Chapter 5 The Spiral Remains

Private Recovery Room – Groote Schuur East Wing – 6:47 AM

The morning light did little to ease the tension. Siya sat at the edge of a hospital cot, eyes fixed on Asanda's sleeping form. A tangle of wires connected to heart monitors beeped slowly, rhythmically, each sound a fragile reminder that her sister, after years of disappearance, after nightmares and unmarked graves, was alive.

But even in sleep, Asanda wasn't at peace. Her body twitched every few minutes. Her lips moved in silence, whispering things only the dead understood. The nurses had insisted on sedatives, but Siya had intervened. She needed Asanda alert, she needed answers.

Marks entered quietly, holding two paper cups of bitter hospital coffee. "Any change?"

"Not really," Siya replied, accepting the cup. "Her vitals are steady. But she hasn't spoken since we left the sublevel."

Marks glanced at Asanda, unease in his posture. "You sure we shouldn't alert higher authorities?"

Siya gave him a sharp look. "And have them lock her up again? Dissect her? No."

Marks didn't argue. "So what's the next move?"

Siya leaned back. "We find out what the spiral really is. Valkenberg, Groote Schuur, these places aren't isolated. They're linked by something deeper than corridors and patient files. There's a pattern."

He frowned. "What kind of pattern?"

She pulled out the notebook she'd been compiling, dates, drawings, coded language, all revolving around a central shape.

The spiral.

"It's not just a symbol," Siya said. "It's an invitation. A design that pulls you deeper the longer you stare. I think it's a sound. Or a resonance. Maybe both."

Marks shook his head. "Like a beacon?"

"Or a doorway."

Suddenly, Asanda stirred. Her eyes opened, bloodshot, terrified.

"Siya..." she whispered.

Siya moved to her side. "I'm here. You're safe now."

Asanda gripped her wrist with surprising strength. "You didn't close it. You only turned the key halfway."

Siya's throat tightened. "What do you mean?"

Asanda's eyes darted around the room. "They're still singing. Below the walls. Beneath everything. I can hear them again."

Marks stepped closer. "Who?"

Asanda's voice cracked. "The Echoed."

Hospital Archives – Sub-Level Records Room – 11:12 AM

They returned to the archives later that morning. The narrow aisles were a maze of metal drawers, dusty folders, and forgotten histories. Marks helped Siya drag out one of the old catalog boxes labeled 1969–1980: Experimental Wards (Unindexed).

Asanda was resting in a secured wing, under Marks' own arranged supervision, away from official eyes. They couldn't afford another "incident."

Siya flipped through the yellowing files. Patient numbers. Date entries. Audio logs. Then she found it. A file marked: Subject 0397-E: Acoustic Containment – Preliminary Trials – Ward E.W.

She opened it.

Inside: black-and-white photographs of the Threshold Room, cleaner and fully intact. A woman strapped to the chair. Doctors in coats observing from behind thick glass.

On the bottom, scrawled in faded red ink: Containment unsuccessful. Subject self-harmonized. Result: Nonlinear bleed. Echo persists.

Siya ran her finger along the notation. "Echo persists." She remembered Asanda's words: they're still singing.

"What if they're not just hearing something?" she murmured. "What if they're hearing themselves, trapped in the resonance?"

Marks looked disturbed. "You're saying the patients didn't just go mad, they got recorded?"

"Like impressions on a record," Siya said. "They became the spiral."

And just then, something strange happened. From one of the overhead speakers in the archive, a low whisper filtered in.

"...Siya..."

Marks froze. "Did you hear that?"

It repeated, slightly louder.

> "...echo... echo... echo..."

The lights above them dimmed briefly. And then silence.

Siya stood slowly. "They're not just in the walls. They're in the system. Anything with resonance: wiring, speakers, even thoughts..."

She turned to Marks, eyes haunted. "The spiral is listening."

Groote Schuur East Wing – Rooftop – 12:07 PM

The rooftop offered a sliver of stillness. Siya and Marks stood against the railing, overlooking the city. The wind tugged at their coats, as if trying to pull them away from everything they knew. The hospital loomed beneath them, ordinary on the outside, but within, the walls were humming with hidden voices.

"I don't think this is just about Asanda anymore," Marks said. "I think we're inside something much bigger."

Siya nodded. "It's never just one institution. Valkenberg. Groote Schuur. Even the SANDF facility Asanda was moved to before she vanished. They all had reports of auditory hallucinations. Echo phenomena. Resonant architecture."

Marks rubbed the back of his neck. "And the spiral."

They both fell silent. The image had shown up in three places now, Valkenberg's sublevel, Groote Schuur's Threshold Room, and in that ancient file marked 0397-E.

"I think the spiral isn't just a design," Siya said. "It's a map. A code. And someone figured out how to follow it."

Marks looked over. "Someone? Or something?"

Before Siya could answer, her phone buzzed.

Unknown Number.

She hesitated, then answered. "Detective Ndlovu."

Static. Then a voice, raspy, genderless, mechanical. "You're not the first to follow it. But you're too close now. They will hear you."

Click. The line went dead.

Siya stared at the screen. "They're watching."

Marks stepped closer. "We need to move her. Asanda."

"She won't be safe here. Not even in isolation. They're already reaching through the hospital systems."

"Where then?"

Siya turned to him. "Back to the place where it began. Before Valkenberg. Before Groote Schuur. The first hospital in the file."

Marks narrowed his eyes. "Don't tell me..."

She opened the manila folder, revealing a brittle document: Groote Schuur Annex B – Decommissioned in 1972.

Location: Observatory Ridge, beneath the old surgeon's theatre.

Marks exhaled. "You want to take us to an abandoned surgical wing under the Observatory? With a possibly haunted audio system and a resonant map leading to God-knows-where?"

Siya turned to him. "That's exactly what I want to do."

Asanda's Isolation Room – 12:42 PM

They returned to find the door slightly ajar. Siya's stomach dropped, as she burst in. Asanda was gone.

"Nooo...."

The room was empty, no sign of struggle, no alarm was triggered. All that remained was the soft, rhythmic hum coming from the heart monitor left behind, and even though it was unplugged it was still beeping steadily.

Marks checked the cameras, swearing under his breath. "The footage's blank. Just static. Someone scrubbed it live."

On the bed lay a sheet of paper, left behind by Asanda. Siya unfolded it. It was a hand-drawn spiral, drenched in charcoal, that was darker, more jagged than the rest and at the center, a single word: BELOW