The Cassette: Part 2 of 5

 2 

When he went to the nursing home the same night, he did not enter his deceased mother's room right away. Or rather, he could not. He lingered just inside the doorway, trying to clear his mind and gather some courage. He had spent the one-hour drive convincing himself that he wouldn't cry or hesitate, but now that he was here, he couldn't stop the tremor within. 

Mrs Riley stood beside him, one hand lightly gripping his elbow, as if expecting his knees to give way under him. He did not. Instead, he drew a deep breath and took the first of several steps into his mother's solitary room at the end of the drafty corridor lined with several rooms, one of the larger ones, with a view of the ocean his mother had spent decades diving as a sea woman back when they had not yet immigrated. 

Growing up, he felt ashamed of her occupation as a female diver and a single mother. She smelled like the ocean and no matter how many times she washed, the smell lingered and would not clear; it clung to his clothes, seeped into his skin. There was not a single day he wasn't bullied at school. Heck, there was a time when he wanted her to quit so badly that he even thought of running away from home. 

But he no longer felt that way. He missed those days, however strange it may sound. Sure, it had not been an ideal life, nor a kind childhood, but their small coastal town had held a quietness he had never been able to find again, a peace of mind that could not be replicated. 

After immigrating with his mother in search of a better life, that stillness was forever gone. Not that he was ungrateful for the opportunity, he was. But it was simply different. A different kind of life entirely from the one they had lived by the sea; less peaceful and more hectic. Or perhaps it was only nostalgia that made him have these thoughts, the soft distortion of memory making the past seem better than it truly was. After all, anyone who had grown up in the past and become an adult, tended to think it was better than the present, though that might not always have been the case. 

He entered. 

The walls arrested him before the stiff body did. From one corner to the other, every inch of paint had been scored into jagged lines, carved by what he could only imagine was a blunt object or razor. But that was not what made his eyes narrow, nor why he inched closer. The markings were not random, though they would have seemed so to anyone not in the know. They were Chinese characters, so-called Hanzi. What made them eerily unnatural though was the way they had been formed, with each character broken apart and repeated across the walls in fragments, some crooked, some overlapping, as if done in panic. 

It was those words again, and as he drew closer, his mother’s voice rang in his ears in a never-ending loop, making his heart race and mind reel with questions he had no answers to. Bùyào kāimén.  

He swallowed hard and lifted a trembling hand, letting his fingers brush the half-formed strokes. Some lines were barely visible, others gouged so deeply they cut into the wall surface, jagged with flakes of cracked paint and dried specks of brown that could not have been anything but blood. It occurred to him then that the characters had not been scored with a tool at all. They had been dug in by hand. 

His glassy eyes dropped to his mother. She was on the bed, but not in the way the dead were meant to rest. She had not been laid flat; instead, her body sat stiffly upright, shoulders hunched forwards, her jaw stretched into a grotesque rictus, as if her mouth had been forced open until the muscles locked in place. Her neck was rotated upwards and her eyes were wide open, fixed on the ceiling, as though she had been looking at something grotesque at the moment of death. 

Her hands were drawn tightly to her chest in a defensive curl, fingers raised as if to ward something off, some bent backwards at unnatural angles. Two looked fractured, swollen and discoloured, the skin beneath the nails darkened with trapped blood. One nail had been torn away completely. She looked like she had fought something. 

"Did she… really do all this?" 

Mrs Riley's response came too quickly, as though she had been expecting the question the moment they entered. 

"Patients with dementia-related psychosis sometimes act on delusions, Mr Wang," she said. "It isn't uncommon for them to believe they're in danger, even when there's no real threat. And when that fear escalates, it can lead to… drastic actions." 

He looked back at his mother's twisted form, or rather, forced himself to. He understood her condition, and what Mrs Riley was implying, yet he could not stop himself from questioning it. Something about the whole situation did not feel right: the way she had died, and the way she had looked so helpless and terrified in her final moments, as if she had not been alone. His eyes narrowed at the thought. Had she seen something? Someone? 

"You said she hanged herself?" 

"There was a bedsheet tied to the bedpost. She must have used it. The position of the body might seem odd due to this, but rigor mortis can set in quickly depending on the level of stress and—" 

Leo turned to face her, his expression darkening and his features hardening into something unreadable. "Does this look like someone who hanged herself to you, Mrs Riley?" 

"I know this is difficult to accept," she said. "But your mother had been deteriorating. For a long, long time. She believed things that weren't there, heard things that weren't real. That kind of fear can be overwhelming, and sometimes those afflicted cannot cope with it." 

He didn't answer. Not because he accepted her explanation, but because he knew pressing further would lead nowhere. The system had already closed around her death and written it off as delusion-induced suicide. End of story. So, he changed the topic instead. 

"There's something else I wanted to ask you." 

"Sure, go ahead." 

"Ma… did she have access to a phone? One used outside of regular call times?" 

"No. We don't allow personal phones in the rooms, though the patients are free to use the reception line once a week. That said, some of our staff do occasionally lend their phones to patients when they're distressed and want to contact a family member. It's not policy, but… it happens." 

He pulled out his phone and tapped into the call log. The number was still there, the one that had reached him just past midnight. The one his mother used, or something that pretended to be her, before the news of her passing reached him. 

He held the screen towards her. 

"Do you recognise this number?" 

"Let me see." She adjusted her glasses, squinting at the screen, and her expression shifted almost immediately. "Oh—that's Carsten's number. He's our new caretaker. Started about two weeks ago. How did you—" 

"Do you think I could speak to him?" he asked. "In private." 

"In private?" she repeated, her brows lifting. 

"It's no big deal, really," he said. "I just… want to ask him something. Could you help me with that?" 

