Echoes of the Past

The gang sat in tense silence as Olivia peeked through the blinds, her breath shallow. The black sedan was still parked across the street, the two detectives inside watching their Airbnb like hawks.

"They’re staking us out," she whispered.

"No shit," Kevin muttered, pacing behind her. "They didn’t buy our story."

"We need to wait them out," Leanna said, arms crossed. "If we leave now, we’ll have a tail. We can’t afford that."

Jess clenched her fists. "So what? We just sit here? What if they never leave?"

"They will," Ryan said. "They’re just trying to rattle us. They don’t have anything on us yet. We just have to be patient."

Patience wasn’t something Jess was good at, but she knew Ryan was right. They had no choice but to wait.

****************************************

It was nearly 24 hours before the detectives left their post, switching out with a different patrol car that only checked the house periodically. That was their window. As soon as night fell, they piled into the car and drove—taking backroads, switching routes, anything to make sure they weren’t followed. By the time they reached the edge of the forest, they were certain they were alone.

The old road to the lab was completely overgrown, forcing them to park and hike the last two miles. The journey was eerily quiet, the dense trees swallowing sound. Jess felt her paranoia creeping back, every crunch of leaves beneath their boots making her flinch.

Then, through the thinning trees, they saw it, the lab. It looked like something pulled straight from a nightmare—hulking, rusted buildings covered in moss, towering satellite dishes drooping toward the earth, cables tangled in the dirt like forgotten veins. A lone floodlight, long broken, hung at an unnatural angle. The whole facility, or what was left of it, was like a graveyard of forgotten technology, a relic of an experiment that had been erased from history.

"Jesus," Hannah whispered. "It’s like something out of Tales from the Loop."

"It’s definitely been abandoned for years," Leanna said, running a hand over a rusted metal panel near the entrance. "But it looks like someone left in a hurry."

Jess looked at the door—half open, its frame warped. Someone had forced it shut long ago, but time had pried it back open.

She swallowed hard. "Let’s go."

************************************************

Inside, the air was stale, thick with dust and decay. The first room they entered was a reception area, now barely recognizable. A shattered desk, papers scattered across the floor, old security monitors cracked and dead. But beyond that, the real horror began.

They stepped into a long corridor, lined with containment cells. Glass-walled rooms, each with a small cot and… toys. Stuffed animals, old plastic figurines, even a few hand-drawn pictures still clinging to the glass with brittle tape. The images were unsettling—stick figures with wires coming out of their heads, scribbled notes in a child’s hand, indecipherable except for a single recurring phrase:

“I don’t want to disappear.”

Jess felt her throat tighten. "What the hell happened here?"

Leanna ran a hand along the glass of one of the rooms. "These weren’t just test subjects. They were kids."

Kevin exhaled sharply. "They lived here."

Olivia nudged a fallen clipboard with her boot. "If these were the first test subjects, then what were they testing? Just the gender transition? Or something worse?"

"Whatever it was, they didn’t want it getting out," Ryan said grimly.

Jess tore her eyes away from the drawings and kept moving, her pulse quickening as they reached the main research lab. Inside, old research equipment sat dormant, covered in layers of dust. A bank of computers, long dead. A control panel, its buttons faded. Along the back wall, a massive filing cabinet stood half-open, revealing old documents.

"Start looking," Leanna ordered.

They dug through everything. Most of the papers were too damaged to read, but one file stood out—yellowed but intact. Leanna flipped it open, scanning the text.

Her face paled. "Project Prometheus was bigger than we thought. The gender reassignment was just Phase One. The real goal was genetic inheritance modeling—modifying DNA so enhancements could be passed down through generations."

Jess’s stomach turned. "They weren’t just trying to change people. They were trying to create an entire new lineage."

Ryan rifled through another cabinet. "There has to be more. There has to be something that explains why they stopped."

"Or why they started again," Jess murmured.

A sound cut through the silence. It was the sound of a footstep. They all turned. In the dim light, a figure stood in the doorway, barely visible against the darkened corridor.

"You’re finally here," the voice said, calm and measured. "Took you long enough."

Jess felt her blood run cold. "Who are you?"

The figure took a step closer, into the faint glow of the broken monitors. He was older, maybe late fifties, with streaks of gray in his dark hair and sharp, calculating eyes.

"You’ve been looking for answers," he said. "I’m here to give them to you. But you might not like what you find."

Leanna’s grip tightened on the papers in her hands. "You left the notes, didn’t you?"

The man nodded. "And I’ve been watching you since you started digging."

Jess’s heart pounded. "Then start talking. Who the hell are you?"

The man exhaled slowly, then said, "My name is Dr. Elias Monroe. I used to work on Project Prometheus. And if you’re standing here… that means they already know about you."

Silence filled the lab, heavy and suffocating. And then, the lights—long dead—flickered on.