. Kael touched one and the door sighed open. Beyond it, shelves rose in rows like forest trunks. Boxes and metal cases were stacked high. Loose papers curled at the edges. The place smelled of dust, oil, and things that had waited.
A thin man with sharp eyes met them. He wore plain clothes and moved like someone who had read every book in the room. "You will not shout in here," he said. "Speak softly. The records do not like drama." He bowed a little and left the lantern for them.
Arin's whiskers twitched. The space felt like a safe maze. He stepped between shelves and touched a spine of a book. It made a dry sound. His mind—always hungry for patterns—traced the layout of the room like another small map. There were exits, narrow passages, places to hide. The rule of safe spaces grew inside him: know where to go when trouble appears.
Lysa guided them to a table in the center. On it sat files tied with string. Kael pulled one out. The paper crackled as he opened it. On the top page was a list of names and numbers. Arin peered closer. Many names were strange to him. But one word made his paws go cold.
It was a list of "samples." Each line had a name, a small note, and a rank. The list used terms Arin had seen in his system window long ago, but written by human hands. One entry read: "Sample 7 — Human subject — transfer incomplete." Beneath that, a date and a small code.
Arin could not read all the letters like a human, but the shape of the words made something inside him ache. A faint memory flashed—metal tables, bright light, a face with tired eyes. He had the taste of metal in his mouth. The paper was a bridge to something he had not known he had left behind.
Kael watched him quietly. "These records are dangerous," Kael said. "They tell who the city has taken and why. Many of the names are gone. Many became pets. Some never woke again."
Lysa ran a finger down the page. "Why would they write this? Why hide it?" she asked, voice small. "Who thinks up this kind of cruelty?"
A man in the corner looked up. He was old, skin like brittle paper, and his eyes held a tired fire. "They call it research," he said. "But research became control. They tried to move life from one form to another. When it worked, they kept it. When it failed, they hid it. And when something odd appeared—someone who remembered—the city took note."
Arin pressed his tiny paws to the table. The files made his mind spool with questions. Why had he been chosen? Why had his life been moved into fur? The list read like a map of stolen stories. He had been a name once. Someone had written about him.
Kael moved to another shelf and pulled down a thin metal case. Inside was a box of small glass slides and a sealed notebook. The notebook's cover was stamped with a mark Arin did not know but felt like a key. Kael opened it carefully. Pages were filled with handwriting that was neat and sharp.
"Project notes," Kael murmured. He read aloud a line: "Transfer protocol: consciousness transference — variable success. Samples showing retained cognitive patterns require containment." He looked at Arin and his face did not show pity. It showed interest.
Lysa's hand found Arin's. She squeezed. "Containment?" she breathed. Her voice shook. "They kept people in cages. They took memories."
Arin felt a cold line in his chest. His past life, once foggy like a dream, grew teeth. He remembered a lab bench, a hum of machines, a man with tired eyes recording data. He felt small hands—no, his small paws—touch glass. The memory flared then faded, leaving behind the hard fact that his rebirth was not random.
A scrap of paper fell from the notebook. It had a drawing—lines that showed the city under the streets, the faint lines Arin had seen on cobbles. Someone had drawn a map of "currents" and marked points where energy pooled. In the margin, a note: "Ley points stabilize transfer. Activate only with proper sequencing."
Arin's mind opened like a trapdoor. Ley points. The faint glowing lines on the stones. The city's breathing under his paws. The map stitched his small experiences to a system he could now name. The rule of hidden power revealed itself: life moved where the currents flowed.
Kael looked up. "They learned to use the city," he said quietly. "Not just science. The currents here—call them leylines or veins—feed change. Get too close and you change. Use them, and you can force growth. That is what they tried."
Arin's small voice was barely a squeak. "Is that why pets become strange? Is that why some remember?" He sounded like he asked an obvious thing, but the answer made the room heavy.
"Exactly," the old man said. "Some transfers keep parts of what made them human. Others lose it. The institute—whatever they call themselves—used the currents like tools. People became subjects. Pets became tests."
Lysa's eyes filled. "Arin—" she began, then stopped. Her hands trembled. She did not say the thought out loud: that he had been taken, altered, and then discarded into a world that used living things.
Kael closed the notebook. "There is more," he said. "They kept a private ledger. Not in public files. Names you will not find on shelves like these. They had a list of priority samples. People they considered valuable. Those names were guarded."
Arin felt the word "priority" like a flame against his fur. Priority meant value. Priority meant hunters, enforcers, and careful hands. He slid from the table and padded toward a small locked chest in a corner. He reached up on his hind legs and pawed the latch. It made a faint click.
The old man frowned. "Not yet," he said. "Those things are dangerous."
But Arin could not stop. The latch gave. Inside were several folders. The top one had a photograph. It showed a face both familiar and far away. The angle, the eyes—he could not deny it. The face in the photo looked like the person he had been.
