Chapter 3: There Was Something Else Back There
I kept one knee on the floor and one hand against the frame, as if the narrow opening might shift beneath me. Sid was still in the first pocket of darkness, close enough that I could see the uneven rise of their breathing. The warm light from the room reached only the edge of the space, touching a sleeve, a cheek, and the dust caught along the floorboards. Everything beyond that remained dim.
I had already seen enough to know the hiding place was not empty around them. Behind Sid, where the wall should have ended, a second line cut through the darkness. It was too straight to be a crack and too low to be another wall. Something pale showed beneath it, then disappeared when I leaned closer.
Sid's presence changed the way I moved. I stopped using my shoulders and turned sideways. I pulled my hand back from the curtain instead of letting the fabric fall against them. Even my breathing became careful. I had entered looking for a person, but now every small movement felt capable of making the space smaller.
“Hey, Sid.”
The words left me softly. Sid did not answer. Their eyes moved toward mine, then past me, fixed on the light behind my shoulder. I could not tell whether they wanted me closer or wanted the opening closed. I held my position and let the silence stay between us.
The second shape bothered me more when I looked away from it. I noticed the practical details first: the curtain did not hang freely. Its lower edge caught on something. A thin cord ran from the frame into the deeper section, disappearing beneath a fold of dark material. Near the floor, a strip of paint had been scraped away, exposing wood in a fresh, narrow arc.
I reached toward the cord, then stopped.
Sid flinched before my fingers got near it. The movement was small, but it traveled through the cramped space. Their shoulder drew inward, and their hand pressed flat against the floor. I lowered my arm at once. The gesture did not reassure them. It only showed me that the hidden thing had become part of their fear, whether they had put it there or had been placed beside it.
The room beyond us remained ordinary in every visible way. A lamp cast its warm pool across the floor. Dust moved through the light. Somewhere near the doorway, a faint draft stirred a paper edge and then died. But the air did not move inside the back area. It smelled closed in, with a dry trace of wood and something sharper underneath, like overheated metal.
I leaned farther without touching Sid. The pale shape resolved into the corner of a flat container wedged behind a board. Its lid sat crooked. A narrow black line showed beneath it. The board in front was not fixed to the wall; it rested at an angle, held in place by the cord and the pressure of the curtain.
That was when I saw what the arrangement had done to the room. The curtain covered more than Sid. It covered the access point itself. If the board slipped, the opening could narrow. If the cord tightened, the curtain would pull across the entrance. The hidden space was not simply concealed. It had been kept from being reached easily.
I looked back at Sid. Their face had gone still again, watching my attention move from them to the board.
“There’s something else back there.”
I said it as an observation, but the words sounded like a promise I had not earned. Sid did not move. I placed my palm on the floor and shifted my weight toward the pale corner. The board gave a fraction beneath the pressure.
A dull sound came from behind it.
Not a voice. Not a fall. Just the hard, contained knock of something meeting the wall.
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Sid's fingers closed around the edge of the floor covering. I stopped with my hand inches from the board, caught between exposing the second concealed thing and leaving it hidden in front of them. Behind my back, the open room waited. The curtain hung loose. The board leaned farther than before.
I reached for it anyway.
