THE TRUTH BENEATH THE ASHES

Elena Hart woke to the let-the-dog-out desperation of rain on her window. The fan above her clicked and whirred. After a moment, she imagined the ceiling fan was as exhausted as she was. She remembered it being easier to live without strictly reminding yourself to to get through another day. The schedule that marked her life each day was -- wake, work, return, sleep, repeat. Against the canvas of her will to survive and dampen the oppression of a dying life, a breathing monster invaded her thoughts. The mist hung nefariously in the dawn of the day as her alarm rang, apathetic, she grabbed and silenced with a flick of the wrist. 6:12 a.m. Too early for fatigue, too late to go back to sleep. She sat up and brushed her hair away from her face. A scan of her small apartment revealed a homey, lived in, not messy, space. Papers were stacked neat on a small table. A chair was adorned with clothes she planned to organize tomorrow... for the past three days. A kettle had become a design piece instead of an appliance. Elena exhaled. “Another day...” she muttered, attempting to convince... herself. She stood and walked to the small adjacent mirror to her wardrobe. She had a lackluster morning appearance with nothing to hide. No chaotic looks, but no elegance either, just a silent battle to keep everything together, all for nothing. She always thought of herself as just ordinary. Just... there. The rain had settled into a steady drizzle. Lagos was coming to life in the early morning - the far off honks, street vendors shouting, the pulsating rhythm of a city that truly never stopped. Elena turned away from the mirror and began the final morning prep for work. By 7:05 a.m. she was ready. Simple blouse, dark trousers, bag slung. She stepped out of her apartment, locking the door twice out of routine. The smell of dampness in the concrete, and the cooking oil of a neighbor's early morning breakfast, wafted up from the stairwell. Stepping outside was that oddly heavy, but familiar air. She merged into the crowd yielding to the main road, her thoughts fluctuating from the reports she had to complete at work, to the prospects of the promising raise that she was twice promised, but had never seen. A danfo bus slammed to a halt nearby, and a conductor shouted over the chaos, advertising his route. Elena stepped forward to board the bus, just as she had done for every other day. But today was different. A man had stopped across the street. He was doing nothing of the sort. No odd movements, no actions that would draw attention to him. But for some odd reason, she could not continue boarding the bus so long as he was there. Unlike the usual crowds, he was not looking toward the flow of traffic and was not looking at the crowd. He had his eyes only on her. Elena took notice of this but filing it away as a common occurrence. It was rare to see someone not engage with the crowd, instead opting to fixate on her. She felt unsettled as she found her seat and positioned herself by the window; the weight of the man’s gaze remained. The bus moved into the stream of traffic, and instinctively, she glanced out again. The man was still there. Still watching. However, this made her feel more anxious, and she turned away. By the time she reached her office, the feeling faded. Work had a way of putting everything else on hold. Her building, while not impressive, was solid. She worked as an Administrative Assistant for a logistics company. There were no thrills or spills with the job. Just the daily grind. As she entered, her colleague Bisi, noted the early arrival. “Traffic wasn’t bad” was the best explanation offered as she stepped away. Leaning in, Bisi noted “You look distracted though. Everything okay?” She hesitated but thought “just tired” was the best reason offered, and aligned least to untruth. Bisi mumbled a few complaints noted, and the daily grind continued as she looked at the several emails and calls before her. The numbers meant nothing to her and a few minutes later she was pulled away by her supervisor to the records room. “Elena, can you help sort the old shipment archives? Some files are misfiled again?” The records room was cool and quiet compared to the rest of the office. Most of the labeled boxes had gone untouched for months. She pulled a stool closer and began sorting through folders by re-labeling and re-dating them. It was tedious work, but the kind of task that gave her a chance to think. That’s how it was for her, at least, until she spotted a folder that was an oddball. Then, it was a mess. What was on it didn't really seem like a label, more like an old note with the edges peeling. The only legible thing was “Blackwood Estate Records,” and after thinking for a moment, she realized she didn’t recognize “Blackwood Estate” from anywhere. She took the folder a little bit more carefully than you would with a big stack of papers, and was a little surprised to find it a bit heavy. Sitting back on the stool, she opened it. It was filled with nothing but old scanned property estate documents with notices and maps with names of people she didn’t recognize. Everything looked official but out dated. She was moving through them quickly at first, but as time passed, she felt as though she couldn’t move them at all. “Blackwood Manor” was the only thing printed on the page she was stuck on, and it was a sharp, bold print at the top of the page. Why did “Blackwood” seem so important to her? She felt like she was going to lose her mind. She bent over a bit to read it more, and it described a really large estate out of the main city with so many documents for the owner that all seemed really expensive and out of the ordinary, but also really private and controlled and… sealed. The best part is, the rest of them were either missing or marked as restricted. She pensively drummed her pen on the desk and said, “Why does this feel so familiar?” She flipped a page. It contained a report. Incident summary. She scanned the lines. "Fire on the estate grounds of Blackwood Manor... cause unknown... heir believed dead... body not found..." Elena halted her reading. The report's contents were fragments of thought. They weren't completely clear to her. Fire. Heir. Dead. She felt this strange discomfort about the report, which she couldn't fully explain. She realized it may have been important when she closed the folder and quickly opened it again. Nothing had changed. That is when she noticed it. Damien Blackwood. It was in an old style line for legal IDs. It was mundane, and part of the record. But it was in her mind longer than it should have been. Elena slowly closed the folder. For a minute, she just sat there, staring at the folder. Then, in a dreamy state, she said to no one in particular, "I feel like I've heard this before." She was not expecting an answer. Instead, an unexpected sound startled her. It was her phone buzzing in her pocket. An unknown caller. Most were just spam. She considered ignoring it, but didn’t. “Hello?” was met by silence before a calm, controlled, and unfamiliar voice broke through. “Elena Hart.” She recognized the name. “Who is this?” “You shouldn’t be looking at that file.” Elena’s eyes widened and she instinctively shifted to hold the folder. “Who are you?” she demanded. There was a noticeable silence before it continued, “Walk away from it.” Now panicking, Elena asked, “Walk away from what?” “Blackwood Manor.” As the name left the mystery caller’s mouth, Elena felt an anxious pit in her stomach. She now noticed how eerie her surroundings were. The calm atmosphere was broken and she could feel it. “How do you know I’m here?” she managed to get out. The caller remained silent. Breathing was the only sound coming from the line, until it clicked, and she heard, “They already saw you open it.” Then, the call was over. With a shocked, frozen stare she went from her phone to the folder on the table. The document she had just closed, was still open, but now, there was an extra page, that she could have sworn was not there before. This time, there was a new page with her name printed at the top.