She shot out of the door, her pulse pounding in her veins. She barely looked over her shoulder while running down the narrow corridor; she only felt the chilliness closing upon her from behind. In her vision, the very building around her appeared to contort, groaning into life with pulsating rhythms she couldn't understand or fathom.
She dashed into the stairwell and sprinted down them, her steps booming in the absolute silence. The main floor, she was certain, was millions of miles away, but that was just where she found it when she hit it: when she ran at the door, now tightly shut by some unyielding strength, it didn't budge.
"Let me out!" she shrieked; her voice came back off the walls.
Back of her now, the unmistakable sound of slow, deliberate footsteps.
"Lily…" a voice whispered. "You were always meant to find this place."
She spun around, her breath caught in her throat. Standing in the doorway to the back of the warehouse was a figure. Tall, slender, with a face partially obscured by dark hair.
It was her mother.
The woman in front of her was younger than the last time Lily had seen her, her features softer, unmarked by time. But there was something wrong with her eyes—hollow, dark, as if the woman before her was a mere shell of the person she once knew.
"I've been waiting for you," the figure said. "We all have."
The mystery of Lily's family, her mother's disappearance, and the dark history of the building start to intertwine. As she digs deeper, the shadowy figures and whispers lead her toward the realization that some secrets are buried beneath the city itself—secrets that may never have been meant to be unearthed.