They returned to the gray room on Tuesday evening while Jenna's parents were at an emergency mediation session with their divorce attorneys.
Dory brought two high-intensity LED flashlights, her phone on a tripod, and an industrial measuring tape.
"No assumptions," Dory declared, setting her gear on the metal cart. "No feelings. We write down only what has physical dimensions, what reflects light, and what makes a recording."
Jenna nodded, her notebook tucked under her arm. "We record everything we find."
They began systematically searching the steel equipment racks.
Most of the machinery was dead, obsolete junk—amplifiers with blown capacitors, cracked vacuum tubes, and power supplies from which the copper transformers had been stripped decades ago. Mice had built nests inside the chassis of an old multi-track tape recorder.
Beneath a pile of rotted drop cloths in the corner, Dory's foot struck something solid.
"My name is Jenna Vance," she whispered, her throat dry. "Vale was Elias's name."
She pulled away the canvas. It was a heavy, olive-drab steel filing cabinet, secured with a rusted cylinder lock.
Jenna picked up an iron crowbar from the floor and wedged the tip into the seam. With a grunt of effort, she threw her weight against the lever. The rusted latch sheared with a loud crack, and the top drawer screeched open on ball bearings choked with red rust.
Inside were stacks of water-damaged manila folders.
Dory pulled out the top file.
Stamped across the tab in faded black ink was a label:
SUBJECT J.V. — BASELINE ACQUISITION (2004–2005)
Jenna froze. "J.V."
Dory looked up, her flashlight beam trembling against the ceiling. "Jenna Vale?"
They opened the folder under the LED beam.
Inside were electroencephalogram readouts—long strips of accordion-folded paper printed with erratic, spiky waves indicating severe alpha-rhythm disruption during induced sleep. Clinical observation logs filled the margins:
The subject exhibits persistent resistance to chronological sequencing. Continues to assert the memory of a non-existent sibling.
Date: October 14, 2004.
Jenna flipped through the pages. The dates were impossible.
Some were dated October 2004. Others were dated March 2005. And then, sandwiched between the clinical charts, was an observation log dated November 12, 2024—just two weeks ago.
Subject J.V. shows increasing behavioral decompensation following domestic disruption. Auditory hallucinations localized to temporal markers (03:17 A.M.).
Jenna dropped the file as if it were coated in burning lye.
A sudden memory tore through her mind with blinding clarity:
She was sitting in the heavy oak chair in the center of the room. Leather straps were buckled tight over her wrists. Elias was kneeling beside her, his fingers pressed against her temples, his voice raw and desperate:
"You promised you wouldn't forget me, Jenna! Don't let them take it! Hold onto the date!"
Jenna covered her ears with both hands, dropping to her knees on the bare floorboards. "Stop! Stop!"
Dory grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. "Jenna! Jenna, look at me! Look at the paper!"
"I remember this room!" Jenna sobbed. "I was strapped to that chair! Elias was holding my hand!"
Dory picked up the manila folder and shoved it into Jenna's face.
"Look at the handwriting, Jenna!" Dory yelled, pointing her flashlight at the observation logs.
Jenna forced her eyes open.
The clinical notes were not written by a doctor. They were written in the distinctive, rounded cursive of an eighth-grade girl.
Her own cursive.
The blue ink was fresh. The ballpoint was the pilot pen she had bought at the campus bookstore two weeks ago.
Before she could speak, the CRT monitor on the rolling cart suddenly snapped on with a deafening crackle of high voltage.
Both girls jumped backward.
The screen flared bright green, displaying four oversized numbers in the center of the phosphor tube:
03:17
The power cord of the monitor lay coiled neatly on the bottom shelf of the cart, its two-prong plug dangling in the air, disconnected from any wall outlet.
The screen glowed for five seconds, then went black.
Dory backed toward the doorway, her flashlight shaking so violently the beam bounced wild circles across the ceiling.
"Okay," Dory whispered, her throat working as she swallowed. "That one… that one was real."