Chapter 2 The Hidden Wing

It was around 1:09 PM Siya and Marks took the service elevator back to ward C3.

The elevator groaned as it descended, deeper than the building's plans suggested it could go.

Marks checked his phone again, there was no signal, not even a flicker of reception.

"This is a bad idea," he muttered.

Siya didn't respond. She stared at the glowing panel, watching the numbers descend past Sublevel 3. Then, past 4. Then...5

There was no Sublevel 5 in the hospital's blueprints.

She'd found the override panel behind a fire extinguisher mount near the morgue. A hidden lift control that didn't appear in any public schematic. When she entered the code scrawled on the back of the Threnody file-Δ53-ECHO-the panel lit up and opened this shaft.

The metal box shuddered. For a moment, Siya thought it would stop. Then it lurched again and continued.

When it finally came to a halt, the doors opened with a hiss !and they were surrounded by darkness. The only illumination came from an emergency light flickering above a sealed door labeled: ECHO WARD – RESTRICTED ACCESS

Siya stepped out first. Her breath misted in front of her.

Marks followed, flashlight sweeping side to side.

The hallway was tight and cramped. Pipes ran like veins along the ceiling. Everything was covered in a thin layer of condensation, making the walls seem to sweat.

"This place wasn't just hidden," Marks said. "It was buried."

Siya nodded. "And forgotten on purpose."

She reached the door.

It was locked with a biometric scanner long dead from lack of use, but someone had pried it open before, because the metal was warped slightly, and scratched at the edges.

Inside, the air was colder and still.

Insode ECHO ward , the room was lined with soundproof insulation, some of it peeled away to reveal thick concrete underneath.

Empty beds, restraints ans apeakers mounted in every corner, though not for music, but for broadcast.

There were no windows or security cameras, just wires, and the smell of old electricity and damp cloth.

Siya crouched by a terminal. Dust blanketed the monitor, but a blinking cursor told her something was still alive in the system.

She wiped the screen and tapped a few keys and the login prompt blinked.

"Worth a try," she muttered.

She typed in ECHO-3.

Password: asanda

Access was granted and files flooded the screen.

Audio logs, session transcripts, and neural scans, but ine file was newer than the rest, it was dated just five days ago.

Siya opened it. It was an audio recording. She hit play and at first there was silence, then a low, rhythmic pulse, and then, beneath it: a voice.

It was a female voice, it was weak and whispering. "They come through the silence. Through me. Through us all."

Then another voice, it was a male voice, it was distorted, and digital, like a scientist recording logs, saying, "Subject Echo-3 has begun transmitting on her own without stimulus. The signal is stable. We are recording now."

The audio was cut abruptly, then there was static and after a while laughter, but this laughter wasn't human.

Marks backed away from the terminal.

"That wasn't just a patient," he said. "That was a conduit."

Siya's pulse quickened.

"They weren't treating her," she said. "They were using her."

Echo Ward – Observation Room – 1:27 PM

The hallway opened into what had once been a monitoring station. Thick one-way glass that overlooked a sealed chamber beyond, like an aquarium, but what had been inside was no fish.

On the glass, someone had written a message in red grease pencil: Do not listen to the song.

The message had been smeared, as if someone tried to erase it and gave up halfway.

Inside the room beyond, a single restraint chair sat in the center of a soundproof cell. Thick leather straps hung loose, speakers were embedded in the walls and the floor was scuffed, dented, like someone had fought to get out.

Siya stared through the glass, and something stared back.

For just a heartbeat, she saw a shape sitting in the chair, tall, wrong, faceless. Then it was gone.

Marks cursed softly. "Tell me you saw that."

Siya nodded once, jaw tight. "We're not alone down here."

Echo Ward – Patient Records Room – 1:39 PM

They moved fast now, adrenaline setting a rhythm. The hospital above felt miles away. Down here, time felt old and wounded.

Siya sifted through rusted file drawers. Most folders were faded beyond recognition, but one was still crisp, recent.

She opened it.

Patient: A. Ndlovu (Echo-3)

Date of Transfer: Unknown

Status: ACTIVE

Location: Redacted

Under treatment notes: Increased resistance to auditory stimuli. Subject no longer sedated. Responds directly to unspoken inquiries. Shared hallucinations reported among staff.

Protocol BETA-LISTEN engaged. Staff instructed to monitor their own thoughts post-interaction. 'Echo contamination' risk remains high.

Marks skimmed the page and whistled under his breath. "What the hell is Beta-Listen?"

Siya didn't answer. She was focused on a torn Polaroid clipped to the file.

It showed a group of patients standing in the hallway. All staring directly at the camera.

All except one. At the far edge, a girl with her back turned. Her hair was short, with the back of her gown was labeled E-3.

Siya flipped the photo over and in thick black ink were written the words: She's still singing.

Echo Ward – Security Hallway – 1:58 PM

They were almost ready to leave when the humming began again.

At first it came from the speakers, then from the walls and then from inside them.

A low, dissonant harmony, like an orchestra tuning before a funeral.

Marks clutched his ears. "Make it stop."

Siya gritted her teeth and focused. The hum wasn't random, it was a pattern, the same signal from the ECG. It was Asanda.

