The bridge eventually led them to yet another staircase with yet another door.

Overkill indeed.

They were now at the very bottom of the room, so much so that Kalvin couldn’t even see the bridge they took, only three of them that loomed high above.

And it was freezing, maybe even more-so than when he’d been on the ship.

“So, where is it?” Kalvin asked expectedly as Yvaine led him across the ground floor. He was beginning to regret turning down that room.

“We’re almost there,” she answered as they came upon…

Another door.

This one had so many guards beside it that Kalvin didn’t bother to count them all.

He wondered what he did to deserve this as Yvaine opened it to reveal more stairs lined with torches.

Making it to the bottom took several more minutes, and Kalvin didn’t need to see what was there to start wondering if he could sue The Alliance for not disclosing this many stairs and doors as a possible liability and blow to his mental health.

Miraculously, his faith in a higher power was suddenly restored as the door opened to finally reveal a laboratory-like room, four men in robes already waiting inside.

“Kalvin, I’d like you to meet the primary research team here. This is Dr. Kavanaugh, Dr. Kinsley, Dr. Shaw, and Dr. Maverick.”

He quickly went down the line and shook hands with them all. “Right, let’s get started. Where are they?”

He was going to get this done and over with. Then he could finally rest.

The researchers exchanged puzzled looks.

“The ashes,” he clarified.

“Underground.”

He looked to the researcher that spoke. “You’re joking.”

“Is that a problem?” Yvaine asked.

“I can’t properly speak to a spirit unless they’re right beside me.”

“The previous mediums were able to-“

“Maybe that’s why none of your previous mediums accomplished anything.”

Every pair of eyes fell on him.

“It’s too dangerous,” another one said.

“It’s a non-negotiable. Either you bring me to the ashes or you lose another medium.”

Yvaine sighed. “I knew we should’ve done this after you got some slee-”

“Let him do it.”

They all turned towards the voice, belonging to another man in a robe that was standing by the entrance, staring at a fish tank with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Sir…”

The man turned and Kalvin was shocked at just how deep the wrinkles etched within his face ran, echoing the ones throughout his own lab coat. His dark eyes, however, were still flecked with the flames of youth as they sparkled beneath a tussle of white hair. “This may very well be the only place on this planet that isn’t currently teeming with hope. While the rest of the world celebrates, it is our job to be wary of the worst possible scenarios.”

“And you believe they are more than possible?”

His sparkling eyes met Kalvin’s. “I believe by the time we find the answer to that question, it’ll be too late.” Turning to the rest of the research team, he added, “Any more objections?”

Their silence was answer enough.

Yvaine merely sighed again and motioned for him to follow as she approached another doorway, the old scientist crossing the room to join them.

She paused. “Dr. Vorin, are you sure you don’t want to stay up here with the rest of the team?”

“Are you kidding?” He snickered. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Yvaine nodded despite the glimpse of horror across her face as she led them through the door and they began to descend another staircase- so dark that it didn’t seem to end.

“So, Kalvin, was it?”

He turned to the scientist. “Yes?”

“Not the kind of job they warned you about in medium school, eh?”

“Not exactly, but it’s a nice change of pace. My last job was from a woman who wanted to speak with her dead husband because she couldn’t find the spare key.

“Ha! A nice change of pace!” He cackled. “I like that.”

“Please, sir,” Yvaine said ahead of them. “Kalvin’s had a long day.”

“If he can’t handle an old man’s questions then he has no right to do this job.”

Kalvin gave him an amused smile. “You can ask whatever you’d like.”

“Well, then, why don’t you tell me what got you interested in becoming a medium.”

Kalvin rummaged through his head for the essay he wrote to get into school. “It’s an obscure enough field to be interesting but I also like being able to help people, which has always been my passion-“

“Ha! Passion my ass! I asked for a motivation, not your personal statement.”

Damn, he got me.

“Sorry?”

“If you were really in this for some noble reason or lifelong mission, you wouldn’t have taken this job. Not unless teenage you envisioned ending up in the most remote location in the world to work in a prison that has thousands of wards to guard some ashes.”

The man had a point. “I suppose you’re right.”

“So, tell me,” he murmured, leaning in. “What was it young Kalvin dreamed of?”

“You don’t have to answer him.”

Kalvin stared off into the never-ending pool of darkness below them. He didn’t know whether it was that or his exhaustion or the prison’s aura or the old man’s inviting eyes, but he blurted, “I dreamed of being the hero.”

The old man was silent.

“I didn’t know how or why, but no matter if it was by being the most powerful mage or the strongest swordsman, I wanted to be the one who history remembered. No, I wanted to be it all.”

“Wanted?”

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Kalvin turned to him. “What?”

