You’re Already Part of It

The air in the office had turned stale. Jessica watched as Leanna checked the injured man’s pulse again, her fingers pressed firmly against his cold, clammy skin. His breathing was shallow, barely a whisper against the silence that had overtaken the town.

Outside, the wind howled through the empty streets, carrying the eerie murmurs of unseen voices. Olivia flipped through the half-burned notebook, scanning page after page of cryptic entries, some in Spanish, others in a coded script she didn’t recognize.

“Whoever wrote this was tracking the town's—population shifts, behavioral anomalies—but it’s fragmented. Some of it’s in a cipher I don’t recognize. It just… ends.”

Jessica shot her a glance. “Stops?”

Olivia nodded, tapping a final blank page. “The last real entry was over a month ago. After that, nothing.”

Jessica exhaled sharply, trying to keep her paranoia in check. They didn’t have time to sit and play detective in a ghost town. Their priority was getting the injured man somewhere safe—if safety even existed in a place like this.

“We need to move,” Leanna said. “He won’t last much longer.”

Jessica grabbed the notebook from Olivia’s hands and stuffed it into her pack. “Then let’s go.”

---

The town square was eerily empty, the abandoned buildings looming like silent sentinels. The Jeep was parked a block away, but every instinct in Jessica’s body screamed that something was wrong. The whispers hadn’t stopped. If anything, they’d grown louder—closer.

They moved quickly, keeping to the edges of the buildings. Leanna supported the man’s weight, his body sagging heavily against her, while Jessica and Olivia kept their weapons drawn. Every shadow felt like a pair of watching eyes.

Then, movement. Jessica froze. Across the street, just beyond the dim glow of a flickering streetlamp, a figure stood. Still. Silent. Watching.

Jessica’s grip tightened on her gun. “We’re not alone.”

Leanna shifted the man’s weight, adjusting her hold. “What do you see?”

Jessica blinked. The figure was gone.

A chill ran through her spine. “Let’s keep moving.”

They reached the Jeep and loaded the man into the backseat. He stirred once in Leanna’s arms, mumbling fragments in Spanish and English—nothing coherent. Then silence again. Olivia kept watch as Jessica started the engine. The vehicle roared to life, headlights piercing through the fog rolling in from the mountains.

Leanna exhaled in relief. “Alright, let’s get the hell out of—”

A bang. Something slammed against the passenger window. Olivia yelped, scrambling for her gun. Jessica’s heart pounded as she turned to see a handprint—pale, skeletal—pressed against the glass. As suddenly as it appeared, it vanished—leaving only a cold smear of moisture that quickly evaporated.

Jessica floored the gas.

---

They drove in tense silence, the town fading behind them like a dream dissolving in daylight. The road twisted into the jungle, swallowed by dense trees and jagged stone, each turn a descent into something older and more forgotten. According to the notebook, something lay beneath San Tomás—not a place, exactly, but a pattern etched into the ground like a scar. A secret buried in silence, waiting to be unearthed.

“There.” Olivia pointed to a narrow dirt path, barely visible. “That’s our best shot.”

Jessica kept her eyes on the road, but her thoughts churned. Why build a perfect town only to fill it with amnesiacs? Why the whispers, the fear? And now, this man—half-dead, whispering riddles like some prophet from the edge of reason.

Jessica veered off the road, the Jeep jolting over uneven terrain. The deeper they went, the heavier the air became, thick with the scent of damp soil and something metallic—rust? Blood? Then, the entrance emerged from the jungle. An old maintenance tunnel, rusted steel doors standing slightly ajar.

Jessica killed the engine. “This is it.”

Leanna checked the injured man—his pulse was weak but steady. “We need to be careful. If this facility is Vanguard’s work, it’s not abandoned.”

Jessica climbed out, adjusting her gun holster. “Then let’s find out who’s home.”

---

The air inside the tunnel was damp and cold, their footsteps echoing against the concrete walls. The deeper they went, the louder the whispers became—not in their heads, not hallucinations—actual voices.

Then, a phrase—clear, distinct, spoken from the lips of the barely conscious man Leanna carried, “You’re already part of it.”

Jessica whispered the words under her breath, the phrase coiling around her spine like cold wire. “You’re already part of it.” She stopped dead in her tracks. Was it a warning? A revelation? Or something far worse? Another blank slate, she thought. Like me. Like Jason.

Ahead, the tunnel descended into darkness. No turning back now. They stepped forward.