"The sky dawned overcast, as if time itself feared being revealed."
Lucas walked slowly through the still-chilly streets, observing passing faces with the strange sensation that everyone carried something hidden. Voices, symbols, fragments... It was as if the world had become a mirrored surface, and he was now learning to see the cracks beneath the everyday gloss.
He drank his coffee in silence at the small corner café. The television was on with the morning news talking about the economy and elections, but the words didn't reach his attention. The coffee tasted metallic. Everything felt... off.
At the precinct, he sat stiffly at his desk. His body was present, but his mind still drifted between the hooded figure from the night before and the inscription carved into the glass:"Grade 1 – The Veiled Lens."
The name wouldn't leave his mind. It carried weight. Rhythm. Like it was part of a doctrine.
While organizing his notes in chronological order, he reviewed the emails filtered by specific keywords. One, in particular, made him stop.
Subject: Incident – Estrela do Sul Building (Room 217)From: Inspector R. Coelho – 13th DivisionContent:"Sending incomplete report regarding sensory disturbance in a deactivated building. Multiple accounts of hearing voices inside a sealed room.Last worker reported: 'it sounded like the voices were inside the walls.'We tried to enter. The atmosphere was... heavy. The janitor requested the entrance be sealed.Curious note: a blue symbol was identified beneath the paint on the inner side of Room 217's door.Forwarded for your analysis per the pattern you've mentioned in recent cases."
Lucas read it three times.
His mind lit up like a spark on dry paper.
Symbols. Voices. Sealed rooms. A pattern emerging.
He opened the city records database. The Estrela do Sul Building had been a hotel in the 1950s. Converted into a boarding house in the 1980s. Shut down in 2001 after reports of disappearances and irregular use. Officially closed — but occasionally used by art groups and film sets through "verbal agreements."
He grabbed his field folder, notebook, and left.
The building stood in the Liberdade district, between an old bank branch and a Korean pharmacy. Its facade was plain, almost erased by the decades. The second-floor windows were boarded up, but the ground floor still showed life: a makeshift convenience store operated in the old lobby.
Lucas climbed the external side stairs. The janitor waited at the top — thin, thick glasses, dry voice.
— Are you from the police?
Lucas showed his badge.
— I'm here to check Room 217. The precinct received reports.
— That room... — the man cleared his throat, arms crossed. — Shouldn't be opened. I locked it with a chain. Tried to paint everything inside, but it won't dry. The paint... drips. Even with no humidity.
— Any record of entry?
— No one's been in there since the last film crew left. One of them went into shock. Said someone was whispering his name through the keyhole.
Lucas looked up toward the top of the interior stairs.
The walls felt damp, despite the dry weather.
He climbed, step by step, listening carefully. As he reached the second floor, a faint ringing sounded in his ears — similar to when he touched the blue glass. The atmosphere was heavy. As if the air was saturated with suspended memories.
He reached the end of the corridor.
The room numbers were irregular. Many scratched out, replaced with tape. But as he neared Room 217, the world seemed to hold its breath.
The door was different.
Thicker. And bound with a thick chain around the handle and frame. Even so, the wood was swollen, as if something inside was pressing outward.
Lucas stopped inches from the door.
And then he felt it.
A snap.
A weight on his shoulders. As if his very consciousness was being pushed out of his body.
And a voice.
Feminine. Low. Trembling.
But clear.
— You left me here...
It wasn't a recording. It wasn't building noise.
It was real.
But it didn't come from the other side of the door.
It came from inside.
Inside the wood. Inside the walls.
Lucas took a step back, breathing deeply.
Room 217 wasn't just another piece of the puzzle.
It was a capsule.
A twisted fragment of time.
And now, he knew: if he entered, he wouldn't leave with the same parts.
That same afternoon, Lucas returned to the Estrela do Sul Hotel, this time with formal authorization signed by Tavares. The chief didn't fully understand the urgency but trusted Lucas. There was something in his tone — something between urgency and inevitability — that convinced him to sign without too many questions.
The janitor wasn't pleased.
— I warned you — he said, standing at the stairs, unmoving. — Some things stay quiet only because no one listens. If you open it, they remember.
Lucas said nothing. He just climbed.
The second floor felt even heavier than before. The air was thicker, and the ringing in his ears more insistent. When he stood before Room 217, he noticed the chain seemed... tighter. As if the metal itself had contracted.
He grabbed his tools, removed the chain firmly. The clatter of the metal hitting the floor echoed through the corridor. A chill ran up his back.
