Chapter 12 - The tower began collapsing.Steel beams twisted.
Glass shattered.
Water roared through every corridor.
Frank grabbed Emily.
Joseph held onto Mina.
Vale disappeared under the flood.
The giant creature slammed against the tower.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Frank screamed:
“MOVE!”
They ran.
The entire structure tilted.
The staircase became a wall.
Frank crawled.
Emily followed.
Joseph dragged Mina.
Then the tower split.
A massive crack opened beneath them.
Frank looked down.
Something enormous moved below.
He couldn't see the whole thing.
Only an eye.
One eye.
Bigger than a car.
Frank stared.
The eye opened.
And the creature looked directly at him.
Frank whispered:
“What are you?”
The voice appeared inside his mind.
Not through his ears.
Inside.
I REMEMBER YOU.
Frank froze.
“You know me?”
YOU CAME BEFORE.
Frank's heart stopped.
Joseph grabbed him.
“Frank!”
The creature spoke again.
YOU OPENED THE DOOR.
Frank shook his head.
“I didn't.”
YOU DID.
Memories flashed.
Twenty-seven years earlier.
Frank entering the deepest chamber.
His mother warning him.
Joseph shouting.
Vale screaming.
A door opening.
Something escaping.
Frank suddenly remembered.
The first experiment had not created the intelligence.
They had discovered it.
It had been sleeping beneath the lake.
The scientists had connected their machines to it.
The experiments were not creating life.
They were waking something that was already alive.
Frank stumbled backward.
Joseph saw his face.
“What did you remember?”
Frank stared at him.
“We opened it.”
Joseph's expression collapsed.
“And the fish?”
Frank looked at Mina.
“She was designed to communicate with it.”
Mina suddenly screamed.
The giant creature outside the tower answered.
Then dozens of smaller creatures surfaced.
All of them stared toward Mina.
Joseph whispered:
“They're waiting.”
Frank nodded.
“For what?”
Mina turned.
She looked at Frank.
Then toward the deepest crack.
Frank understood.
“They want her to go down.”
Emily shook her head.
“No.”
Frank looked at her.
“We don't know what's down there.”
Emily grabbed him.
“Exactly.”
Frank hugged her.
Then the tower shook again.
A voice came through the speakers.
Dr. Vale.
“You finally understand.”
Frank looked up.
Vale appeared on a broken monitor.
His face was bleeding.
But he was smiling.
“You were never the prisoner.”
Frank stared.
“What?”
Vale continued:
“You were the key.”
Frank clenched his fists.
“You knew this all along.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because you'd destroy everything.”
Frank laughed.
“Maybe I should.”
Vale smiled.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because beneath this lake is something humanity has never seen.”
Frank stared.
Vale continued:
“Something that can give us every memory of every human who ever lived.”
Frank's expression hardened.
“You'd use it.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Immortality.”
Frank looked at Joseph.
Then Mina.
Then Emily.
He understood Vale's real obsession.
Not science.
Not power.
Death.
Vale was terrified of dying.
Frank slowly smiled.
“You've spent your whole life afraid.”
Vale looked at him.
“Have you not?”
Frank thought about his wife.
His brother.
His mother.
The people he lost.
He finally answered.
“Of course I am.”
He raised his head.
“But dying doesn't mean you stop living.”
Vale stared.
Frank continued:
“You stop living when you spend your life trying not to die.”
The monitor flickered.
Vale's face changed.
Then he laughed.
“You still think this is about you.”
The water beneath them began to glow.
A giant structure rose from the darkness.
A door.
Massive.
Covered in symbols.
Frank recognized the final symbol.
It was the same mark from his childhood nightmares.
The door opened.
Something looked out.
Mina stepped forward.
Frank grabbed her.
She turned.
For the first time, Frank heard her voice clearly.
Not in his head.
Not through a machine.
Out loud.
“Frank.”
He froze.
Mina looked at him.
“I remember.”
Frank couldn't speak.
Then she whispered:
“Everything.”
May you like
Behind her, the door opened wider.
And something from the other side began to climb into the lake.
