The next morning, Kamsi barely made it through her shift. The image from the envelope haunted her. Not just because of the blood—but because of the eyes. The victim's eyes, caught mid-blink, frozen forever in fear.
She tucked the photo inside a nursing manual and buried it at the bottom of her locker. She hadn't slept. Every sound startled her. Every glance from a colleague felt loaded. She couldn't trust anyone now—not even Mfon, who suddenly started keeping her distance.
Something had shifted.
By late afternoon, Kamsi approached the maintenance corridor with a trembling resolve. If anyone was moving victims or hiding equipment, they'd need access to those service ducts. She found the maintenance supervisor, Mr. Ekanem, sitting alone in the generator room.
"Sir, I need to speak with you. It's urgent."
He looked up, his eyes lined with age and exhaustion. "What's a nurse doing down here?"
"I think someone's using the service ducts for… for something illegal. I need to know where they lead."
Ekanem's eyes flickered, then dropped to his tea mug. "And if I tell you, what happens to me?"
"Nothing. I swear. I just… I need to understand."
He stared at her for a long moment, then stood up and pulled out an old blueprint from a metal drawer. "There are four ducts that connect the east wing to the morgue, the labs, and the admin basement. But this one," he pointed, "runs past an unused recovery room. Nobody goes there. It was sealed after the fire in 2012."
Kamsi's eyes narrowed. "Can you get me in?"
Ekanem shook his head. "Not during the day. Too many eyes. Come during the night shift, after 2 a.m."
That night, she returned—hooded, gloved, and terrified. The corridors were silent, but her heart thundered. Ekanem met her behind the linen chute.
He handed her a flashlight. "If anyone asks, I was never here."
She nodded.
The entrance to the old duct was hidden behind a shelf of outdated supplies. With effort, she crawled through the narrow tunnel, dust choking her lungs. After twenty minutes of crawling in darkness, she found a loose grate and pushed it open.
She dropped into the old recovery room. The air smelled of mold and rust. Her flashlight beam caught a broken gurney, peeling walls—and something else.
A recorder.
Still blinking.
She pressed play.
Static.
Then—voices.
"She's too noisy. Sedate her again."A long pause."You're getting sloppy. Rume will not be pleased."
Her throat closed. This was real. Someone had been recording their activities. And Rume's name had just surfaced again.
She turned to leave—and a loud clang echoed through the duct.
Someone else was in there.
She froze. Waited.
Then bolted.
She didn't stop running until she reached the emergency exit. She burst into the night air, gasping.
A text arrived.
"Stop digging, Kamsi. The last girl who found that room? She never made it out."
No number. No name.
Her phone slipped from her hand.
She wasn't imagining it.
And she wasn't alone.
Kamsi spent the next two hours at a nearby cyber café, scanning the photo with a borrowed scanner and backing it up on multiple online drives. She knew if she lost her phone—or worse—someone had to find the evidence. She didn't know who to trust, but she knew how to hide a digital footprint.
She began digging deeper, tracing back the staff list from the last five years. Several names stood out—nurses and junior doctors who'd left abruptly or had no forwarding contact information. Among them was a junior pathologist named Etido Nwoko, who vanished the same year as the fire in 2012.
She sent a cold email to an old mentor at the teaching hospital nearby, asking discreetly if anyone had heard of Etido or if she had re-registered under a different hospital ID. The response came after twenty minutes:
"Etido Nwoko? She was declared missing. Police dropped the case due to lack of leads."
A chill swept through Kamsi. The pattern was becoming obvious—and it was horrifying.
Three nights later, she returned to the old duct. But this time, she came with a hidden body cam clipped inside her uniform. What she didn't expect was to hear movement ahead—slow, dragging, metallic. She turned off her flashlight, crouched, and held her breath.
Then she saw it: a metal trolley with a covered body, half-stuck in a bend in the tunnel. Two masked figures tried to maneuver it, whispering curses.
One of them snapped, "Dr. Rume said this one wasn't supposed to be tonight!"
Kamsi nearly gasped.
The other replied, "Then he can carry the next one himself. This place is cursed."
Her heart pounded. She caught the entire exchange on camera. She stayed silent, watching, until they finally shoved the trolley through a hatch that led downwards—into what must have been the old maintenance morgue.
Kamsi didn't move until they were gone.
Then she turned and crawled back.
She had more than just suspicion now.
She had names.
Faces.
Voices.
And she had proof.
But how long before they found out?