Chapter 6: The Foreman's Office

Chapter 6: The Foreman's Office

Leo stared, frozen, his hand still hovering in the air. The echo of Pam’s real voice, her real terror, was still ringing in his ears, but the creature on the couch was the picture of serenity. It had tasted his despair, savored it, and was now digesting the meal. The mocking whisper of “Please… help me” hung in the air between them, a poison dart that had found its mark deep in Leo’s soul.

He felt hollowed out, scoured clean by a wave of utter helplessness. Elara’s words from the chat window blazed in his mind: Your terror is its food. He had just served it a feast.

With a shuddering breath, he forced his arm down and turned back to the computer, his movements stiff and robotic. He had to block it out. He had to block her out. To save Pam, he might have to stop reacting to her suffering, a thought so monstrous it threatened to break him all over again.

He typed into the secure chat window, his fingers clumsy and numb.

LeoVance: It used her. It used her voice. It made her beg for help and then it mocked me with her words. It was feeding. You were right.

He waited, his eyes glued to the screen, refusing to look back at the thing on his couch. The silence stretched, and he could feel its white eyes on his back, a palpable weight. The three dots appeared.

Elara (Nyx_Walker): I know. I’m sorry you had to see that, Leo. But you need to listen to me. This is crucial. When it does that, when it lets her surface, that is the most dangerous moment for you. It’s a trap. It’s trying to provoke the strongest possible emotional response. You cannot give it what it wants. You have to become a black hole. No fear, no despair, no hope. Nothing.

LeoVance: How am I supposed to do that? It’s PAM. How do I not react?

Elara (Nyx_Walker): I don’t know. But you have to try. Because while you were telling me what happened, I wasn't just sitting here. I’ve been digging. Cross-referencing city blueprints from 1910 with the modern renovation plans for the Crimson Lofts. I know where the Echo was born.

Leo leaned forward, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten, replaced by a surge of desperate energy. This was it. The source code of the horror.

LeoVance: The foreman’s office.

Elara (Nyx_Walker): Exactly. The Lowell Textile Mill was infamous for its brutal conditions, and the foreman, a man named Silas Croft, was the architect of that brutality. He was a cruel, sadistic man who took pleasure in the workers’ misery. The stories are grim. He’d dock a week’s pay if a child working the looms cried. He’d measure the thread used for repairs and charge the workers for any overage. He drove families to ruin for sport.

LeoVance: What happened to him?

Elara (Nyx_Walker): That’s where the official record goes silent. There are whispers, of course. Legends. The story I’ve pieced together from old union logs and anonymous accounts passed down through families is this: In the winter of 1912, a young girl got her hand caught in a power loom. Her father, a man who had already been pushed to the brink by Croft, confronted him. They argued in Croft’s office. There was violence. The father was beaten senseless by Croft’s private guards.

Elara paused, the typing indicator blinking for a long time.

Elara (Nyx_Walker): The next night, the father returned. But he wasn’t alone. A small group of desperate men went with him. They cornered Silas Croft in his office. There was no fight this time. Only an execution. The ‘gruesome tragedy’ the historical society mentions wasn't a single event. It was the culmination of years of quiet agony, ending in one night of explosive violence.

Leo felt a cold knot tighten in his gut. The raw, primal emotions of that night—the workers’ righteous fury, Croft’s terror—had been powerful enough to burn a scar into the world.

LeoVance: So the cry for help… it’s Croft? He was crying for help before they killed him?

Elara (Nyx_Walker): That’s what I thought at first. It fits the pattern. The lure mimics the first moment of the event. But it doesn’t feel right. The emotion behind the cry you heard… it’s too pure. Croft’s terror would have been laced with rage, with indignation. This is something else. But I’m sure of one thing. The Echo isn’t just the ambient emotional residue of the room. An event that powerful needs an anchor. A focal point. It has to be tethered to a physical object.

LeoVance: An object? What kind of object?

Elara (Nyx_Walker): Something that was present during the event. Something that absorbed the initial shockwave of emotion. A lightning rod for the tragedy. In Croft’s case, it would be something personal, something he always had with him. I found an old inventory list from when the mill’s assets were liquidated. Most of his personal effects were listed, but one item from his estate appraisal was noted as 'missing from office': a silver pocket watch, an heirloom.

A silver pocket watch. The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. The Echo wasn't the room itself. It was a parasite latched onto an object within the room, broadcasting its psychic pain, waiting for a host.

LeoVance: And the room… the foreman’s office…

Elara (Nyx_Walker): It was on the third floor. Corner office. Facing the inner courtyard. According to the renovation plans, they barely changed the layout. They just put up some drywall and a cheap kitchenette. Your Airbnb, Leo. It was Room 3B.

The confirmation landed like a physical blow. They had slept in the very heart of the storm. They had invited the monster in not just by answering its call, but by sleeping in its nest. The hook was set so much deeper than he had ever imagined. The ‘permanent stain on the wall’ from the old legends probably wasn't blood; it was a mark left by the sheer psychic violence of that night, centered around that one missing object.

Suddenly, a floorboard creaked behind him. Leo’s blood ran cold. He slowly turned his head.

The entity had risen from the couch. It was standing in the middle of his living room, perfectly still. Its white eyes were fixed on the front door. It seemed to be waiting.

It knew.

Somehow, it knew they were talking about its home. About its source. The integration was deeper than he thought. It was linked to Pam’s memories, her senses, and now, somehow, to his intentions.

LeoVance: It knows. I think it knows we’re planning something. It’s standing by the door.

A long pause.

Elara (Nyx_Walker): Then we don’t have much time. It's tethered to the watch, Leo. If the watch is destroyed, the anchor is gone. The Echo will have nothing to hold onto. It might be the only way to sever its connection to Pam.

Destroy the watch. Find the source and destroy it. The goal was suddenly, terrifyingly simple. But it meant going back. It meant willingly walking back into the room where the nightmare began, armed with nothing but a half-cocked theory from a stranger on the internet. And he would have to bring the monster with him.

He looked at the thing wearing Pam’s skin. It stood there, patient, a silent challenge. He thought of her real voice, cracking with pain, begging him for help. He couldn’t let that be the last real thing he ever heard from her. He couldn’t live in this state of managed terror, waiting for it to perform another cruel puppet show for its own sustenance.

His fear was still there, a cold, hard knot in his stomach. But now, it was joined by something else. A flicker of resolve. An IT guy, a metalhead, a man defined by routine was about to walk into a haunted house to fight a monster for his best friend’s soul. It was insane. It was impossible. It was the only option he had left.

He turned back to the screen, his resolve hardening into a cold, sharp point. He typed his reply.

LeoVance: Where are you? We need a plan. We have to go back.