Siya ran back to the terminal, fingers flying across the keyboard. She activated the most recent session file and a real-time audio feed opened.

Someone was still hooked to the system and still transmitting, but it was not Asanda, it was someone else.

A raspy, terrified male voice filtered through the speakers. "It's watching me. It wears her face. It sings through her mouth. You can't stop it. You can't-"

A wet, static crunch cut off the recording, the sudden silence, but not for long. There was something new, a whisper, clear and directed. "Hello, Siya."

The voice had come from nowhere, and everywhere.

Marks was already backing toward the elevator. "We need to go. Now."

But Siya wasn't done.

She pushed through another door, deeper into the abandoned wing, drawn by something more than curiosity. The further in they went, the colder it became. Not just temperature but presence. Like the hallway was holding its breath.

The walls were covered in soundproofing foam, but sections had been clawed through. Padded doors bore gouges. One door at the end was still locked tight, its observation slit stained with something dark.

Siya approached slowly. Inside, something moved.

"Marks," she said.

He came up behind her, weapon drawn now.

She opened the observation hatch. At first, they saw nothing, then - eyes.

In the far corner a male figure sat with his knees pulled up to his chest.

He looked up as if hearing her approach through layers of concrete.

His face was gaunt. Eyes bloodshot. A patient bracelet clung to a bone-thin wrist.

Name: D. Beukes

Marks whispered, "He's alive?"

The man suddenly jolted upright, pressing his face to the slot.

"You're not real," he hissed. "You're not her."

Siya leaned closer. "Who are you?"

His voice was ragged, frayed like broken wire. "I was an intern. Before the silence. Before she sang."

"Before who sang?" Siya asked, her heart pounding.

Beukes's lips quivered. "She sings from the inside now. Through the walls. Through us. We opened something, and it won't shut."

"Who opened it?" Marks asked.

But the man didn't hear him. He was staring past them now, into the hallway, eyes wide.

"They're coming," he whispered. "You listened too long. You heard her voice."

Siya turned and the speakers above them popped and then that tone again, with a steady, rising frequency.

Blood began to drip from Beukes's nose. He screamed, grabbing his ears, convulsing.

"GET OUT!" he shrieked. "BEFORE THEY FIND YOU!"

Siya grabbed Marks and they ran.

Echo Ward – Service Elevator – 2:14 PM

The lift shuddered as it rose, groaning like something trying to resist the ascent.

Siya clutched the Threnody file. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Marks leaned against the wall, breathing hard. "That was... that was not schizophrenia. That wasn't psychosis. That was a broadcast. A signal."

Siya nodded. "And it's using my sister's voice."

Marks looked at her. "You think she's alive?"

"I know she is."

The elevator reached the main floor.

As the doors slid open, both detectives froze. The lights on this floor were off.

Emergency power only. And from somewhere, deep in the hallways ahead, the hum had followed them, that soft, constant hum, that was buried beneath the silence like a thread of infection. It was no longer confined to Echo Ward. It had followed them up, bleeding into the rest of the hospital.

Marks clicked on his flashlight. The beam trembled slightly in his grip.

"Did we bring it with us?" he asked.

Siya shook her head. "It was already here."

They made their way through the dim halls, each shadow twitching at the edge of vision. Siya's mind buzzed. The Threnody file was heavier in her hands now, as if knowing the secrets it carried had made her a target.

Then they heard a noise, this time it was not the hum, but a weak, human voice from around the corner near the stairwell.

Siya raised her sidearm, advancing carefully. "Who's there?"

No answer.

They turned the corner.

Someone lay crumpled against the wall, an orderly, based on the uniform, with blood pooled beneath him, seeping from his ears and nostrils. His eyes twitched rapidly beneath half-lidded eyes. He was still alive but barely.

Siya knelt. "Hey! Can you hear me?"

The man's lips moved.

She leaned closer.

His voice was dry as paper. "Don't follow the song..."

His body convulsed.

Then stilled.

A sharp tone filled the air, a sudden burst of feedback from the ceiling speakers, whispers, not just from the speakers, from everywhere. The walls. The vents. The lights. The very floor. Hundreds of overlapping voices, speaking in half-formed syllables.

Marks yelled, covering his ears. "We have to go!"

Siya pulled him down the corridor, toward the emergency exit stairwell. The whispers chased them, growing louder, more intentional.

One word repeated again and again in the chaos: "Return."

They burst through the stairwell door and climbed fast. Each step felt heavier. Like gravity didn't quite agree with them anymore.

When they reached the ground floor, the lights were back to normal and the reception buzzed with life.

Doctors moved. Nurses charted. A security guard sipped coffee behind his desk. Everything looked normal. Too normal.

Siya paused at the threshold. "Did we just hallucinate all of that?"

Marks turned to her. "Then how do you explain this?"

He lifted his shirt slightly.

His chest bore a mark, not a bruise, and not blood, it was a burned-in symbol just beneath his collarbone, a spiral of concentric lines.

Siya pulled out the photo from Echo Ward, the one of the patients.

In the bottom corner, scrawled faintly behind the group was the same identical spiral.

Siya looked up at the ceiling speakers overhead. The hum was gone now, but it was waiting and watching, because it had her name.