Chapter 4 THE MAINTENANCE SHAFT

Darkness closed around Cairos the moment the mirror slammed shut. Outside the wall, boots stormed through Apartment 404 while operatives shouted over each other. Flashlights cut across cracks in the metal around him, thin beams slipping through the rusted seams of the maintenance shaft. "Bedroom clear!" the operative shouted. "Check the bathroom!" another voice ordered. Cairos pressed both hands over his mouth immediately, the shaft was barely wide enough for him to breathe comfortably. Pipes dug into his back while cold water dripped steadily somewhere deeper inside the walls and his chest rose too fast, too loud, panic making every breath feel sharp. Miss Alina was dead, men with rifles were tearing through the building and two strangers outside her apartment somehow sounded like him. None of it made sense.

Another violent crash echoed outside the shaft, and metal screeched nearby. "Check behind the walls," somebody ordered. Cairos froze completely, and a flashlight beam slid through a thin vent beside his face before disappearing again. Heavy boots stopped directly outside the hidden passage. For a horrible second, Cairos became certain they could hear his heartbeat. A radio crackled, and the voice said, "Negative visual," and the boots moved away. Cairos shut his eyes tightly but his body refused to relax, sweat rolled slowly down the side of his face despite the cold. The first voice kept replaying inside his head, "Don't trust yourself." The sentence felt wrong in a way he could not explain, not in a dramatic, or mysterious way, but in a personal way. Like a warning somebody gives after seeing something terrible.

A muffled scream echoed somewhere lower in the building before abruptly cutting off making Cairos to flinch. The operatives were still moving floor by floor, and he wondered why. What the hell did they think he was? Another sound drifted faintly through the shaft, and it was not boots this time, but a voice. "...north stairwell sealed," the voice said, and static crackled. "No exit yet," another voice said. Cairos swallowed hard, and they were searching the entire building for him. His breathing started quickening again. Think, and think properly, the first voice had known about the hidden passage, and that meant one of two things. Either the man had been inside Apartment 404 before, or... Cairos stopped suddenly, a strange feeling crawled through him that felt like recognition. His eyes slowly lifted toward the darkness ahead of him, the shaft split farther down, left and right. And before he even thought about it, Cairos already knew the left path was blocked. His stomach tightened immediately, how? He stared at the tunnel in silence, and cautiously he reached toward the left side anyway. Three seconds later his fingers touched collapsed metal buried inside the darkness, and Cairos jerked his hand back instantly. "No," he whispered, his pulse began hammering harder, he should not have known that, and he had never been here before, had he? A metallic bang echoed behind him, it was too close, Cairos crawled forward immediately now, trying to stay quiet despite the panic spreading through his chest. The shaft narrowed sharply ahead, forcing him onto his elbows. The deeper he moved, the colder the air became, and he saw it, A faint and dim yellow light ahead, making Cairos slowed carefully.

The shaft opened into a tiny maintenance room hidden between the walls of the building. Old pipes lined the ceiling while a single emergency bulb flickered weakly overhead. The room looked abandoned, but not untouched. A chair sat against one wall, and several empty water bottles littered the floor nearby. There was also a small black backpack resting beside the chair, Cairos stared at it cautiously. Something about the room immediately felt wrong, it did not look dangerous, but used recently. He climbed out of the shaft slowly while listening carefully for movement outside the walls but heard nothing. Only distant thunder and muffled boots somewhere far below. Cairos approached the backpack carefully, inside was bottled water, painkillers, bandages, flashlight batteries, and canned food.

His confusion deepened, somebody had prepared this place for what? Immediately, he noticed the phone, an old burner phone rested at the bottom of the bag, and Cairos picked it up slowly. The battery was still alive, and one unread audio file waited on the screen. It had no contact name, no timestamp, only PLAY ME WHEN THEY FIND ALINA.

Coldness spread through Cairos’s chest, his thumb hovered over the screen. The room suddenly felt much smaller, the voice outside Apartment 404, the tape recorder, and the hidden passage. None of it was random, somebody knew this would happen. A loud impact suddenly echoed through the walls nearby. "Maintenance routes!" an operative shouted somewhere outside. "They're checking the shafts now!" another voice warned. Cairos nearly dropped the phone, his breathing sharpened instantly. They were getting closer again, and the emergency bulb above him flickered weakly once, twice, then steadied. Cairos looked back toward the burner phone in his hand, and slowly pressed play. Static crackled softly through the speaker, for several seconds nothing happened, after a whille, people he heard breathing, it was uneven and exhausted, then he heard his own voice spoke. "If this recording is playing," the voice said quietly, "then it means I failed again."