That Which Does Not Die

The next morning, Rome felt different.

Jessica sat outside a café, the rim of her coffee cup warm against her fingers, watching the city move around her. The sounds of scooters, the chatter of pedestrians, the occasional church bell cutting through the air—it was all the same as before.

But she wasn’t.

Sleep had been a distant concept. The night had been spent in front of the screen, rewinding, pausing, analyzing. Watching Pasolini’s footage over and over again, picking apart the static-filled frames until her mind blurred the lines between history and paranoia.

She exhaled slowly. Something was there.

She just didn’t know what.

Across from her, Olivia was flipping through Pasolini’s worn notebook. The pages were filled with scribbled handwriting, frantic notes, some sentences scratched out so violently that the paper was nearly torn through.

“He wasn’t just looking at the present,” Olivia murmured, scanning a page. “He was looking for something in the past.”

Jessica nodded, fingers tightening around the cup. “And whatever he found, it got him killed.”

* * *

They had taken the film reels to Dario, the archivist Olivia knew. He had scanned them into digital format, allowing them to go through each frame—frame by frame. And that’s when they had seen it. Not in the footage of Pasolini. Not in the recording of Sacchetti. But in the photographs inserted between scenes. Old, faded, some dating back over a hundred years. Snapshots of historical events. A woman, standing in the background. Different time periods. Different cities. But always there.

Jessica had felt the first pull of unease, like the ground beneath her was tilting. Because in one of those photos, she could have sworn the woman looked like her. Not identical, but features like the jawline and the tilt of the eyes were details too precise to dismiss. Her stomach turned, a cold coil tightening low in her spine.

Olivia had stopped the video, eyes flicking between the image and Jessica’s face. Jessica had said nothing. Because what was there to say?

Now, sitting at the café, Jessica watched as Olivia continued flipping through Pasolini’s notebook.

“There are names here,” Olivia muttered. “Repeated names. And dates. Some of them match historical records.”

Jessica arched a brow. “And?”

Olivia glanced up. “One of them is yours.”

Jessica stilled. Olivia turned the book toward her. Jessica let her gaze drop to the page. A list. Some of the names had been crossed out. Others circled. One was underlined. J. S. Next to it was written the year 1784.

Jessica’s throat went dry.

“That’s not me,” she said quietly.

“I know.” Olivia flipped back a few pages. “But here’s the thing… this name, or a variation of it, keeps appearing in different years.”

Jessica exhaled, forcing herself to stay still. “Could be coincidence.”

Olivia didn’t look convinced. Instead, she turned to the last page Pasolini had written on. Scrawled across the bottom was a single sentence.

“The story repeats, but the hands remain the same.”

Jessica exhaled sharply. Her name in old records. A woman in photographs who looked too much like her. Pasolini had been onto something, but what?

Jessica closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to breathe. Coincidence. It had to be. Doubt, Not Proof The problem was, Jessica had spent too much of her life seeing patterns where others didn’t. That was what made her good at what she did. And this wasn’t just paranoia. It was something else. Something older, heavier. She felt it deep in her bones—the feeling she had always had but never wanted to acknowledge.

That she was standing on the edge of something bigger than herself. That she had always been standing there. She exhaled, pressing a hand against her temple.

Olivia was watching her carefully. “You okay?”

Jessica forced a smirk. “Since when am I okay?”

Olivia sighed, flipping the notebook closed.

“We need to keep looking,” she said. “If this is real, then there’s more.”

Jessica nodded. Because there was no stopping now. Pasolini’s notes. The photographs. The repeating names. It wasn’t proof. But it was enough. Enough to make her wonder. Enough to make her doubt herself. And for Jessica Sanchez, that was more dangerous than anything else. If she was part of this story, she wasn’t sure she’d survive the ending