The house was still—so still it didn't feel like home anymore.
Rai moved through it like a shadow, carrying the weight of silence in every step. His phone buzzed on the counter, ignored. He didn't need the group tonight. Not yet. Not for this.
He opened the old wooden door near the kitchen—the basement.
A single bulb flickered as he descended the steps, casting his shadow in long, jagged strokes against the wall.
It smelled of dust and old paper. But not the familiar kind.
This scent was older.
Like forgotten things remembering themselves.
He reached the far side, past stacked blueprints and rusting shelves, and moved aside the tarp that covered an old tool locker.
Behind it was a narrow cabinet. Locked.
He unlocked it slowly, his hand hesitating a breath too long on the key.
Inside were two thick folders, worn at the edges.
But they weren't labeled like files.
They were titled like chapters of something unfinished.
"Echo Archive: Third Spiral" "Black Root: Convergence Protocols"
The names stirred something in the back of his mind. Not a memory. A warning.
Rai set them on the workbench. The light above buzzed once. Dimmed.
And he began to read.
The first folder—Echo Archive—was filled with maps, sketches, faded black-and-white photos. All centered on one repeating symbol: the spiral. But not as art. As a force.
"Third Spiral confirmed beneath dormant topographic zone—location redacted."
"Each spiral manifestation correlates with unseen gravitational shifts, detected only through interference patterns in deep magnetic cores."
"They're not drawn. They're embedded. Etched into the skin of the planet itself."
Rai felt his pulse slow.
The spiral on his hand twitched once. Not glowing. Just aware.
He flipped another page and saw his father's handwriting.
"Every echo leads back to the same question:
Who sealed the first one?"
The second folder—Black Root—was thinner but heavier. He could feel it before he opened it. The air in the room felt denser, as if the paper inside displaced oxygen.
He opened it.
The first page read:
"Black Root – Phase Three: Emergency Lock Protocol"
His breath caught.
The diagram beneath showed a spiral—smaller, segmented. But it wasn't alone.
Three dots. One triangle. Same as the glyph Iris had found.
Only this time, they were connected to nodes branching out across a human silhouette.
And right in the center: the palm.
His palm.
He closed his eyes—and the voice returned.
"Wake up before it sees you."
His eyes snapped open.
The basement was silent.
But not empty.
Behind him, nothing moved. But his reflection in the old boiler pipe stared back at him—and for a second, it didn't blink with him.
Rai stood slowly.
Looked down at the file.
At the bottom corner, something had been handwritten in red ink. Rushed. Slanted.
"DO NOT OPEN UNLESS CONVERGENCE BEGINS."
He hadn't just opened it.
He'd triggered it.
Upstairs, in another part of the city, Ronald stood beside a window, watching rain trace patterns down the glass.
His phone buzzed once.
The message was short.
"He's reached Phase Three."
Ronald typed back.
"Observe. Do not interfere. Let the spiral wake him."