There was something else in his eyes now. “You wanted it, or you want it?”

“Everyone grows out of their childhood dreams eventually, don’t they?”

The man leaned back. “Grows out of them? No, I don’t think so. I think our dreams merely become ghosts that haunt us till our dying day.”

I’ll kill myself if I ever become this nutty at my old age. “Then how about you? Was being a scientist your dream?”

“Indeed, and I, too, dreamed of making discoveries that would change the world.”

“And you grew out of them?”

“No.” He winked. “They just aren’t dreams anymore.”

Add arrogant to the list, Kalvin thought as they finally reached the end of the staircase- perhaps the longest one yet, leading to a hall flanked by two guards.

And the single door across them now had a big, glaring warning sign attached to it, a red light beside the frame. This time, both Yvaine and doctor x presented their badges before it, gesturing for Kalvin to do the same. Only then did it open, the small light having turned green.

The room they stepped inside looked like the laboratory above them, albeit much smaller and with fewer machines-with a great hole chiseled into the center of the floor where a spiral staircase lied.

And there was something else…a sort of coldness in the air. Kalvin resisted the chills that swept down his spine.

Yvaine turned to the other scientist. “I’ll go with him, you stay here.” After a pause, she leaned in closer to whisper something in his ear that Kalvin only got fragments of- “…the protocol…emergency…alarm…lock…”

“I’m old, Yvaine, not stupid.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, turning back to Kalvin. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Now you’re asking?”

“It’s protocol. I know we spent the last hour just getting here but, if any part of you has changed your mind or you’re nervous-“

“Thank you for your concern, but I can handle myself against some dust particles.”

Yvaine looked reluctant before she turned and began towards the stairway. Just as Kalvin went to follow, a hand grasped his shoulder.

“Remember, son, no matter what happens down there, no matter what he tells you- you must not forget your dream,” the old man said. “If you do not, you will prevail, and if you prevail, I swear that your name will never be forgotten.”

Kalvin looked into his gleaming eyes. “I will do what I must.”

The man let go with a smile. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Yvaine was waiting for him at the staircase. As they made their way down, she was saying, “Stick exactly to the script you’ve memorized. Use a calm, but assertive tone. Don’t give in to any demands, don’t make any promises, don’t escalate.“

With every step he took, that coldness grew heavier and heavier, as though it were swallowing the air itself whole. It seemed to crawl into every depth of Kalvin’s body until his heartbeat began to ring in his ears, accompanied by a very primal sense of horror. “Your assistant already went through the training with me.”

“I’m making sure you remember everything. You always need to be in control of the conversation, but don’t confront him. Also, try to limit your movement…”

They reached the bottom of an enormous, seemingly never-ending room shrouded in almost complete darkness. Only the echoes of their footsteps broke the harsh silence, as if they’d entered a bubble separated from the rest of the world, hidden between the folds of reality. It was now impossibly cold, and Kalvin had to put all his focus into not shivering uncontrollably as everything in his body screamed at him to run.

That was when he heard them.

Male and female, young and old, screams and whispers, warnings and lures- Kalvin heard them all. Hundreds of them.

The voices all seemed to fight for control, but he couldn’t pick one out of the throng. His breath hitched as he made an effort to block it all out.

There was no denying it. It was him.

He looked to Yvaine, but she was still continuing on as she led him deeper into the room.

“As hard it sounds, try to humanize him. Use his name, try to emphasize, insist you have no judgments. Don’t say no, instead redirect the conversation. I’ll be right next to you if you get stuck or have a question.”

“Are you finally going to tell me why I’m really here?” He asked loudly. “Why not just have me raise the spirit and leave?”

She paused before looking over her shoulder at him. “I suppose now is the time. Like I told you over the phone, you are prohibited from talking about or disclosing this information to anyone outside of the research team. Violating that rule will land you in prison.”

“Not this one, I hope.”

Yvaine didn’t seem amused as she resumed her pace. “I’m sure you’re aware that the circumstances surrounding how he obtained so much power are blurry at best- not to mention exactly what those powers were.”

“The mystery of the century.”

“Precisely. We’ve been trying to uncover the answers for the past few years, but every lead leaves us more confused.” she sighed. “Frankly, we’re at our wits end. We need more information, but we don’t even know where to start.”

“You must have something.”

“Well…there is one suspicion. Are you familiar with the soulstones?”

“I’ve read about them. There were six, right? Each is a fragment of his soul that Orion had to find and destroy before being able to kill him.”

“Yes. We think there’s another one.”

Kalvin stilled. “What?”

She turned to face him. “Necromancy is an ancient, forbidden magic we barely know anything about. We don’t even know how he created the soulstones…and we may not have found them all.”