Under the photograph was a short note: "Subject: ARIN C. — Internship record. Assigned to transfer sequence 7. Showed nonstandard responses. Recommend containment and further observation."
Arin's paws trembled so much the paper flapped. The name matched the shape of his memory. His human life had been recorded. Someone had written his full name and decided what to do with him.
Lysa made a small sound like a sob. Kael's face was unreadable. The old man rubbed his hands together and muttered, "They played god. Then they lost control."
Arin sat down hard, head spinning. The archive had given him proof. He was not just a stray pet. He had been studied. His mind had been watched. Someone had written about him and decided his fate.
A soft alarm clicked somewhere deep in the stacks. It was not loud at first, but then a small ribbon of red light began to pulse along the floor like a heartbeat. The old man's eyes went very wide.
"Someone set a trap," he said. "We must move. Quickly."
They hurried through the rows. Kael lifted boxes and shoved them aside, making a path. Lysa clutched Arin. He tucked his head into her sleeve and felt the beat of her heart steady him. Their small group slipped through a narrow door into a lower hall. The red light followed, blinking faster now.
At the end of the hall was a heavy iron gate with a small window. Behind it, a guarded room hummed with distant machines. A thin voice said over a speaker: "Archive security engaged. All exits sealed. Identify yourself."
Lysa took a breath. "We found records," she said quickly, voice shaking. "We need answers. People are being used. You must—" Her words stopped as footsteps sounded above and metal plates shifted into place.
Arin looked up through the small window. He saw figures moving in the light—men and women in uniforms he had only seen from afar. One wore a badge with a mark he had seen in the notebook. The badge had the same letters stamped as the seal on the chest: a name he now knew to be the institute or the Curator's group.
His small heart knocked against his ribs. The rule he had carried since first night—observe before you act—spun into a new form now. The new rule was a hard one: when you uncover truth, expect those in power to come quickly.
Footsteps thundered in the hall. The red light burned steady. Voices shouted. The gate bucked as someone tried to force it. A heavy key scraped the lock.
Kael shoved a thin tool into a seam and the gate shuddered. The old man pushed a hidden lever and a trapdoor opened under a stack of boxes. They slipped through into a narrow tunnel that dropped into cold water and a small chute. The sound of boots and angry voices rose above.
Lysa held Arin tight. Water hit them and pulled them along in the dark. The chute spat them out into a slow river under the city. Arin's fur was sodden. He shivered. Lysa pulled him close, whispering, "I won't let them take you."
They floated in the black water, carried by the current. The files, the photograph, the notebook—they were gone at last, but the knowledge was not. It lived inside Arin now like a coiled thing. He had evidence. He had a name. He had a map in his mind of lines the city hid.
Above them, boots pounded metal. A shout raised a chord of fear. Arin glanced at Kael. The man's face was set like stone. He said, "They will come. The institute does not like loose ends. They will search the rivers, the markets, and the wild zones."
Lysa's hand tightened on Arin. He felt the heat of her worry and the cold of the water around them. The rule of truth was heavier than the rule of survival. It pulled at him now with a new weight.
They moved downstream in the dark. The exit waited ahead, a small hole that led to a sewer tunnel that smelled of old storms. When they climbed out and reached dry ground, Arin shook like a wet rag. He felt hollow and full at the same time—empty from the escape, full of a secret that would not let him sleep.
They found a safe room after many winding paths. There, Lysa wrapped him in a warm cloth and held him close. He tried to sleep, but the photograph burned behind his eyelids. The name stamped on the paper turned in his mind until it was a drumbeat.
Later that night, Kael sat beside the small window and whispered, "You have proof now. The institute knows. They will move faster. You will have fewer quiet places. But there is also… a chance. The map of currents in those files—if we can find the other points, we might control how transfer works. That could change everything."
Arin felt the idea as a pole of light in his mind. Control the currents. Protect the weak. Stop the hands that took people and made experiments. He had a name, and that made the problem real.
A soft knock came at the door. Lysa tightened her grip. Kael rose slowly and peered through the crack. He stepped back, face pale.
Through the thin gap he saw a figure standing in the street. A shadow stretched long under the moon. The figure raised a hand, and the light from the lantern caught a badge that glinted with the same letters from the photograph.
A new voice, cold and smooth, called out: "We know you were here. Hand over the subject, and we may be merciful."
Arin pressed himself into Lysa's chest. His mind raced with rules and maps and names. He had found a truth that cut like a blade—but that blade now pointed at them.
He set his small jaw. The secret he had found could free many—or it could mark them all for death.
Outside, the boots slowed. The badge flashed again.
The gate closed. The night waited.
And the river of the city whispered the same hard fact: once truth is pulled from the dark, power comes to claim it.