Chapter 19 - Daniel's Journal
The notebook was surprisingly clean.
Not a trace of dust.
As though it had been placed there only moments earlier.
Rick sniffed it once and backed away.
He had reacted that way only a handful of times before.
Always when danger was close.
I opened the first page.
Every entry had been written by hand.
The earliest date read:
April 7, 1982.
The handwriting remained steady throughout hundreds of pages.
There were sketches of tunnels.
Camera locations.
Security routines.
Names.
Thousands of names.
Some were crossed out.
Others had circles around them.
Near the middle of the journal, one sentence had been underlined repeatedly.
Never trust the version of Daniel you first meet.
My heartbeat quickened.
I flipped ahead.
Another note.
If he contacts you by phone, he has already failed.
The realtor looked over my shoulder.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
The elderly woman pointed toward a folded blueprint hidden inside the back cover.
It depicted a section labeled:
MIRROR WING.
Unlike every other corridor, this one contained dozens of identical rooms connected by glass chambers.
Beside the drawing someone had written:
"They don't clone people."
"They replace perspectives."
"What does that even mean?"
Nobody answered.
The final page contained a single envelope.
Inside was a faded photograph.
It showed Daniel standing beside a younger Dr. Samuel Pierce.
Behind them stood three German Shepherd puppies.
One of them wore a collar marked:
R-17.
Rick.
My hands began shaking.
The date printed on the photograph was impossible.
It had been taken fifteen years before Rick was supposedly born.
Before I could speak, every light on the platform went dark.
The notebook snapped shut by itself.
Somewhere far down the tunnel...
Another train was coming.
May you like
This one sounded very different.
Someone aboard it was screaming.