"Well," she hesitated, "I can check for you. He's off today, but I can see when his next shift is. If he's comfortable with it, I'll let you know." 

"Thanks. I appreciate it." 

"Sure." 

A moment of silence then passed between them before Leo gathered enough courage to speak up. 

"Hey, uh, I'm sorry about earlier. I just—when I saw her like that, I didn't know what to think. I didn't mean to raise my voice or… come off as rude. I hope you don't mind." 

"No worries," she said. "I'm used to these kinds of reactions from bereaved families. My staff and I are trained for it, so don't be too hard on yourself." She paused. "Though, that does remind me, we'll need to go over a few things. Regarding arrangements."  

"Uh, yeah, sure. What… what exactly? This is a first for me, losing a family member I mean, so I'm not really sure how to proceed." 

"Well, when a resident passes, we notify the next of kin, which in this case is you. From here, we'll need your direction on whether you'd prefer to handle the funeral arrangements yourself or have us assist in contacting a funeral service. Some families prefer to work with one they know, others ask us to recommend one. It's entirely up to you." 

"Right. How long do I have to decide?" 

"We'll keep her in our facility morgue for up to seventy-two hours. After that, by law, she'll need to be transferred to either a funeral home, crematorium, or hospital mortuary. Also, if you're planning a service or cremation, you'll need to let us know which funeral director to release the body to." 

He rubbed the side of his neck, unsure of what to do, how to proceed, and completely overwhelmed. 

"I guess she wanted to be cremated? She once told me that, long before she, uh, she took ill. I just haven't—I'm sorry." 

"That's all right," she said, "I can give you a list of registered funeral homes we've worked with before. Some offer same-day or next-day services. If you have someone in mind, I can help you get in touch with them." 

He nodded. "Sure. Anything else I need to take care of?" 

"We'll need you to sign some release papers and consent for the body transfer. There's also a death certificate we'll file with the local registry, but that's… uh, something we'll prepare on your behalf unless you'd like to handle it yourself?" She paused, taking in his expression, and quickly added, "It doesn't all have to be done today, of course. Just before the seventy-two hours are up." 

"Right, uh, you think you can email me the list?" 

"Sure, no problem." 

"Thanks. I'll take care of it. Just… maybe just not today." 

"Of course." 

There was another silent moment after this awkward exchange, one that lasted longer than either of them wanted and was comfortable with.  

"We've got coffee downstairs if you need a second or—" 

"No," he cut in, shaking his head. "I'll be fine. Really. Thank you… for everything." 

He exited the room and walked down the unnecessarily narrow corridor, which was lit by a solitary, flickering lamp that cast broken shadows across the walls. The entire place stank of old wood and sour urine, as though it had not been properly cleaned in a long time. Yet, to his surprise, the place was not as empty as it had been when he first arrived. 

An elderly man stood sobbing next to a barred window, a female resident nearby shouted at her own reflection, slapping her face as if trying to wake herself from something. Further down, another elderly man pushed a walker while smoking with his free hand, despite his old age – or perhaps because of it. 

He couldn't tell whether ending up in such a place was a good thing or a bad thing. He knew, for certain, that he wanted nothing but the best for his future partner and children, that he would never want to be a burden to them in old age. And yet, especially now, he couldn't help but feel an immense, gut-wrenching remorse for having agreed to put his mother in this… prison. The gruesome image of her distorted face and crooked fingers then flashed through his mind, sending a sharp pang through his chest. If she had stayed with him, would she have ended up like that? 

He snapped back to reality and looked down at his feet. A slipper had struck him. His gaze followed the corridor until it landed on an elderly man. He was missing one slipper; the other hung loosely on his foot, revealing a bare, bony leg. 

"Get out of here, Chink!" the man shouted through his toothless mouth. A tattoo on his bare arm revealed he had once been part of an extremist group in his youth. "You don't belong here!" 

Leo didn't even flinch. He simply kept walking. These people were too old, too unwell to be taken at face value. He knew that better than most. He had watched his mother change over the years, seen her personality erode in real time. None of them were of sound mind anymore. 

Then he heard it. A voice that pulled him out of his thoughts and stirred something in him, guilt, remorse, or perhaps something else entirely, but whatever it was, it made him come to a full stop. The tone was familiar. Painfully so. Affectionate and soft in the same way his mother's had been, so much so that for a brief, disorienting second, he thought she had risen from the dead just to comfort him. But it wasn't her.  

"Here! Here!" 

Beneath the flickering lamp sat an elderly woman in a sun-faded blouse, of Asian descent. She was smiling, her eyes crinkling warmly at the corners as she eagerly waved him over, as though she knew him. His instinct was to ignore her, to keep walking, to get out of this dim, suffocating place that seemed to have long since lost whatever colour and life it once had. But then the older woman repeated herself, now louder and firmer, as if she dared him to ignore her and carry on. 

"Leo, my son! My son!" 

His hands curled into fists hearing this and the tears pressed in. It sounded so… real. Like it was his mother calling him. Though he knew he wasn't supposed to, he turned to face her and drew closer. 

"How do you know my name?" 

She looked around them as though checking whether anyone was close enough to hear, then beckoned him nearer, her unnaturally twisted, bony fingers curling in a motion that unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. Hesitating, he leaned in slowly, turning his head, close enough to catch the foul odour of her dry mouth. 

What happened next was sudden and brutal. He didn't see it coming, and even if he had, he doubted he would have been able to react in time.  

Her mouth snapped open and she bit down on his ear with a shocking force, clamping onto it as though intent on tearing straight through the cartilage. He screamed as hot blood burst out, staggering backwards, but she held on, thrashing her head side to side with unprecedented intensity, refusing to let go. 

