Sleep was impossible after that. The next morning, Mark drove to the local historical society while Sarah stayed with Luna, who refused to leave the kitchen. Mark spent hours scrolling through microfiche and dusty property ledgers, looking for any mention of the Willow Creek estate. He discovered that the house had been built in the 1890s by a wealthy industrialist, but it was the mid-century tenant that caught his eye: a disgraced physicist named Dr. Aris Thorne.
Thorne had been stripped of his credentials in the late 1940s after rumors surfaced of unsanctioned experiments conducted in his private residence. The records were intentionally vague, citing “safety violations” and “unstable materials.” A curious neighbor from the time had even filed a police report claiming that Thorne was “burying his mistakes” beneath the house just weeks before he vanished. Mark realized with a jolt of dread that the “new” brickwork in their basement wasn’t a repair—it was a tomb.