The doorknob turned with a dry snap.
The door creaked open, revealing a dark space, sealed far too long.
Lucas stepped inside carefully. The smell was a mix of old paint, mold, and something indefinable — like static. The room was covered in abandoned sheets, old furniture veiled in white cloth. But what drew the most attention was the mirror on the opposite wall.
Tall, framed in dark, worn wood, the mirror was clean. Perfectly clean. As if someone had polished it that very morning.
Lucas approached.
And then he saw.
Not his reflection.
But the room.
From the past.
With different furniture, golden wallpaper, a blue armchair in the corner... and a woman sitting in it, back turned. Still.
He blinked. The real room hadn't changed.
But the reflection continued showing that other version.
The woman slowly lifted her head in the mirror, as if sensing his presence. Then, with a soft motion, she turned — revealing a pale face, wide eyes, as if begging for something that could no longer be granted.
Her lips moved.
Lucas heard no sound. But he understood.
"You came back, Kai."
The name wasn't his.
But something in his gut sank.
He stepped back. The reflection vanished.
Now, he saw only himself. The empty room.
Breath quickened. Hands sweating.
But he couldn't leave. Not yet.
He opened his notebook. Scribbled the name:
Kai.
Connection? Residual memory? A false name from a dream?
The mirror drew him like an inverted well of light. But he looked away and began searching the room. He took photos, searched for physical traces.
Behind the bed, he found something strange: a crack in the wall, as if something had pushed outward from inside. And within it, hand-painted — the blue symbol.
This time, there were words beneath:
"She waited until the sound went silent."
Time seemed frozen.
Lucas stood there for minutes, maybe more, not sure what to look for. Just feeling. The place was saturated with memories. But not his. It felt like walking sacred ground, stepping on forgotten traumas.
Suddenly, footsteps in the hallway.
Lucas jumped out of the room, phone flashlight pointed.
But the corridor was empty.
Only silence.
He returned to the room, more cautiously.
But found the door... closed.
From the inside.
He was trapped.
And then, the voices began.
The locked room was no longer dark.
Nor lit.
It was... suspended.
Lucas backed up a few steps, heart pounding. The door was shut — he hadn't heard it close. The latch had simply... vanished. In its place, a bluish film coated the wood like a pulsing membrane.
The feeling of being somewhere else intensified.
It was no longer the same room.
The walls subtly changed, as if every past coat of paint wanted to rise. Ghostly images surfaced and faded: floral wallpapers, blood marks, scratched numbers, crooked crucifixes, handprints in negative.
Then, a voice.
— "You promised you'd return, Kai..."
It came from inside the mirror.
Lucas approached, but this time saw not just one woman. There were three overlaid figures. The same woman... in different moments. In one, she was young, eyes alive. In another, older, tired, face hollow. In the last, she lay down, face erased, just smooth wax-like skin.
They spoke together.
— "You left me here."— "You forgot the exit."— "You carried the Stone."
Lucas touched the mirror's frame.
The surface shimmered.
An image appeared: Lucas himself, younger, in different clothes — an old suit, a tie. Beside him, the woman. They smiled. But it wasn't a reflection. It was a memory.
One he didn't have.
He stepped back. The room's air thinned. Gravity felt unstable. Everything around him wavered like a painting on glass.
The blue symbol in the corner of the wall began to move.
Literally.
The lines vibrated, expanded, took form. Now it wasn't just an eye. It was a circle with nine branches — like a diagram. In the center, something pulsed deep blue.
Lucas approached.
And there, words emerged.
Not written.
But felt.
"Grade 2 – The Silent Ear""What do you hear when all is silent?What slips behind the noise?"
A whisper echoed within the room, from behind the walls.
— "She is trapped in the interval between the bell's tolls..."
Lucas fell to his knees.
The voices multiplied. Now from the ceiling, the floor, the corners. They said names he didn't know. Begged for help. Repeated lines from books he had never read.
But among all the whispers, one prevailed.
The same woman.
— "You are not Lucas. Not here.Here, you are what's left of Kai."
The room shook.
And everything shattered in reverse.
Lucas awoke on the floor of Room 217.
The door was open. The chain lying beside it.
The mirror... cracked.
On the floor, a symbol drawn in charcoal.
And on it, a small blue stone with two glowing marks.
Two circles.
Two grades.
Lucas left the hotel with heavy steps, muscles stiff as stone, eyes glazed like someone who had returned from a place that doesn't exist on maps. The blue fragment rested in his inner pocket — wrapped in gauze, like a wound needing containment.