The staff came running just seconds later; two male caretakers grabbed her and yanked her backwards as one of the nurses jabbed her arm with a syringe. Her limbs twitched, and then, finally, slowed. Then she was still again, limp in her arms, the expression on her face returning to a warm, vacant smile as though she hadn't just tried to bite off his ear. 

Leo was on his knees, one hand pressed hard against his ripped ear, the other holding a bundle of tissues someone had thrust into his palm in the chaos. The pain was unlike anything he had ever experienced, too jarring and overwhelming to be captured by plain words. His entire left side was warm and sticky at this point and crimson blood soaked through his collar and sleeve. 

He looked up, still dazed, as they began to wheel the woman away. Her expression changed again at that moment and her chapped, bloody lips parted, just enough for him to see it, as she mouthed something. Something in Mandarin. 

It took him a second to recognise it, but when he did, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his blood turned in his veins, the air in his lungs no longer providing enough oxygen. There it was again, those words that kept haunting him. Bùyào kāimén. 

Then she started to laugh, hysterical, as if she was mocking him; it made his blood run cold and a cold shiver to shoot up his spine. Yet, he couldn't take his eyes off her, not even when a nurse came over to help him rise back to his feet. Even so, the woman did not stop, she kept laughing all the way down the corridor, even as her body slumped against the straps of the wheelchair, even as the staff exchanged frightened glances behind her back. 

For a long while, he remained completely frozen, consumed by a terror that left him unable to move, the paper towel pressed against his torn ear now soaked through. His heart pounded with a growing, suffocating certainty that something wasn't right. First his mother, now this woman. The same words, looping like a broken recorder that wouldn't let him catch his breath. But he could not wrap his head around it. It made no sense. What door? And, moreover, why was he not supposed to open it?  

Those thoughts spiralled as he entered the code to his flat and stepped inside, shutting the world out behind him. 

He threw himself onto the bed and lay there staring at the ceiling, his ear throbbing with every pulse as his body worked to repair itself. Not long afterwards, he dozed off, his mother's voice repeating in his mind like a sinister beat he couldn't get rid of. "Bùyào kāimén." But she said nothing else, offered no explanation – not even in his nightmares – only those words, as though he might understand if repeated long enough. 

He did not. 

Invitation Only - Part 1 of ?

1

There was once a time when I too believed in miracles, that the tide would eventually turn and give way to clear water. But everything changed when Kara disappeared. I was her older brother; I was supposed to protect and keep her safe. When our parents passed away that night on Christmas Eve, I promised them, to whatever might existence beyond this vast universe, that I would make sure she lived each and every day without feeling their absence. 

But I failed. Bitterly so. Unforgivably so.  

Even now, as pink water embraced my still form and every thought drowned along with my body, I could do nothing but feel sorry. Sorry that I could not find her in this lifetime. I should have done more. I should have been there for her. So, why did I spend that precious time slaving to the bone? What for? In the end, none of that mattered – whether it was the promising career, the girlfriend I thought would be there for me through thick and thin, and the friends I lost along the way. None of that mattered. Never did. 

My lungs burned now, slowly filling with steaming water, the bathtub overflowing with the mix of water and blood. My own. Dripping steadily from my wrist, the last cut too deep, too painful for plain words to describe. But I felt neither the jarring pain nor the way my arm tingled with each trickle. All I could feel was this pang in my chest, the way it pulled and tightened around my body, and how each breath caught in my throat.  

In the background, through the ajar door, the radio crackled to life. I did not remember turning it on.  

“Missing girl found dead in Prospect Park Lake three miles from home. Police rules out foul play.” 

It stirred something in me, those words.  

Submerged, I slowly opened my eyes and listened to the radio. My vision was blurry and the pink water stinging, but I did not fight the inevitable. I wanted to end my existence, to free my soul from the pain of not knowing what happened to my sister, to break free from it all, and join Kara in the afterlife. A decade had passed already. Had she been alive after all those years, she would have reached out to me one way or the other and explained herself no matter how upset she was with me.  

It was my fault she never confided in me, never told me about her addiction. If I had known earlier, I would have done everything in my power to help her out of whatever haunted her. But she told me nothing. On the contrary. The week leading up to her disappearance was one of our best yet; she even talked about visiting our parents. 

Our parents passed away when she was fourteen, and never really got over their sudden deaths. For a long time, she blamed them for leaving us. She was just a child going through puberty at the time, so I did not try to convince her otherwise, thinking she would eventually get over it. But it just kept getting worse and worse. It was like she was never really there, like the smile never truly reached her eyes no matter how hard she tried. 

When the authorities said she had run away from home, like how girls her age do, I wanted to believe them. I convinced myself that had to be the case, for why else would she disappear just like that? But with each passing year and no words from her, that tiny piece of hope I harboured in my heart slowly ceased.  

She was gone; I had no reason to live. In a way, I owed her this life of mine. When our parents passed and it seemed like the whole world had come to an end, she was the beacon of light that helped me navigate through the hurricane and find my way home. Without her, I would have perished long ago, anyway. 

The radio died. 

I shut my eyes anew, welcoming the warm kiss of death, coming to terms with my life-long guilt and the pain that tore my insides out every waking hour. 

Ding-dong.  

I let my body sink deeper, let the pressure of the steaming water dilute my cut veins. 

Ding-dong. Ding-dong. 

Air bubbles escaped on the surface of the tub. 

Ding-dong. Ding-dong. 

Memories took over my hazy mind; Kara waited for me in front of her high school, smiling, waving at me to quickly come over. I smiled, too— 

“Ethan! Wake up! Ethan!” 

