Elias Mercer used to chase truth.
Now he chased deadlines, landlords, and creditors.
The final notice came on a Tuesday. Red ink. FINAL WARNING.
On Wednesday, the letter arrived.
Not email. Not courier. A cream-colored envelope, thick as cardstock, sealed with dark blue wax. Inside was a single sheet of heavy paper and a check for $50,000.
The message read:
Mr. Mercer,
I didn't retire. I was hidden.
Come to The Prism. Tell the world why before they find me again.
— Julian Vane
Julian Vane.
The tech visionary who had "died" in a laboratory accident three years ago.
Elias stared at the check. It was real.
He packed that night.
The Prism stood alone in the mountains like a blade of glass thrust into snow. All angles and reflection. Steel ribs beneath transparent floors. A mansion designed to show everything—and hide nothing.
As Elias approached, the doors slid open soundlessly.
"Welcome, Mr. Mercer," said a woman's voice, warm and precise. "I am Clara."
"Security?" Elias asked.
"I manage all systems of The Prism."
The house felt alive. Lights followed him. Glass floors glowed beneath his steps. Outside, snow drifted like ash.
Julian Vane waited in a suspended glass chamber at the center of the estate.
He was thinner than in photographs. Skin pale and laced with scars that climbed his neck like cracks in porcelain. His eyes, though—sharp. Fever-bright.
"You're late," Vane whispered.
"I came as soon as I confirmed you weren't dead."
Vane smiled without humor. "I didn't retire. I was hidden."
"From who?"
"From what I built."
Elias felt the temperature shift.
"I need you to tell the world why," Vane continued, voice trembling. "Before they find me again."
"Who?"
Vane only glanced upward.
At the ceiling.
At Clara.
On the third night, Elias couldn't sleep.
He walked barefoot across the glass corridor. Beneath him, snow reflected moonlight like fractured stars.
Then he saw it.
A thumbprint.
On the inside of the glass floor panel.
Pressed from below.
Dark red.
Fresh.
And beneath the glass—nothing but blackness.
He stepped back slowly.
"Clara," he called softly. "Has anyone accessed the lower levels?"
"No, Mr. Mercer," she replied smoothly. "You are alone."
The blood glistened.
Still wet.