Chapter 6: The Unveiling

Chapter 6: The Unveiling

Sixty seconds.

The number seared itself into Leo’s mind as the darkness crushed him. It was a physical weight, a suffocating black velvet that stole his breath and deadened all sound. For a terrifying, eternal second, there was nothing. No storm, no hum, no echo of his own heartbeat. The world had been erased. Finch’s calm voice was a venomous whisper in his memory: Do not let the darkness catch you.

Then, the sounds began.

From the direction of the Silent Dinner exhibit came a wet, percussive snap. It was closer than before, no longer a distant echo but a clear, predatory sound just one gallery away. It was followed by a low, dragging scrape, like a heavy piece of furniture being pushed across the marble floor.

Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through Leo’s paralysis. He fumbled for his flashlight, its switch slick with sweat. The beam sprang to life, a pathetic, trembling cone of light that the darkness seemed to actively consume.

He ran.

His worn boots slipped on the polished floor as he pushed off, his mind a frantic, chaotic map of the Atheneum’s layout. Left at the rotunda, right past the antiquities, then straight down the long service corridor. It was a route he’d walked a dozen times, but now it was an alien landscape navigated by instinct and terror alone.

Fifty seconds.

He burst into the main rotunda, a vast, circular chamber. His flashlight beam swept wildly across the room, catching on the ornate pedestals that ringed the space.

They were all empty.

The heavy velvet shrouds lay in crumpled piles on the floor, like shed skins. The forgotten kings, the mythical beasts, the stoic philosophers—they were gone. The silence they left behind was more terrifying than any sound.

Forty seconds.

A colossal flash of lightning illuminated the entire museum for a split second, bleaching the world in a stark, overexposed photograph of his nightmares. Through the high dome, the rotunda was bathed in ghostly white light, and Leo saw it all.

The exhibits were no longer in their places. They were in the room with him.

He saw a hulking form near the far archway, the Minotaur from the Greek collection, its stone head lowered as if preparing to charge. He saw the slumped, mournful figures from the ‘Procession of the Damned’ shuffling slowly, inexorably, towards the center of the room.

And then the darkness crashed back in, absolute and complete, leaving the horrifying afterimage burned onto his retinas.

He didn't scream. The sound was trapped in his throat, a hard, painful knot of terror. He veered right, his shoulder slamming into the cold marble of a pillar. The pain was a welcome anchor to reality. He scrambled forward, his breath tearing from his lungs in ragged sobs.

Thirty seconds.

He heard a sound to his left, a sickening symphony of sharp, cracking noises, like a tree being broken apart from the inside. He risked a glance, his flashlight beam cutting through the gloom.

It was The Contorted Man, a piece he had deliberately avoided, a sculpture of a human form twisted into an impossible, agonized knot. It was no longer on its pedestal. It was lurching through the hall, its limbs snapping, dislocating, and resetting with each horrifying movement as it dragged itself forward. Its carved, screaming face was pointed directly at him.

Leo threw himself sideways, a strangled cry escaping his lips, as the thing lunged for the space where he had just been. He landed hard, the impact jarring his teeth, and scrambled back to his feet without looking back.

Twenty seconds.

He was in the corridor leading past the Gallery of Innocence. He remembered the slow, grinding scrape of stone on stone, the subtle shifts he’d documented in his sketchbook. Now, the sound was all around him, a dry, frantic skittering, but it wasn't coming from the gallery.

It was coming from above.

He forced himself to look up, his flashlight beam tracing the high, vaulted ceiling. For a moment, he saw nothing but ornate plasterwork. Then, a small, grey shape moved.

The children were on the ceiling.

Dozens of them. They crawled across the curved surface like monstrous insects, their grey stone limbs finding impossible purchase, their heads swiveling on stiff necks. Their black, empty eyes, devoid of all innocence, stared down at him. They were silent, but their collective gaze was a physical weight, a promise of a terrible, crushing end.

The sight broke something inside him. This wasn't just a hunt; it was a perversion of everything natural, a violation of reality itself. The image of Elias Thorne's terrified face on the ID badge flashed in his mind. This is how he looked. This is what consumed him.

Ten seconds.

He saw it then—the narrow archway leading to the service corridor where the security office was hidden. It was a sliver of deeper black against the black, a promise of sanctuary. He poured the last of his strength into a final, desperate sprint. The skittering on the ceiling grew faster, keeping pace with him. The heavy, dragging footsteps and the wet, snapping sounds were converging behind him, a chorus of living nightmares eager for an audience.

He fumbled at his belt for the key ring, the metallic jingle a frantic, tinny sound against the cacophony. He reached the door, his hand shaking so violently he could barely find the lock.

Five seconds.

The key scraped against the brass plate. He heard a low growl just behind him, a sound rumbling up from a chest of stone.

Three.

The key slid into the lock.

Two.

He twisted it, the tumbler clicking over with the sound of a gunshot.

One.

He threw his weight against the door, stumbling inside and slamming it shut behind him. The heavy oak shuddered as something massive and solid slammed into it from the other side. A deep, resonant BOOM that vibrated through the floor. Then another. Then a chorus of scrapes and clicks against the wood.

He was safe. He leaned against the door, his heart feeling like it was trying to batter its way out of his chest, and slid to the floor, gasping for air he couldn't seem to find.

Minutes passed. The pounding eventually subsided, replaced by the oppressive, waiting silence. He was trapped, a prisoner in his own supposed safe house.

Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself to his feet. The security office was not entirely dark. A single monitor on the main console glowed with a faint, green-tinged light, running on some kind of independent power source.

He stumbled towards it, clinging to the console for support. The screen showed a grainy, night-vision feed from a camera he didn't recognize. The angle was high, looking down on a part of the museum he had never seen, a gallery that wasn't on the schematic Finch had given him.

And on the screen, the collection was on the move.

The Contorted Man dragged itself across the marble floor. The children of the Gallery of Innocence dropped from a high archway, landing silently on their stone feet. The shrouded kings, the Minotaur, even the distant, serene figure he recognized as The Reader—they were all there. They moved with a chilling, reverent purpose, a slow-motion pilgrimage.

They were not hunting him anymore. They were converging on the center of this new, hidden gallery. As the camera panned slightly, it revealed a grand, carved archway at the far end of the hall. Etched into the stone above it were three words that made Leo’s blood run cold.

The Hall of Replicas.