She used to hate it, whenever I picked her up, said I was embarrassing her by being overprotective. But she did not hate it this time. She kept waving me over. Smiling so brightly. How I missed that smile. How I missed it so terribly... 

“Ethan! Wake up! You must—save me!” 

My eyes fluttered open before I knew it, my limbs thrashing against the porcelain as I coughed up the mix of liquid and slime pooled inside my lungs.  

“K-Kara?” 

I knew not how I managed to pull myself up, I just knew I did. But even as I frantically searched the entire place, I could not find her. But I had heard her! It was her voice! Where... where was she? Why did she hide from me? What did I ever do to her to warrant such— 

My bloodshot eyes narrowed.  

On the table lay something I had not seen in ages. I used to bring the leather journal everywhere with me back at the height of my career as an investigative journalist. I did not even recall where I last put it. My eyes drifted to the door; it was locked. Did someone enter my apartment?  

Save from a flickering lightbulb that should have been changed months ago, the second-floor landing was completely dark and desolate. I opened the door still and examined the frame; no signs of intrusion. Was I losing my mind? Perhaps I did find the journal but forgot?  

When I returned to the living room, the first thing that arrested me was the entry in the open journal. But it did not belong to me. The curves and strokes were completely the opposite of mine. But that was not why my eyes widened and my feet almost gave way under me. It was Kara’s handwriting. I would have recognised it anywhere. 

SAFIYE 

It was a name; one I had heard before but from where? 

I leafed through the entire journal trying to find a clue, something that could help me recall. That was when the journal, stained crimson now, slipped from my hand and a grainy photograph I did not remember ever putting in there dropped at my feet. It showed two girls at a park, holding hands and smiling to the camera. One of them was my sister, the other was... Safiye? 

The pages turned as I was about to pick up the photograph, landing on one of the last entries I had written. It was more a reminder to myself than an actual note from back in time, back when I thought I could find Kara alive. 

Does she know something?? 

It occurred to me then that I wrote this on the same evening I was laid off work. I had spent the entire day, several months, looking for Kara. That evening, after interviewing several of Kara’s classmates, I managed to reach out to a young woman by the name of Safiye. She was two years older than my sister and had been introduced to the glamorous nightlife far too early, the one wolves in sheep’s clothing showed afflicted women, before the ugly truth became their reality. 

During our brief interview, she told me that she started out as a charity youth programme recruiter for a well-known foundation, and from there, was slowly introduced to invite-only charity galas and political donor events where powerful men attended under a false guise. She said everything seemed harmless at first, that the men she was in charge of genuinely wanted to help her and others in her situation. It was not until she received her first beaten after refusing the advances of an older donor that she realised she was being trafficked, that the programme itself had been a trap from the get-go. By then, however, she was too deep in to escape her prison.  

When I asked if she knew where Kara was, if she too had been introduced to this nightlife, she told me she did not know – that Kara was not the type of person to seek fame or fortune by lowering herself to their level – that she had a loving home and an older brother that would do anything for her. I bought it. 

I did not find out about her struggle with drugs until several months after, by then, I could not reach Safiye again. She had disappeared. All I had left of our brief conversation was these entries and a phone number that I had tried untold times to call.  

With a towel wrapped around my wrist, I pressed firmly to stop the bleeding. My eyes were fixed on the phone number, counting the seconds in my head. I did that whenever I needed to catch my breath, debating within myself whether to give her one final call after a decade. Would she even remember me?  

I raked my fingers through my wet hair and hunched forwards from where I sat, feeling all kinds of conflicting emotions. I was getting ahead of myself again. She would not have kept the same phone number after all these years, and even if she did, for all I cared and knew, she too had disappeared. Calling the number would only disappoint me, put my failing heart under more pressure than it was designed to withstand. But what if I was mistaken? 

Hope was such a powerful yet destructive feeling. It was the root of all miracles but also the start of the kind of nightmares that had no end or closure. Once it got under one’s skin, it festered and seethed, until it either broke through the surface or sucked the life out of its host like a parasite. So, which was it for me? A miracle taking root in my heart or the beginning of a nightmare with no escape? 

I wished I had an answer; I did not. 

So, I hit call instead and several beats passed. No one answered. I knew that much, but I did not end the call. Not yet. That was how hope worked, leaving no room for logic or reasoning, it just appeared and made a fool out of one. Still, I did not end the call, even as my heart threatened to rip out my chest and my hands trembled unchecked. I just waited. I did not know what for. I just did. 

Then— 

“Hello? Who am I speaking to?” 

Was it her voice? So many years had passed already, I could not be certain. The young woman I talked to back then had lost all hope for a better tomorrow and her voice reflected that sombreness. But the voice on the other end of the line had life in it and hope for a lifetime of memories. It did not belong to a sad woman at the end of her ropes.  

“Is this... Safiye?” 

A paused followed this question but it was so quick that I could have easily missed the hesitation. 

“Who? I’m sorry, you must’ve got the wrong number.” 

“Please, don’t hang up!” I changed ears in haste, desperate to make the call last longer. “It’s Ethan! Ethan Calloway.” 

“Et...han?” 

“Kara’s brother. Do you remember me?” 

“I—” 

“I won’t take long. Please. Just hear me out.” 

“My husband is at home. He doesn’t know... my past. I can’t afford to lose him. I’m a mother now.” 

“I-I’ll call back later! Does tomorrow work? Please, say something. Anything!” 

“I don’t know what else I can tell you. It’s all in the past now. I hardly remember anything from my life back then. I’ve changed. I don’t want to bring back those... those horrible memories.” 

“I don’t want you to.” 

“Then what do you want from me?” 

“A name.” 

“A... name?” 

