Rain had returned to Raven Hollow like a recurring nightmare, painting the streets in slick sheets of silver and shadow. The newspaper stand outside Miguel's Market carried the day's headline: "Prominent Psychiatrist Dr. Elroy Graves Found Dead – Police Remain Silent." No quotes. No speculation. No hint of foul play. But Detective Inez Serrano knew better.
The memory of the scene still clawed at his mind – the sterile office, the bookshelf knocked over, the symbolic etching on the mirror. Inez hadn't told anyone yet, not even Chief Rosalind, about the deliberately hidden journal page he had retrieved from the broken baseboard behind the mirror. That clue wasn't ready to be shared. Not until he was sure.
---
At precinct 9, Inez stared at the transparent board where he had begun pinning photographs and scribbled notes. The name "Graves" sat at the top in thick black ink. Below it: dates, names, symbols. The mirror's etched symbol—a spiral with a jagged center—reappeared on several items recovered from other cases filed away under Raven Hollow's unexplained incidents.
"Morning, Serrano," said a familiar voice behind him. It was Deputy Lauren Vale, her auburn hair dripping from the rain, uniform spotless as always.
"You ever see this symbol before?" Inez gestured to the spiral.
She squinted. "Can't say I have. Looks... ancient. Tribal, maybe?"
"It showed up on two unsolved murders from six years ago. Different victims. Same city. Same etching," Inez murmured.
Lauren's expression shifted. "You think this is connected to something bigger?"
"I don't think anything yet. But someone wanted me to find it."
He didn't say who. Not yet. Not until he figured out why the deceased psychiatrist's final journal entry read:
"The darkness within isn't just metaphor—it remembers."
---
Later that day, Inez visited Graves' widow, Mara. The tall, reserved woman met him at the door in black lace, her voice fragile.
"I knew you'd come," she said. "You were his favorite detective. He said if anything ever happened... it'd be you."
"You think he expected something?" Inez asked.
Mara's eyes darted. "He'd been distant for weeks. More paranoid than usual. He stopped seeing clients. Burned his old session tapes."
"Did he ever mention someone named Elias?"
Mara flinched.
Inez noticed.
"I don't know that name," she replied too quickly.
He didn't push—yet. Instead, he walked through Graves' study again. That's when he found the second clue. Hidden beneath the floorboards, beneath the old rug, was a charred, half-burned cassette tape labeled only: "Patient 49 – Elias".
He didn't listen to it right away. He wanted solitude. And instinct told him this wasn't something to play on a police deck with curious ears nearby.
---
That night, in his dim apartment above Mac's Pub, Inez finally played the tape. A low static buzz filled the room, followed by Graves' voice:
"El... Elias, you must calm down. Just breathe. Start from the beginning."
The other voice—raspy, trembling—answered.
"I never forget, Doctor. I hear them. All the time. They whisper when the house is quiet. They tell me about the Spiral. About what we did."
Inez paused the tape.
"What you did?" he murmured to himself.
The tape resumed.
"They'll find you too, Doctor. They never stopped watching. Not after Hollowgate."
The tape ended abruptly. Static. Then silence.
Inez leaned back. Hollowgate.
He knew that name.
---
In a special archive hidden within precinct records, 'Hollowgate' referred to a closed psychiatric ward that had been shut down after a fire in 1981. Only five patients survived the blaze. The rest... were never identified.
And one of those five patients? Was named Elias R. Vane.
---
The next morning, Inez met with Chief Rosalind. He laid it out—the symbol, the tape, the mention of Hollowgate.
"You're chasing ghosts, Inez," she said, jaw tight. "This isn't a case we want opened again. Hollowgate was sealed for a reason."
"Then why are people dying again?" he countered.
She didn't answer. But her silence spoke volumes.
---
Two days later, another body turned up.
Not just anyone.
Detective Omar Cleaves.
One of Inez's former partners. Found in his garage. Shot in the head. Symbol carved into his palm.
On the workbench next to his body: a burned photo of five people in hospital gowns.
One of them was Graves.
One of them was Elias.
And one of them—blurred by time—looked eerily like Chief Rosalind.
---
Inez's blood ran cold. He had stepped into something far deeper than he imagined. And someone was making sure he kept going.
They weren't trying to stop him.
They were guiding him.
Into the shadows of the mind