The vault door closed behind him with a solid click. The air inside was cool and dry, faintly metallic. Rows of tall cabinets stretched from wall to wall, labeled with codes and color tags. No windows. No cameras. Just silence and paper.
Adrian stepped forward, his shoes soft on the matte floor. He passed each cabinet slowly, reading the numbers, checking against his mental map. The room was organized by wing, then by admission year. Section 3C. Mid-tier clearance. Patient ID tags starting with OB.
His fingers brushed against a filing cabinet drawer. Locked. He scanned his badge again and entered the access code. The drawer clicked and slid out with a stiff creak. Files were packed tightly inside. Each one sealed with a stamped label. Most looked untouched.
He scanned each label carefully, eyes moving line by line. Baker, Olivia.
Nothing in the first drawer.
He moved to the next.
He knew the girl's name. He had seen it weeks ago on a transfer notice, flagged for high-risk mental instability and a delayed Realizer response. She was seventeen. No known relatives in the city. The kind of patient who would slip through cracks if left too long.
His heartbeat picked up slightly. Not panic focus. This file could confirm whether he was being watched. Whether someone else had found her before him.
He opened the second drawer. Third row, halfway down.
There.
Baker, Olivia. Sector 3C. High risk. Isolation assigned.
The folder was thicker than expected. Slight bend on the upper corner. Seal still intact. No secondary stamp. No evidence of review.
He exhaled once through his nose. Not a sigh. Just release.
The file was here. Untouched.
He pulled it free and flipped through the first pages. Standard intake form. Name, age, vitals, legal status. Then the behavior logs. Restraint incidents. Psychiatric notes from emergency intake.
No redactions.
He flipped back to the cover. Stamped with the original assignment date. His name was on it Doctor Adrian Vale. The same one he carried now.
The file hadn't been reassigned.
He closed the folder and held it for a moment. The tension in his shoulders faded slightly.
No one had taken it. No one had scrubbed the records or flagged it for external review.
He still had time.
Still had a lead.
He turned toward the door, file in hand. The next step was clear. Read the case in full. Then visit the isolation ward.
Patient: Olivia Baker. Age 17. Mental collapse following potential Law exposure. No known Scripture bound. Still alive.
For now.
And more importantly still his.
Adrian sat in the staff observation area just outside the isolation wing. The room was dim, quiet, and comfortably sterile. No distractions. Just enough light to read.
He opened the patient file and began reviewing it page by page, his eyes scanning each line with mechanical focus.
Patient Name: Olivia Baker
Age: 17
Symptoms on Record:
Hallucinations — both visual and auditory
Disorganized speech and fragmented thought
Sudden, unpredictable aggression
Self-harm incident: patient gouged out her own left eye
Periodic screaming fits, unresponsive to verbal intervention
Current Status:
Confined to the isolation ward
Restrained continuously
Administered low grade tranquilizers; high dose sedation ineffective
Under 24 hour observation due to risk of harm to staff and self
He flipped to the incident log detailing the self-mutilation.
The report was brief, clinical. No embellishment.
"Subject used a loose fragment of metal she had concealed under her mattress.
Jammed it into her left eye with enough force to rupture the socket.
No external provocation observed. Speech during the act was unintelligible."
There were photos. He didn't flinch.
Her left eye was gone. What remained was a gauze wrap stained dark at the center. The damage had been deep too precise to be a random fit, too targeted to be meaningless.
Adrian closed the photo sheet.
She had removed the eye deliberately. Whatever she thought she saw, she had tried to unsee it physically, Or maybe don't want to see It anymore.
"She wasn't trying to end her life," he murmured. "She was trying to erase part of what she witnessed."
That aligned with the rest of the file. She had spoken nonsense, but it wasn't random. Certain phrases kept returning.
"It's looking through me."
"The shape is wrong."
"The wall is fake. It's inside it."
It wasn't a psychotic break in the traditional sense. These were pattern based repetitions. Not content he could interpret fully yet, but he recognized the tone.
The tone of someone who had seen something real and couldn't make sense of it.
He leaned back slightly, holding the folder open in one hand.
"This is what failure looks like."
Not a dramatic death. Not a monstrous transformation. Just one girl, completely destroyed by something she wasn't ready to face.
Her symptoms weren't unique. He'd seen trauma patients display similar markers veterans, assault victims, people who'd survived fires or bombings.
Olivia Baker is like a field casualty without the battlefield.
But she hadn't survived anything. She had just awakened.
Natural awakening as a Realizer.
No guidance. No mental preparation. No Law stabilization.