“That youth programme; give me a name. Who recruited you? Who brought you to those charity events? Who did you see there? What kind of people did you meet?” 

“You think—” Her voice dropped lower. “—that has anything to do with Kara’s disappearance?” 

“You tell me. Does it?” 

A long paused followed this. I could hear her breath through the line, the way her breath slowed and became irregular with each passing second as she weighed whether to tell me everything she knew or forever remain mute.  

“Mercer. Jonathan Scott Mercer." 

“Mercer?” 

The line went dead.  

I knew that name. Everyone remotely interested in politics did. Mercer had made a name for himself at a very young age as the head of a security firm contractor active in NGO programmes, as well as the spokesperson of several charity foundations as a key political figure and the younger brother of the residing president’s son-in-law. And though it seemed normal for a private security firm to hold charity events and galas, beneath the surface, another truth lay. 

Back when I was still working as an active journalist, several of my colleagues at the small press were systematically removed from their positions and forced out after attempting to uncover Mercer’s operations. He was a powerful figure backed up by not only his brother and his affluent clients, but also the president himself. It was in everyone’s interest to keep whatever secrets Mercer hid within their own circle. 

I knew the guy was dangerous and somewhat under the radar, what I did not expect was his involvement in human trafficking. His record was too clean, too impeccable; though the police caught several human trafficking rings connected directly to the wealthy, his name was never once given away or even mentioned in the official papers. 

From what I could recall from my days in the office, he was more or less a recluse. Only a handful of people knew what he looked like. Back then, rumours had it that he deliberately kept his identity hidden, so that the few undercover journalists that managed to infiltrate the charity events, could not write up articles about him.  

Safiye was but one of god knows how many young woman who was trapped in this scheme. She had no reason to lie to me. Moreover, someone in her position and status, would not have heard of Mercer’s highly confidential involvement in the trafficking – not unless she heard or witnessed something herself. 

I had to look into it, make sure no stone was left unturned. But where would I even begin? That was when it hit me. Or rather, that was when a name crossed my mind, one that caused a bitter smile to tug on my lips.  

Kamran and I went way back. We started out as bandmates back in college, played a few gigs and thought we would make it big, until life happened and we graduated. We tried to keep in touch every now and then, before I cut all ties with everyone, but that did not mean we were not there for one another when we needed it the most. 

When he lost his sister during a terrorist attack in Tehran last June, I was the first person he called. I figured he knew I was the only one who could understand what losing someone felt like. After that incident, he quit his job and settled in the country with his wife Ashley and their two twin daughters, working the fields. He swore never to join the intelligence again, that the entire system was broken beyond repair and corrupted to the core. If anyone could help me find dirt on Mercer, it had to be him. 

The Cassette: Part 1 of 5

1 

Leo shed his jacket at the office door and made it to his designated desk. It had been a hectic month with all the restoration and digitisation works going on, and they were nowhere near the finish line. The footage they were required to restore and categorise were old police evidence files, or in other words, basically stuff that the police needed in order to reopen cold cases. But even with three technicians on duty today, the workload seemed endless and the pile of cassettes only growing by the second. 

"Damn it!" Sam exclaimed, swivelling his chair around. "Dude, take a look at this. Do you see what I'm seeing?" 

"What is it again?" Leo asked as he reluctantly leaned over Sam's monitor. He had just arrived after nearly forty minutes in traffic, and the last thing he wanted was to be dragged into whatever Sam had found. Unfortunately, that was often the case. 

Sam had a habit of pulling him into things at the worst possible time. Sometimes, Leo wondered if Sam was genuinely oblivious or simply liked getting a reaction out of people.  

"See what?" Leo asked. 

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. There's nothing here!" 

"Dude, I'm not following you." 

But Sam had already stopped listening, continuing to rant under his breath. "Fuck! I should've known when I saw the tape. Can't believe I just spent two hours trying to fix this thing." 

On the screen, a black image flickered occasionally, interrupted by what Leo could only describe as some sort of out-of-tune static. But the footage showed nothing. Literally nothing. Just a black screen. 

"Hey, snap out of it. What tape are you talking about?"  

Sam opened his drawer and pulled out an old cassette tape with a battered casing, as though it had been handled roughly or dropped more than once, handing it over. 

What caught his immediate attention as he twisted and turned the casing was not the damage, however, but the label. There was no title, no case identification as one might expect, save for a string of faded numbers printed on a sticker. 

"That's strange," he murmured.  

"Strange? That's one way to put it," said Sam, adding. "You think someone misplaced their stuff and this somehow got mixed in with the case files?" 

Leo donned a glove and studied the tape closely this time, trying to decipher the fading coding on it without much luck, save from three digits. How was this even possible? There had to be something tangible at least, whether that was a case name or label, that could help them categorise it. But just these digits? They meant nothing on their own. 

"Did you look it up, just in case?" 

"No match. What do you think? A misplaced cassette? Should I call those bastards in the Case Review Unit and tell them to get a grip?" 

"Well, we don't know that for sure." 

"You don't think those bastards are pulling our legs?" 

"Not exactly, no." 

"What then?" 

Leo gestured at the monitor. 

"Looks like somebody went through a lot of trouble to tamper with the footage. Look – it's not completely black." 

Sam's eyes widened as he noticed the screen flicker, revealing a brief snapshot of the real footage beneath whatever had been used to obscure it. 

"You think you can recover it?" 

Leo drew a deep breath. "I mean, I can try. But—" 

"Do you, like, think it's some kind of cursed tape or something? Like in that Japanese horror movie? Ring or whatever." 

"What are you, five?" Leo said, already carrying the tape back to his desk. "Grow up, will you?" 

