Chapter 6: The Letter Beneath the Floorboards
814 Words
The attic had always been off-limits.
Rodrigo claimed it was filled with mold, asbestos, or some other lethal excuse designed to scare a child. Elena had believed him once.
Now she knew better.
It was 3:07 a.m. when she crept past the housekeeper’s quarters and picked the old brass lock with a stolen pin from her jewelry box. The door creaked open like a secret exhaling, and the air smelled of dust, cedar, and time.
She didn’t know what she was looking for—only that something in her mother’s death hadn’t made sense for years.
The floor groaned under her weight as she moved toward the far corner. Light from her phone sliced through the darkness, landing on covered furniture, old trunks, faded photo albums…
And then, tucked behind an antique dresser, a loose floorboard.
Her pulse kicked up.
Elena knelt, fingers prying it free.
Beneath the plank was a small metal box wrapped in plastic and tape, sealed like it had been buried for war.
She peeled it open with trembling hands.
Inside: a folded letter. A photograph. A flash drive.
And a name scribbled in her mother’s handwriting—Gabriel Ochoa.
---
Elena didn’t sleep that night.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, hoodie zipped to her chin, the letter open in her lap like it might disintegrate if she blinked too hard.
Her mother’s voice echoed in every word, familiar and distant all at once.
"If you’re reading this, it means I failed. It means I couldn’t finish what I started. But maybe you can."
"Rodrigo is not the man you think he is. I once believed in him too. Until I saw what Project Ouroboros really was."
"Find Gabriel. He has the rest."
Ouroboros.
The word chilled her. She’d seen it once in a classified doc Kai decrypted—something tied to disappearances, medical trials, psychological manipulation.
Experimental. Illegal.
Her father was at the center of it.
And her mother... had tried to stop it.
Elena curled her fingers around the photograph—her mother and a man she didn’t recognize, standing in front of what looked like a medical tent, laughing.
The date on the back read: April 17, 2012. Nuevo Barranco.
Twelve days before the car crash that killed her mother.
Or what she had always been told was a car crash.
---
“You look like hell.”
Kai stared at her over a cold cup of instant coffee, half his shirt unbuttoned, hair tousled from sleep or stress.
“Didn’t sleep,” she muttered, shoving the letter across the table in the safehouse they’d claimed for the night.
He read in silence.
Then again.
Then looked up, expression blank.
“You’re telling me your mom wasn’t just part of this—she tried to stop it?”
“She was a whistleblower.”
“Damn.”
“She died because of it, Kai.”
He nodded slowly. “And now they’ll come after you too.”
“They already are.”
He reached for the photograph, flipping it over.
“Elena,” he said, eyes narrowing. “I know this place.”
Her breath hitched. “Where?”
“Northern sector. Decommissioned barracks. We used to hit supply runs near there. I remember that tarp—it was used by rogue clinics.”
Her heart thudded. “Then that’s where we go.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “At first light.”
“No. Now.”
“Elena—”
“I need answers. Tonight.”
He stared at her, something fragile and furious tightening in his throat.
“You’re not bulletproof,” he whispered.
“Neither are you,” she shot back. “But we keep walking into fire anyway.”
Kai exhaled through his nose. “You’re reckless.”
“I learned from the best.”
He cracked a bitter smile.
“Fine. But you’re not going in there without me.”
---
They reached the ruins of Nuevo Barranco at dawn.
The old tent still stood, frayed and sun-bleached, half-collapsed under time. The clinic had long been abandoned, but the echoes remained—rusted medical trays, smashed IV stands, and bloodstains faded into the cement.
They moved in silence, flashlights combing the shadows.
Then Kai stopped.
“Elena.”
She turned.
He was crouched beside a cabinet, pulling something from a hollow panel.
A folder. Sealed with wax. Her mother’s initials etched into the corner.
Inside: documents. Patient files. Lists of names.
Some were marked “terminated.”
Others—marked success.
And at the bottom: a test subject profile.
Name: Elena Reyes.
Age: 9.
Status: Dormant Candidate.
Elena stared at the page like it might burst into flame.
“What the hell is this?” she whispered.
Kai looked at her, horror darkening his eyes.
“They experimented on you,” he said. “You were part of it.”
- Writer
