The abandoned medical wing sat at the far edge of campus, fenced off with rusted gates and cracked signs that read "Under Structural Repair, Do Not Enter." But Zahra and Elijah both knew no repairs had been done in years. The building was a relic, one most students avoided, either out of fear or superstition.
They arrived after midnight, faces hidden under scarves and hoods. Elijah had memorized the guard rotation; they had exactly fifteen minutes before anyone passed the north gate again. They slipped through a loose panel in the fence and crossed the courtyard, snow crunching softly under their boots. Zahra's fingers tightened around the flashlight Elijah had given her. The building loomed like a tomb, grey, skeletal, silent.
Inside, it smelled of damp concrete, dust, and something else, old antiseptic and rusted metal.
They crept down a dark hallway lit only by the beam of the flashlight. Peeling wallpaper revealed layers of medical charts in faded ink, and doors were labelled in both English and Chinese: Clinical Observation, Cryogenic Storage, Neural Imaging.
"This place looks like it was shut down in a hurry," Zahra whispered, brushing cobwebs off a terminal marked Xǐzhǎo Core Node.
Elijah tapped on the old computer screen. Dead. But he pried open the side panel and slipped in the flash drive. The machine stuttered to life with a low hum. A login prompt appeared. After a few tries and bypass commands, the files decrypted. Dozens of folders opened.
Zahra clicked one: "S.9-Williams"
Videos. Audio logs. Reports. One caught her eye: "Session 13 - Memory Recall Trial".
She played it.
A grainy video filled the screen: a man seated in a lab chair, her father Zayne Williams. Younger. Hooked to electrodes. Speaking in shaky Mandarin.
"I saw the fire again… The boy… the boy was screaming. It wasn't me, but I could feel it. I felt… his fear. His pain."
A researcher's voice off-camera: "Subject Nine, what is the boy's name?"
A pause. Her father's eyes widened, staring straight into the camera.
"LIANG."
The screen glitched. Elijah quickly paused it.
"What were they doing to him?" Zahra whispered.
"Reactivating memory echoes," Elijah said grimly. "Trying to access stored trauma passed through bloodlines. Maybe even implant new ones. That's not medicine, that's weaponization!."
Suddenly, the screen cut to black. Then words appeared in red:
"ACCESS TRACED."
They stared at each other. A shriek of metal echoed down the hall, like a door opening.
"RUN!," Elijah hissed.
They dashed back through the hallway as footsteps thundered behind them. They could hear voices now, sharp, urgent, speaking Mandarin.
Zahra didn't look back. She followed Elijah through a maintenance hatch, then out a shattered side window. The snow soaked their clothes, but they didn't stop running until they were far off-campus, panting and breathless in the cold dark.
Behind them, the ghost lab stood still. But now, it knew who they were.