Chapter 13 - The Reunited Father
Detective Miller punched the emergency manual override button beside the heavy steel door. With a loud pneumatic hiss, the heavy bolts retracted, and the door swung slowly inward, revealing the cramped, sterile room where Arthur Carson had spent over two decades in isolation.
Arthur flinched against the sudden flood of hallway light, raising a trembling hand to shield his eyes. He backed away until his shoulders hit the bare concrete wall, his breathing coming in shallow, frightened gasps.
Maya rushed into the room, dropping to her knees in front of him, tears finally breaking free and streaming down her cheeks.
"Dad," she whispered, her voice choking with emotion as she gently reached out and touched his weathered hand. "Dad, it’s me. It’s Maya."
Arthur stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, his clouded eyes searching her face for any trace of the little girl he had left behind. Slowly, a flicker of recognition sparked in his green eyes. His lips parted, trembling as he struggled to form words after years of forced silence.
"Maya..." he rasped, his voice rough and unused like dry sandpaper. "My... my little girl."
Drew hurried into the room behind his sister, falling to his knees beside them and wrapping his arms around his father’s frail shoulders, sobbing openly. "You're alive. All these years... Mom told us you were dead."
Arthur reached out, patting Drew’s head with a frail, trembling hand. "Helen... she didn't want anyone to know. She took everything... my name, my life, my mind."
Detective Miller stepped into the room, holstering his weapon as he pulled out his notebook. "Mr. Carson, can you tell us how you ended up down here? Did Helen put you here alone?"
Arthur shook his head slowly, staring down at the floor as a deep, haunted look crossed his face. "Not alone. Sarah... Sarah was the one who took over the facility after the hospital officially closed. She kept me here as leverage, just in case anyone ever started asking questions about the missing trust funds."
Maya wiped her tears away, anger surging through her once more to replace her grief. "Sarah knew you were down here the entire time? She used you as insurance?"
Before Arthur could answer, a piercing, high-pitched mechanical whine echoed from the hallway outside the room.
Detective Miller spun around, drawing his weapon and stepping toward the doorway. "What is that?"
A heavy steel security shutter slammed down over the doorway of Ward 7-B with a deafening crash, plunging the room into total darkness save for the dim red glow of an emergency backup light mounted near the ceiling.
From a hidden intercom speaker embedded in the wall, a voice crackled to life, smooth and mocking.
"Nice family reunion, Detective. But you should have checked the perimeter before you locked yourselves inside my vault." It was Sarah.
Detective Miller rushed to the heavy steel shutter, firing three rounds directly into the electronic locking mechanism, but the industrial metal held firm against the bullets.
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Through the intercom speaker, Sarah’s cold laugh echoed down the hallway. "The oxygen levels in that sub-level wing are controlled remotely, and they’ve just been cut off. You have about ten minutes before you all go to sleep permanently."
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