Chapter 2 - The Forbidden BlueprintThe blackout lasted only four seconds, but when the power snapped back on, Eleanor was no longer sitting on the bed.
She was standing pressed against the wall beneath the ventilation shaft, her bare feet hovering inches off the floor as if pulled by an invisible magnet. Her fingers clawed at the metal grate, whispering frantically into the darkness.
Arthur slammed his fist on the desk and grabbed his walkie-talkie. "Security to Ward B, Code Red in room 204. Now!"
By the time two guards burst into the room, panting and flashlight beams cutting wild arcs across the walls, Eleanor was back on her mattress, curled into a tight, shivering fetal position, humming a haunting lullaby from the 1920s. The ventilation grate was locked tight with industrial bolts, untouched for decades.
"Check the blueprints," Arthur demanded the next morning, slamming a dusty roll of architectural drawings onto the conference table before the board of directors.
Director Sterling adjusted his glasses, looking unimpressed. "Arthur, we've reviewed the blueprints a dozen times. This building was constructed in 1954 as a state sanatorium. It has thick concrete foundations."
"Not all of it," Arthur countered, snapping a red marker across a faded section of the map. "Look here. Beneath Ward B. There’s an old utility sub-level that was bricked up during the renovation of '82. But according to the air pressure logs I pulled this morning, airflow is circulating through that sealed zone. Someone—or something—is using the old service tunnels as a private highway."
"That's impossible," a board member scoffed. "The entrance was welded shut."
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"Go see for yourself," Arthur whispered, sliding a freshly printed thermal imaging scan across the table.
The scan showed a distinct, warm humanoid signature moving horizontally inside the thick concrete wall behind room 204.