Behind him, Sam threw his hands up. 

"I'm just saying, dude. Better safe than sorry, right?" 

Although recovering the footage was definitely not their priority right now, especially with the piles of cassette tapes getting only higher, he knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate on the task at hand with his mind full of questions. Besides, recovering the footage would take no less than an hour if he got it right the first time around, and then they would be able to correctly categorise the tape and carry on with their routine. 

What he did not take into consideration was the measure the person who had tampered with the tape had taken to make sure whatever the tape showed remained a mystery. After rebooting the system and software more times than he should have, the restoration process finally gave some result, albeit after four or so hours after he started, which meant it was already time for a well-deserved lunch break. 

"You're not coming?" Sam asked as he got up from his chair, ready to join the others waiting for him at the door, exaggerating his accent at the end of his speech. "Hey, talking to you, Leo. Wang Luo." 

With his eyes glued to the screen where the tape was now seconds from being restored, Leo snapped as soon as he heard the exaggerated accent taken directly from some old Hong Kong noir film. The idiot did not even know the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, and yet still had the nerve to mock him. 

"Stop acting like a douchebag and leave." 

"What? Just trying to keep my Chinese fresh, you know?" 

Leo turned to face him a soon as he heard this, no longer able to contain his annoyance. "It's Leo, damn it! L-E-O. And you're saying it wrong! I'm from the mainland, you son of a gun! We don't say it like that over there!" 

"Main—what? Never mind. So, does that mean you're not coming?" 

"Fuck off, dude." 

"Uh-uh. Scary," Sam said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Seems like someone's not feeling it today, guys." 

"Leave," Leo said at last, calmer now, not in the mood to entertain the other. "Just... leave me the fuck alone." 

"All right, all right. Whatever. Let's go, guys." 

He sighed, inhaling deeply to calm his nerves. Sam kept doing that, trying to put him down in front of everyone and then acting as the friendliest guy ever. The double standards, man! The double standards!  

Shaking his head, he once again shifted his focus to the monitor, where a pop-up message relayed that the footage was now restored completely and the digitised file compatible with the computer hardware. 

He clicked on the play button. 

A grainy video of what looked like some kind of interrogation room played on the screen. Apart from the constant glitching and buzzing sound from the static, nothing dramatically caught his attention. Had he not been able to hear the recorder in the background, he would have thought this was an image and not a video. 

After watching the still footage for a few minutes, playing and replaying back and forth to catch anything unusual or something that could help him categorise the file, he turned it off and decided to watch the rest at home now that he knew there wasn't anything on it that required his full attention. Thus, he uploaded the digitised file to his private account as well as on the cloud server and then resumed tackling the huge pile of tapes on his desk. 

Fast forwards five hours later, back in the single-room studio apartment, Leo powered on his computer after downing some beer. 

The rest of the footage was the same as the earlier parts, save from one single detail, one he almost missed had he not played the video back for a double-check. Something was wrong with the angle of the recorder. In the earlier parts of the footage, it was situated in the corner of the interrogation room, somewhere on the ceiling or near it, thus giving a bird's eye view of the room. But at one point, the angled tilted, albeit only slightly. It was a miracle he had noticed it at all.  

What he could not make sense of was... the how. The recorder was out of reach due to how high situated it was. No one had entered through the only door visible, either. None. And even when he considered the low possibility of there being another door out of the recorder's reach or a person somewhere in a dead angle behind the recorder, then he would be able to see shadows at least, wouldn't he? 

He rubbed his chin, thinking hard. Was he missing something? Maybe the light source was too weak? That was why it didn't quite reach all corners and, therefore, did not catch any shadows that showed up behind the recorder? But that high up? No human being could reach that high without a ladder, and the angle of the recorder should've shown him at least some parts of the ladder itself had it been used. So, how was this— 

Ring. Ring. 

Leo jolted from where he sat, almost cursing out loud from the sudden ringing. Before he answered the call, he took a gander at the clock on the wall, noticing that it was past midnight. Although the odd hour was unusual in and of itself, it wasn't this that bugged him as he saw the words on the display. An unknown caller. Who on earth would be calling at this hour? Was it from the nursing home? But as far as he knew, the facility's calling hours were between 10 AM and 5 PM. Unless—a lump formed in his throat at the thought that something terrible might have happened to his mother. 

He took the call. 

"Hello—" 

"Leo, my son! You okay? Why you never call me? Always I call you." 

Frowning, Leo changed ears. 

"Where's Mrs Campbell, Ma? How did you—" 

"Shh! Tā yào lái le!" 

"What? Ma? Ma! Who's coming? Who's—" 

"Bùyào! Don't open door! Don't—bùyào! [inaudible]" 

The call ended, cut off by his mother's screams. 

"Ma! Ma!" 

Panicked and drenched in cold sweat, Leo tried to call the number back, but no one picked up. The screen stayed unresponsive and black, the ringing looping into suffocating silence. For a few moments, he didn't move at all. Could not. 

His hand remained locked around the phone, his grip tightening without him realising it and knuckles turning white. Even his breathing came shallow and laboured. He swallowed once, then again, but his throat felt tight and dry, as though something had physically lodged there. What had just happened? Something was wrong. Very wrong. Why would his mother scream like that? Like she was... like she was... 

He forced the thought away before it could fully form, refusing to give it shape. Instead, with a jerky motion, he unlocked his phone again and scrolled through his contacts. 

The ringing went on for a while before Mrs Riley answered. He knew this was not an ideal hour to be calling her, but he needed someone to go check up on his mother, who had recently been diagnosed with psychosis related to the onset of her dementia five years prior. 

"Hello? Mrs Riley, this is Leo. Leo Wang. It's about Ma." 