His eyes widened. It took years and thousands of the greatest minds to track down just a few. “Them all? I thought you said there’s only one other?”

“At least.”

“God,” he whispered after a moment. “It’s like a nightmare that doesn’t end.”

“Tell me about it.” She looked into the darkness. "If there really are more soulstones out there, then even the deepest pits of hell won’t be able to hold him.”

“So why don’t you just ask him yourself?”

“I can’t. He refuses to speak to anyone but the medium who’s raised him.”

Kalvin filed that point of interest away for later. “I see…and where exactly is he?”

He didn’t know why he’d asked, he’d already known the second his eyes landed on it. But Yvaine pointed towards the only thing in the room- a glass-like black box with the red seal of The Alliance lying on the ground at the very center.

Kalvin didn’t need an extraordinary sense of magic to feel the aura emanating from it, not as every bone in his body threatened to crack beneath the pressure in the room, not as pain seared his lungs with every breath.

“Good lord,” he murmured. “I didn’t know ashes were even capable of having energy.”

She was also staring at the box. “It was charmed by Orion before he died. Resistant to every type of damage you can think of, it’s supposed to be powerful enough to never let anyone in or out- anyone but the very few with a high death perception.”

Kalvin raised a brow. “That’s unexpected.”

“It was something almost everyone else was opposed to, but Orion’s word was law.”

For a few moments, they let the silence reign.

“You should go back. It’s best if the spirit just sees me.”

“I can’t,” Yvaine gasped. “Protocol says-“

“Do you really think people who make history care for what protocol says?”

She gave him a tentative look. “Every rule and guideline is for our own safety.”

“If Orion thought like that, there wouldn't be ashes to contact in the first place. If we want to honor his legacy and make sure his death wasn’t in vain, we have to be willing to take risks.”

No reply.

“You said it yourself- I could be the one who needs that shiny badge. All I’m asking you to do is honor your faith in me,” he pleaded. "I swear, if I sense something is out of the ordinary even the slightest bit, I’ll scream bloody murder.”

He was about to give up and look away when Yvaine suddenly said, “Ok.”

“Ok?”

“I’ll be right above with Dr. Vorin.” She came closer to look him in the eyes. “If you change your mind or need anything, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to tell me.”

Reaching into her lab coat, Yvaine withdrew a walkie talkie. “I’m afraid magic won’t work in this room, so you can use this to reach me. I’ll leave you to your work as long as you check in every five minutes. Remember, you don’t have to get anything out of him today. Just establish contact and, ideally, some rapport. He needs to trust you.”

Kalvin nodded and waited for her to walk away, but she merely continued to stare at him.

“Good luck, Mr. Ballard.”

“Kalvin is fine. Thank you.”

And with that, she finally ascended the stairway- her footsteps echoing throughout the open room until she reached the top and disappeared, giving him one last, unreadable look before doing so.

Kalvin turned to the box at the center of the room, allowing it’s energy to drift through him. “Just you and me.”

As he slowly approached it, he allowed himself to take a deep breath and savor the moment, even as every step brought a deeper and deeper sense of doom.

He’d been waiting for this moment all his life.

No longer was he just another face in a sea of those who were stronger, smarter, better. Right now, in this room- in the entire world, rather, he had a purpose greater than any other. If Kalvin failed, they could very well run out of time. Failure wasn’t an option.

If there really was a soulstone somewhere out there, he could return.

It was all on him.

Kalvin kneeled before the box, the voices now deafening in his ears. A reflection stared back at him- his eyes gleaming with fire like the old man’s had.

“I’m making contact,” he said into the walkie talkie in his hand.

“Copy that.”

He placed the other over his own face, letting the coolness of the sheer metal lace his fingertips. He wondered what form the spirit would take. “Show yourself before me.”

At first, nothing happened. And then it came.

A great boom rumbled throughout the open space as the few lights on the walls dimmed in and out- casting the room in shadows. Kalvin withdrew his hand and looked around for any sign of the spirit, but he seemed to be alone. To his surprise, his heartbeat thundered in his chest.

Why was he afraid now?

“Kalvin?” Yvaine’s panicked voice crackled. “Is everything ok?”

“Everything is fine. The spell didn’t work.” The voices had stopped, however. He was about to put his hand back onto the box when everything went black- the lights having been extinguished entirely. A wind rustled behind him.

Only there was no wind here.

Kalvin slowly turned and readied himself. For what, he didn’t know.

A figure was looming within the darkness, it’s outline vaguely humanoid.

At least it doesn’t seem to be some horrid beast. Kalvin’s labored breaths broke the otherwise complete silence as he waited for it to move, to speak, to attack, even. To show any sign of life.

But as every light suddenly turned back on, what filled his vision was anything but alive.