Sienna's POV
The archive room swallowed me whole the moment the door clicked shut behind me. It wasn't the kind of cold you shake off with a coat or a hot coffee. This was the damp, bone-deep chill that lived in forgotten places, the kind that crawled under your skin and reminded you that some truths were never meant to see daylight.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered like they were on their last breath, buzzing in that eerie way that made my teeth ache. One second the room was washed in sickly white, the next it dropped into uneven shadows that danced across the walls lined with dusty filing cabinets. The air reeked of mildew, old paper, and something sharper—like regret that had been left to rot for years.
I wasn't supposed to be here. Not tonight. Not ever, really. My rational brain kept screaming at me to turn around, lock the door, and pretend the past was exactly where it belonged: buried under layers of bureaucracy and convenient lies. But I couldn't.