"Mr Wang, I'm so, so sorry. I meant to call you as soon as I heard the news of Mrs Wang's passing, but—" 

"P-Passing? I'm not—what did you just say? Passing?" 

"You haven't heard yet? Mr Wang, we lost your mother earlier today. I'm sorry for your loss. I truly am." 

His hands shook and his vision became blurry with the suppressed tears now trying to escape. It took him a moment to calm his nerves and regain his bearing. Dead? That couldn't be true. He just—spoke to her?  

"The staff found her on the floor with a bedlinen around her throat. It looks like she couldn't take the suffering anymore." 

These words snapped him out of his bleak mind and the unanswered questions. "What?" 

"I know this is hard to accept. But—" 

"Hold on. Are you saying she... killed herself? But I don't understand! You said—no, you promised that she'd be under strict surveillance once she—" 

"I know you're hurting, Mr Wang. But there's nothing we can do to change the fact that she's gone. For the better or worse." 

"For the better or worse?" he repeated, completely out of his mind. "How do we know she wasn't killed? That someone—" 

"Listen, I'll be in my office tomorrow. Once you've calmed down and can think straight, you're free to come and we can talk over the details. What do you think? Mr Wang? Hello?" 

He loosened his grip on the phone as a sudden thought hit him. 

"It's impossible." 

"I'm sorry? What did you just say?" 

"I just... talked to her. Heard her voice." 

"How long have you gone without sleep, Mr Wang?" 

His grip tightened again at those words. 

"What?" 

"You said you were working on digitising some files the last time we talked? Maybe—" 

"We never did. Why would I tell you something about my private life?" Then, after a brief pause, quieter now, more wary. "Who... is this?" 

The line went dead and the real Mrs Riley called, but he did not answer – just stared blankly at the display until the ringing stopped and he played the voicemail sent seconds later. 

"Mr Wang? I'm so sorry for calling you at this hour. But I just received the news of your mother's passing. Please, come to the nursing home as soon as this message reaches you. I'll be waiting." 

But Leo did not move. Instead, he curled in on himself like a child, shivering, his arms locked tightly around his body. 

His bloodshot eyes then drifted, almost against his will, towards the ajar bedroom door. In that moment, his mother's voice began to repeat in his mind, insistent and forcing itself into place, refusing to allow him to dismiss what just happened as imagination or hallucination. 

It was not. He just knew, if nothing else. 

"Don't... open the door?" 

What door? 

Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 15 of ?

15 

When I came back to my senses and the voice inside my head stopped the torture, all I knew was that I had to leave. Now or I would never. What happened earlier I couldn’t explain. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to flee, to get as far away from this place as was physically possible.   

Tucking the blood-soaked photograph into my pocket, I tried to turn the handle to no avail. It was locked. It would be a lie to say I did not expect that to happen. Thus, instead of feeling panic, I scanned the room until my eyes once again fell on the bed, where a dark streak had struck the wall long ago. I tapped along the surface, listening. It was hollow. But not all the way through.  

I traced the edges carefully, pressing down at the corners. It groaned and resisted briefly, then shifted just enough for me to see darkness yawning beneath the skirting board. I did not know what awaited below, only that the air from the gap smelled of damp and something that had been sealed away for years. 

But there was no time for such considerations. I had to exit this place whatever it took. 

When I pried the panel open with bare hands, it revealed a rickety ladder that descended too abruptly. Great, I thought, down we go again. 

I took my chances and steeled himself; then stepped onto the first stair. Each rung of the ladder groaned, threatening to come apart and send me whirling down – a vicious descent straight into the abode of the damned – going deeper and deeper, like there was no end to the madness, no end point at all in sight. And just as I thought I had had enough, the ladder spat me out into a room that made my stomach twist with nausea. I knew this place. It was the laundry room I had only caught glimpses of on my brief tour around the main hall on my first night here. But didn’t I just go downwards? Not up.  

Although none of this made any sense whatsoever, I couldn’t help but feel relief wash over me. The danger was over. At least that was how it felt as long as it lasted. Even that overwhelming fear of not being able to escape Neve Emek perished and I swore I would never wander off again. 

When I scrambled out of the laundry room and stumbled into the main hall, the nave stretched before me in all its mighty glory. Something about the building seemed off, though. At the time I didn’t know why I felt that way, only that I did. But the whole place looked newer, as though I had travelled back in time when it had been newly built. 

But in my panicked state, as I started for the exit, I failed to notice those things. Until I opened my eyes to a place different from what I recalled, that is. 

Sure, I was still at the burial grounds and all that jazz, but it was not nearly as old and abandoned as it should be. Even the village beyond was no longer dead and forgotten, but bustling and alive. 

I froze in place as the unfamiliar sounds in the background slowly changed shape and made sense to me. It was Arabic. How could this be? At the same time, I knew it was possible, that I had not been mistaken, because I was no longer in the present, no longer trapped in the agony left in the wake of the past. But how?  

Still yet, I could not believe what I was seeing before me, dared not believe. Did I really time travel? How, when? Did it start when I first entered the basement? Or when I heard— 

I looked away as a sudden thought disrupted me. What was the date? How long back in time had I travelled? Then another dark thought took up space: what about my missing aunt? Was she here, too? Did she need me? I had to find her, one way or the other. I had to. 

Then, a sudden darkness fell over the settlement and relentless flames rose from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, followed by chilling screams growing louder by the second. I followed the jarring sounds to the threshold between the burial ground and the heart of the village, my breath irregular and coming in short bursts. 

