The Threshold

The cab ride through the Italian countryside was quiet.

Jessica stared out the window, watching as the lights of the last village faded into the dark. The further they went, the more the world seemed to empty until the only thing left was the road ahead and the shadow of the mountains beyond.

No one spoke.

Leanna sat beside her, arms crossed, lost in thought. Olivia was on her phone, scrolling through maps and old records, trying to find any mention of what they were looking for.

The cab ride took them farther than Jessica expected, out past the stone lanes of the old city, beyond the fading lights of residential sprawl, into a part of the countryside where olive trees and dry wind whispered secrets older than maps.

Jessica leaned against the window, watching the hills grow taller, more jagged, more remote. The roads narrowed to gravel, then dust, until the car slowed at an unmarked fork in the earth.

The driver killed the engine.

“No farther,” he said in thick Italian, his voice taut with unease. “From here… you walk.”

Jessica and Olivia exchanged a glance. No surprise. The old man who’d given them the coordinates hadn’t exactly sounded like someone with GPS and a welcome mat.

They paid in cash, stepped out. The cab reversed down the path in silence, headlights carving the darkness, until even the dust it kicked up was swallowed by the hills.

And then silence.

Only the wind, and the scent of wild herbs curling from the stone.They were alone again, in a land where myths were buried more willingly than the dead.

There was nothing. The archives had been erased. Sant’Antonio had been forgotten.

And the Templar records that should have been buried in the Vatican had led them here instead.

Jessica exhaled slowly. She wasn’t sure how she knew. But she knew. This was where it had all begun. She could feel it.

The moment she stepped onto the trail, something shifted. It wasn’t just the altitude, or the sharpness of the air, the bite of the cold against her skin. It was something else. A heaviness pressing against her ribs. A whisper at the edge of her mind. The higher they climbed, the stronger it became.

Jessica’s pulse ticked up. She recognized this feeling. She had felt it before. It was the sensation of something clawing its way to the surface, something she wasn’t ready to remember. It had happened in Vanguard’s labs. It had happened in the ruins of Sant’Antonio. And now, it was happening again.

She inhaled sharply, shaking it off. Not now. Not yet.

The wind howled between the peaks, a low, mournful sound that sent dust and ice tumbling down the rocks.

Then she saw it. Jessica stopped, her breath catching in her throat. Half-buried in the mountainside, concealed by centuries of erosion and snowfall. A door. Not wood. Not metal. Stone.

Her stomach twisted. She knew this place. She had never been here before. And yet, she had.

Jessica stepped forward, her boots crunching against the frost-covered ground. The Templar sigil was barely visible, its edges worn smooth by time. But it was there. It had always been there. Waiting.

Jessica reached out and the world split. Stone walls, untouched by time. Torches lining the corridor. The scent of wax and burning oil.

A man’s voice, urgent—

“This door must never be opened.”

Jessica flinched. The voice wasn’t real. It was a memory. Not hers. But it was inside her mind.

Her vision blurred. she saw hands pressing against the stone. Her hands. But they weren’t hers. They were someone else’s.

Then a flash of silver. A knife. Blood on the floor.

A whisper, close to her ear…

“It’s too late.”

Jessica gasped, stumbling back. The image splintered. Her breath caught in her chest. For a heartbeat, she wasn’t sure if her body had moved at all, or if the mountain had shifted beneath her.

The cold wind hit her like a slap, grounding her back in reality.Her breath came hard and fast, her pulse pounding in her skull.

Leanna frowned. “Jess?”

Jessica stared at the door.

The stone was cracked. Weathered. It had been centuries since it had last been opened. But she had just seen it new.

Her throat was dry, “I’ve been here before.”

Olivia and Leanna exchanged glances. Jessica flexed her fingers, shaking off the last remnants of the vision. Then, slowly, she stepped forward.

She placed her palm against the cold stone. And this time, she knew it would open.

A deep, low vibration rumbled beneath her fingertips. Jessica inhaled sharply as the rock shuddered. Dust and ice cracked away. With the sound of stone grinding against stone, the door slid open.

A rush of cold, stale air pushed out from the darkness inside. Jessica took a slow step forward. She didn’t know what was waiting for her. But she knew one thing. She wasn’t just learning the truth anymore.

Whatever was hidden behind that door had once been hers. And now, it was waking up again.