Chapter 5 - The Midnight Archive
The beam of the flashlight swept across the damp pavement just inches from Sarah’s designer heels.
She closed her eyes, praying the overflowing dumpster beside her would cast a shadow deep enough to conceal her silhouette.
The footsteps paused.
A man cleared his throat, spitting onto the asphalt before turning away.
“Check the next block. She couldn't have vanished into thin air,” a gruff voice commanded into a radio transceiver.
The footsteps faded down the alley, leaving Sarah shaking in the freezing draft.
She waited ten agonizing minutes before creeping out of the alleyway and making her way toward the municipal records archive on 4th Street.
The building was a hulking, neoclassical structure with towering stone pillars and thick glass doors currently locked for the night.
Knowing the main entrance would be monitored by motion sensors and private security cameras, Sarah circled around to the rear service entrance.
Her brother Mark had texted her before boarding his flight, giving her the code to the old maintenance basement bypass—a legacy passcode from when Mark had interned there during college.
She punched the four-digit code into the keypad beside the steel door.
Bip-bip-bip-bip.
The green light flashed, and the heavy door clicked open.
Sarah slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her into the warm, dusty corridors of the archive basement.
Rows upon rows of steel shelving stretched into the darkness, holding decades of birth certificates, medical reports, zoning permits, and court files.
She navigated the labyrinth of paper records using the flashlight on her phone, searching for the medical examiner files and pediatric clinic logs from October and November 2014.
When she finally reached aisle twelve, she found the box labeled: Municipal Health Records — Q4 2014.
She pulled the heavy cardboard box off the shelf, setting it down on a folding metal table in the center of the aisle.
Her fingers rifled frantically through the manila folders.
October 12... October 13... October 14.
Her breath hitched as she pulled out the patient intake logs for St. Jude’s Pediatric Center on October 14, 2014.
Her eyes scanned down the page.
There was Emma’s name—Emma Mitchell, Age 8.
Listed alongside her name was an accompanying patient registration entry that made her blood run cold.
Patient B: Unidentified Male Minor, Age 7. Admitted alongside Emma Mitchell.
And right beside the entry, stamped in red ink, was a confidential transfer note signed by a familiar name.
Dr. Harrison.
And countersigned by an executive proxy.
Richard Vance.
Sarah stared at the paper in sheer disbelief.
Emma hadn't just had a normal childhood fever that week.
She had been admitted to the hospital alongside a mysterious little boy, and both children had been subjected to an unauthorized medical transfer supervised directly by the Vance family patriarch twelve years ago.
Before Sarah could process the full weight of the discovery, a cold, metallic click echoed down the quiet archive aisle.
She froze.
A flashlight beam snapped on at the end of the aisle, illuminating the floating dust motes in the air.
A calm, measured voice echoed through the basement.
May you like
“I told you, Mrs. Mitchell, curiosity is a fatal flaw in our family.”
Sarah slowly turned around.