People started running, past me and through me, like I was some kind of ghost they could not see. But I did not notice. All around me, the merciless flames licked the villagers’ skin and erased them from history, like they never existed, and through it all, through the chaos, the familiar dragging sound returned, drawing closer from somewhere behind me, reverberating through the cobbles, through the air, through my aching chest. 

I spun, scanning the lanes swallowed by the fire and reduced to nothing but dust and ashes, and there it was indeed, pursuing me still. But I didn’t wait for it to claim me. Instead, I broke through the heavy smoke and sprinted in the opposite direction, where the flames were fiercer and the masjid still intact.  

The lanes narrowed and shadows leaned closer for every step I took through the inferno, the smoke crawling along the collapsing buildings. I didn’t know where my feet took me, why it was so adamant about going this route when everyone who passed me ran in the opposite direction. All I knew was that something pulled at me, forcing me to follow it through the chaos. 

Before I knew it, I found myself standing at the mouth of a well. 

I hesitated. I didn’t know why. 

Then I saw something resting against the well. 

A photograph. It lay buried in the dust, the edges curled and the paper as brittle as could be from water damage. It was a picture of a classroom, depicting children standing in three rows, their faces turned obediently towards the camera, all so ordinary it hurt. Unaware. 

Until they weren’t. 

I blinked, and the faces hollowed. Sockets gaped where eyes had been, and mouths opened in a grotesque rictus. Then came the sound. At first, it was the wind, high-pitched and shrill, and then, the cries of children pierced through the lanes like a procession of death. It came from somewhere beyond the masjid. I followed the sound to the distance, where a school building lay, the gates swung open and giving me a glimpse of the playground. 

The screams grew louder at once, carried with the wind. 

Then it hit me and my feet staggered back. There were children inside. There was—I dropped the photograph and ran. Just ran. 

Before me, beyond the masjid, what remained of the school building, was now a hellhole. The flames had licked at the building and caused it to collapse completely. There was no way out of this place, no way in. Anyone who failed to escape when the fire first broke out had been condemned to death with no exception. And the children, those poor children, were trapped inside. Helpless. Sentenced to death for merely existing, accused of being terrorists, terrorist who wished for a better tomorrow, who hoped for the bombings to end, for their fathers and brothers to safely return home in the prisons they were locked up in without a proper trial. What for? For resisting the siege on their homeland, of the homes they no longer had access to and was forced out of. 

Those poor, poor souls; angels without wings. Flowers born of agony, born in the desert, raised amidst the olive trees. Innocent blood spilt for nothing but an ugly lie; a murderous scheme to steal when those capable of stopping the murder willingly turned a blind eye. 

I poured water from the well over me and returned to the school, determined to save as many children as I could, covering my mouth with my sleeve as I did so. Even then, the dampness did little to stop the stinging of my eyes or the smoke now finding its way into my burning lungs, not to mention the heat searing my skin. Yet none of those things was not enough to stop me. 

I saw my own daughter in every child who reached out to me, who begged to be saved. If I turned a blind eye, how could I ever dream of a reunion with my daughter and proudly tell her she is the most precious thing to me? I could not. Even if it meant I would die here, in the past, and never see her again. 

I grabbed the first child just within my reach, a limp boy stuck underneath two broken desks folded over one another, before the roof collapsed completely, and dragged him out into the open. When I returned, coughing, the collapsed beams had blocked an entire section, where children pleaded for help. 

Distraught but not one to give up, I scrambled forwards and forced my way through the flames, paving myself another way around the collapsed section. At some point, however, the thick smoke completely blinded my blurry vision and caused me to lose tracks of my whereabouts. When my vision cleared once more, all I could hear was the poor souls shrieking and the groaning collapse of the building, until, one by one the voices faltered and snuffed out in a morbid crescendo, leaving me alone in the suffocating dark, in the deadly silence, before the buckling building gradually forced me out.  

By the time I regained back enough of my bearings to re-enter what little remained of the building, it was nothing but a heap of glowing bones, threatening to take with it whatever dared to enter. 

Still, I did not back off. I knew the children had all perished, that none of them were alive, but I could not help it. Couldn’t make myself stop. 

I stumbled across the wreckage with my arms outstretched, fumbling to find something to hold onto in the dark to navigate, shouting as much as the smoke allowed me, for a sign of life. That was when I saw her. 

It was a girl no older than ten, her skin blackened and singed. Her hazel eyes were wide with terror, wide with the fear of being left to die all alone in the fire. She was crying for her mother in Arabic, telling her she would be a good girl from now on, that she was sorry, that she wanted to go home, that she was afraid, afraid of the dark, of the heat, of the smoke slowly suffocating her. 

I leapt towards her, but before I could close the distance, a plank gave way above me, crashing down across my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. The pain was unlike anything I had ever endured, but worse was the helplessness. 

I could see her, I could hear her, but I could not move. 

I could not move... 

Then, she saw me, and her cries stilled; the tears replaced by a smile, one that told me she was thankful, that she was no longer alone, no longer afraid to die, and something inside me broke. 

I had never once shed tears like these before, never felt such agony in my adult life, such helplessness. And yet, all I could do was watch as the fire claimed her tiny frame, inch by inch. My body shook with the sobs, the heat blistering my skin, causing my vision to swim and blur, until even the flames themselves merged with the darkness closing in all around me – a violent surrender of a body that had nothing left to give. I let it take me, returning her smile, as her heart gave way under the pressure of her liquifying lungs, a mix of saliva and blood spilling down the corners of her mouth. 

The morbid sight would not leave me; I would make sure it never did, like a tattoo, and forever remind me of the cruelty of humanity, the way everyone turned a blind eye to the helpless for the right price. 

A tear trickled down then, tracing a clean line against my soot-strained face, and my heart gave way. And I— 

—gasped.