The city around him felt muffled. Every sound — horns, sirens, footsteps — was louder, closer, as if his hearing had been... overtrained.
It was as if he had crossed a layer of reality and now heard its friction.
At the precinct, he spoke to no one.
He went straight to the old archive in the basement. There, among dusty folders and broken furniture, was a hidden drawer few knew about. He had found it months ago while organizing evidence from a shelved case.
He opened it. Took an old envelope, emptied it, and placed the Two-Marked Stone inside. Hid it beneath stacks of false documents, sealed the drawer with black tape, and noted a random inventory number.
The Stone pulsed. Even hidden. Even sealed.
But he needed time.
Back upstairs, he ran into Erick in the hallway.
— You look like a zombie — said the colleague, forcing a smile.
Lucas tried to return the gesture, but his muscles didn't obey. His skin felt too warm. His temples buzzed. As if he was constantly shifting between wakefulness and delirium.
— I went to Estrela do Sul — he murmured.
— And?
Lucas hesitated.
— I saw something. Inside. Fragments... visions... And I found another Stone.
Erick's eyes widened, glancing around.
— Not here. Storage room.
Minutes later, they were locked in a stuffy room surrounded by filing cabinets and metal shelves.
Lucas told everything: the multiple reflection, the names, the symbol shifting, the inscription"Grade 2 – The Silent Ear."
Erick listened intently. At the end, he simply said:
— This goes far beyond what I thought.
Lucas nodded.
— And there's more. When I returned... someone had touched my notebook.
A new note was left inside. No envelope. No signature.
He handed it to Erick.
The handwriting was identical to the one left at his home weeks ago:
"The next grade will hear you, even if you remain silent.But beware of those who have heard too much.Not every ear is loyal."
Erick read it twice. Then looked up.
— Lucas... Someone here knows about this. Or is part of it.
The silence between them grew thick. For the first time, the threat was no longer just a symbol, a voice, or a dream.
It was a nearby presence.
Inside the precinct.
The note remained on Lucas' desk, folded in four, as if trying to hide its own weight.
"The next grade will hear you, even if you remain silent.But beware of those who have heard too much.Not every ear is loyal."
He read it a third time, feeling each word vibrate like taut strings in his chest."Will hear you even if you remain silent"... It was clear. He was already being heard.
And someone inside the precinct knew.
That night, he reviewed every name on the team. Close colleagues. Technicians. Inspectors. Analysts. Tried to remember if anyone had ever reacted oddly to words like "Observer," "Stone," "Vigil."
Nothing concrete.
But suspicion grows fast.
And Lucas no longer trusted even his own memory.
After work, he avoided going straight home. Wandered the city, walked streets from his childhood, passed the school he once attended. He needed to remember who he was. He needed to know where Lucas ended and where... Kai began.
Because that name — the one spoken in the mirror — wasn't just a hallucination.
At some level, he recognized it.
He got home past midnight. Left his phone in the kitchen, turned off. Hid the drawer key where he kept the notebook. Checked all windows.
Only then did he lie down.
But sleep wasn't a choice.
He fell.
The field was white.
Snow.
Or very old dust.
Broken columns surrounded him. Like a shattered temple.
At the center, a stone altar, and upon it, a seated figure — legs crossed, wrapped in robes the color of aged bone.
The face was hidden. A metal mask with nine slits, like adjustable lens grooves.
Lucas approached.
The elder raised a hand.
"The Path does not advance by accident," he said in a whispered but firm voice."Each step requires surrender. Each Grade demands listening."
Lucas felt the wind hissing past his ears, as if the entire world whispered forgotten words.
"You've crossed two veils," the elder continued."The Veiled Lens opened your sight.The Silent Ear wounded you with noise.But now... you decide."
Beside the elder, two Stones appeared. One with two glowing marks. The other... dull.
"If you accept the Stone, you leave behind ignorance.But also lose the protection of unawareness."
Lucas hesitated.
He knew, at some level, that accepting it meant crossing a point of no return.
But he also knew he could no longer pretend.
He extended his hand.
Touched the dull Stone.
It glowed for an instant.
And vanished.
The elder then said:
"Those who listen are heard.Those who refuse are blinded.The Vigil listens."
The mask turned slightly. And from within the slits...
Came a sound.
Not a word.
But the sound of his own name.
Kai.
Lucas woke with a jolt.
He was standing, in the middle of the room, notebook open.
And on the table... another Stone.
The third.