She saw it raw whatever fragment of the Law that reached into her mind and it tore her apart from the inside.
Adrian flipped to the last page. No prognosis. No treatment plan. Just a red stamp:
"Unstable. Isolate until revaluation."
She hadn't even been seen by another Realizer.
The entire staff here had treated it like a psychiatric case. But it wasn't. Not entirely.
She had tried to look at something bigger than herself. And she lost.
He shut the file slowly.
"She couldn't handle it," he said to no one. "But that doesn't make her useless."
He stood and tucked the file under his arm.
"I made it through. She didn't. So now I'll make use of her."
He felt no guilt. No responsibility. Just opportunity.
If there was anything left in her mind anything useful he'd extract it. Even a glimpse of what she saw could help him.
She might not be salvageable. But her memories might be.
And if he could calm her if his abilities worked maybe she'd talk.
He turned toward the heavy isolation doors.
It was time to see what was left.
Adrian placed Olivia Baker's file into a secure sleeve.
The thick paper gave a muted scrape as he pressed it flat and slid it into his coat.
He didn't look back at the cabinet. No need. The weight he had carried since waking in this world had lessened. The file existed. The path was still intact.
He exhaled once, steady and clean, then turned his attention inward.
Soothing Paradox. It had stabilized him during the transfer.
A false peace imposed on a broken mind. If it could quiet his own trauma, it would be enough for a girl spiraling into delusion. At least for a while.
He didn't expect gratitude. He didn't expect success.
"If I can hold her together for ten minutes," he thought,
"that should be enough to pull something useful out."
He started walking.
A few doctors passed him in the corridor, nodding politely.
No one asked where he was going. No one ever asked psychiatrists.
They were allowed to walk alone with heavy things.
Adrian rehearsed his approach silently.
Step one. Stabilize her mind using Soothing Paradox.
Create a mental window where she could communicate.
Step two. Observe. Watch for mention of what she saw.
Listen for names, places, anything that could hint at the Law she tried to bind.
Step three. Shut it down if it goes too far.
If she starts collapsing again, or becomes violent, pull the illusion tighter.
Silence the panic. And if she breaks completely… then she was already lost.
He didn't feel pity. He wasn't a savior.
But she had touched something real.
She had failed to become a Realizer and lived through it.
That made her rare. Possibly the only one in this hospital who had stood on the edge and survived long enough to scream.
That scream might be worth something.
He reached the end of the hall. A long elevator with black trim waited in silence.
It would take him up three floors to the isolation ward.
A place meant for the violent, the lost, and the ones who spoke to things no one else could see.
Adrian stood in front of the doors.
He adjusted the collar of his coat. His fingers brushed over the outline of the file. His heart was steady.
"She couldn't handle the Law," he thought. "But maybe she can help me master it."
The doors opened.
He stepped inside.
He reached the upper corridor, where the light shifted to a colder hue and the air felt dry.
The isolation wing didn't mask what it was. No gentle paintings or calming slogans here.
Just clear signage, padded walls, and silence thick enough to press against your chest.
Adrian approached the nurse station beside the reinforced checkpoint.
A middle-aged woman sat behind the terminal, her posture straight, expression professionally muted. She glanced up as he approached.
"Doctor Vale?"
He gave a small nod. "I'm here for Olivia Baker. I'll be conducting a direct evaluation."
The nurse blinked, visibly scanning the name.
"She's… restrained. As per protocol. No visitors since the last incident.
You'll need gloves and shielding if you plan to get close."
"What's her state?"
"Same as yesterday," she said.
"Minimal speech. Non-responsive to visual or verbal cues. She mumbled once during early rotation — something about 'the eye that watches itself.' Nothing else."
Adrian's brow lifted slightly. "Any new damage?"
"She bit her lip raw last night, but didn't scream. Just stared at the wall with her right eye open. The other is still… well." The nurse hesitated. "Still gone."
Adrian said nothing. The memory from the file was enough.
"She removed it deliberately," he said.
The nurse nodded. "With her own hands. We didn't realize what she was doing until it was too late. It wasn't panic. It was methodical."
That confirmed it. This wasn't just a psychotic break. It was symbolic. Intentional. Somewhere, buried beneath the psychosis, a message had been sent.
"Thank you," Adrian said. "I'll proceed."
He moved past the checkpoint. The hallway stretched ahead — pale, quiet, and cold. Each step echoed against reinforced floors. Behind every door was a person who had come undone.
Only one of them had seen the fracture that Adrian now walked.
He didn't slow his pace. Just adjusted his gloves, confirmed the secure sleeve in his coat, and prepared himself for contact.