Names Without End

Jessica stepped across the threshold, into the cold silence of the chamber. The air was heavy, thicker than it should have been, as if the weight of the past still lingered here, pressing against her skin.

Their flashlight beams cut through the darkness, illuminating rough-hewn stone, ancient carvings, and something else, something unnatural.

Jessica swallowed hard. She had been in places like this before. Buried laboratories. Abandoned facilities. Ruins of things that should have stayed forgotten. But this was different. This was different because she knew this place.

Even though she was certain that she had never been here before. The thought made her stomach twist. She forced herself forward.

Jessica’s boots scuffed against the stone floor as she approached the far wall.

Then she stopped. Her breath caught. The entire chamber was lined with names. Thousands of them, carved deep into the rock. Some were old, barely legible. Others looked fresh.

Jessica ran a hand over one of the engravings. The stone was smooth, polished from centuries of dust and erosion. She traced the letters absently, her mind working through the implications. These weren’t just names.They were a record, a ledger of the forgotten.

Leanna exhaled behind her. “What the hell is this?”

Olivia moved closer, scanning the inscriptions. “Some of these names repeat.”

Jessica frowned. “How many times?”

Olivia scrolled through her tablet, cross-referencing the names with the database she had built.

Then she hesitated, “…Too many.”

Jessica clenched her jaw. She knew what Olivia meant. She knew before she even looked. And then, her eyes landed on it.

There, carved deep into the limestone was her own name, Jessica Sanchez.

She exhaled, her pulse hammering against her ribs. It was there. Just like in the Vatican archives. Just like in the old intelligence files.

She Knew she had been here before. Even if she couldn’t remember it.

Jessica took a slow step back from the wall, her breath uneven. Something was wrong. She could feel it in her bones, in the air itself.

Then there was a shift. The cold became colder. The silence became heavier. And then the room changed.

No, it was the same room, but different time. She wasn’t in the present anymore. The light flickered. The carvings were new. The dust was gone. And the chamber was no longer empty.

Jessica saw torches lining the walls, their flames casting long shadows across the stone. Men in dark robes moved between the names, whispering in Latin. A figure stood at the far end, facing the wall, hands pressed against the stone.

Jessica tried to move, but she wasn’t herself. She was someone else. She could feel the weight of a dagger in her hand.

The air shimmered. It was thick, pulsing with heat that didn’t belong. Jessica blinked, but the world didn’t come back. Her limbs felt wrong. They were both familiar and foreign.

She heard footsteps behind her. A voice, urgent. Desperate.

“We cannot let it continue.”

Jessica turned, but there was no one there. The scene shattered. And she was back. Back in the dark, back in the cold, back in the ruins of the past.

Her breath came sharp and uneven. Leanna was saying something. Jessica barely heard it. Her hands were shaking because she had seen it. She had been here before, and she had been holding a knife.

Jessica forced her breathing to steady, her heartbeat slowing to something almost normal. She turned her gaze away from the wall of name, and toward the sealed door at the back of the chamber.

The stone was smooth, unmarked by time. Unlike the rest of the cavern, it looked untouched. Except for one inscription.

EXIRE NON PERMITTITUR.

Leanna exhaled. “The same phrase from the files.”

Jessica nodded, “Not permitted to leave.”

Was it a rule? A warning? A prison? Jessica stepped forward, pressing her hand against the stone. It was cold. Solid. She didn’t know what was waiting beyond that seal. But something inside her had always known how to open it.