The graveyard was quiet.
Too quiet.
Elara tightened her coat around her shoulders as the wind whistled through the crooked headstones of Elmhurst Cemetery. The moon hung like a single, judging eye in the cloudless sky, casting everything in silver and shadow.
She walked with purpose, flashlight in hand, every step a whisper against the damp grass. Plot #51207 was located deep in the older section—rows of forgotten names and eroded stone, where time seemed reluctant to pass.
The number was etched into a crumbling marker, half-covered in moss. No name, no dates. Just a number: 51207.
Elara knelt before it, her breath fogging in the cold night air. "Let's see what secrets you're hiding."
She slipped on gloves and began clearing the earth. Inch by inch. Her fingers trembled—not from the cold, but from something deeper. Dread? Anticipation? Both?
The soil shifted with an unnatural ease.
Then—clink.
Her flashlight caught the edge of something metal.
A small, rusted box.
Heart pounding, Elara pulled it free. Her gloves smeared mud across the surface, but she could still make out the letters carved onto the lid:
L5.
Letter Five.
She didn't even wait to get back to the motel. She opened it right there, under the moonlight.
Inside was a folded parchment, aged and fragile, wrapped in a faded ribbon. As she unwrapped it, a strange scent hit her—like ash and roses. The paper trembled in her hands as she read the words.
> To my daughter, if you've come this far…
It means the time has come for truths I never wanted to bury—but had no choice.
The serum was never about healing. It was about control.
Elara's throat tightened.
> Your father discovered the anomaly first. But they silenced him before he could publish it. I tried to hide what I knew, but they came for me too. The academy... the Order... they were never about knowledge. They were always about power.
And they needed a weapon.
A drop of cold sweat traced her spine.
> I became their experiment. You were the result.
You, Elara, are the last prototype.
She gasped, her flashlight shaking. Her mind reeled. No… no, that's not possible.
> You were born with the ability to adapt to the serum. To contain it without mutation. That's why they've been watching you.
That's why I scattered the letters—so you would know the truth piece by piece, when you were strong enough.
Elara could barely breathe.
She looked up at the stars, her heartbeat thunderous in her ears.
She wasn't just involved in the mystery. She was the mystery.
Elara stared at the letter in her trembling hands, rereading each word, hoping—desperately—that she had misunderstood. But the meaning was unmistakable. The truth had been buried with her mother's silence and the academy's lies.
She was a prototype. A creation.
A weapon.
Her breath came shallow, her chest rising and falling with panic. "No… I'm not a—" She paused, eyes darting around the graveyard as if someone might be listening.
And someone was.
A shadow shifted near a large oak tree, silent and deliberate.
Elara spun around, flashlight beam slicing through the darkness. "Who's there?"
No answer.
She squinted, heart thudding. The beam caught something—movement, then stillness. A figure in a long black coat, half-hidden by the mist, watching her.
"Elara," the voice said softly.
It was familiar.
"Dahlia?" she whispered.
The figure stepped forward, revealing pale skin, a scar along her jawline, and eyes darker than midnight. "You weren't supposed to find it this soon."
"You knew." Elara stood, fists clenched. "You knew the truth and said nothing."
"I was trying to protect you."
"By lying to me? By letting me walk into this blind?"
Dahlia sighed, stepping closer. "You think I had a choice? If I had told you everything back then, the Order would've killed you before you reached Letter Two. You needed to uncover this in pieces. You needed to be ready."
"I'm never going to be ready for this," Elara hissed.
"You're stronger than you think. And now you've read Letter Five—things will start accelerating. They'll know."
"Who are they exactly?" she asked, voice rising.
"The ones who run the academy. The ones who turned your mother into a vessel for their experiments. They see you as an asset, not a person. But they won't stop until they have you back under control."
Elara took a step back. "You're one of them."
"No," Dahlia said firmly. "I was one of them. I defected the day your mother died. That's why I've been helping you from the shadows—leaving clues, covering your tracks."
A gust of wind blew between them, carrying the faint sound of church bells from the distance—midnight.
Elara clenched her jaw. "What's in Letter Six?"
"I don't know," Dahlia admitted. "I never saw it. Only your mother knew the contents. But if she followed the same pattern, it's probably hidden where everything began."
"My childhood home?"
"No." Dahlia's eyes darkened. "The original lab. The one beneath the ruins of the old psychiatric hospital. Letter Six is buried where the experiments started. Where you were born."
Elara's knees weakened. "I thought that place burned down."
"It did. But not everything was destroyed. And they've been guarding it ever since."
Elara looked down at the letter once more. Her fingers curled tightly around it.
She thought this journey would lead her to her mother's killer.
But now, it was leading her to herself.
And the truth might be worse than any murder.
Elara looked down at the letter once more. Her fingers curled tightly around it, as though it might crumble from the weight of its truth.
She thought this journey would lead her to her mother's killer.
But now, it was leading her to something far more dangerous.
To herself.
To secrets crafted in darkness.
To the blood that ran colder than she ever imagined.
And the next letter—Letter Six—would take her deeper than she had ever dared to go.
Into the beginning.
Into the beginning of everything.