I slipped the envelope open, the seal tearing with a quiet sigh.
Inside, Owen’s looping script filled the page, his ink blotting in places where his hand had trembled.
“Mom, I knew this would reach you if something… if I couldn’t come back,” he wrote, the first line a cold promise.
My eyes raced forward, heart hammering against my ribs.
He confessed, in shy yet urgent words, that Father had been forging lab results, manipulating data to hide failures.
“He sells the chemicals we make,” Owen continued, “the ones no one is supposed to buy.”
A knot formed in my gut as the sentence landed, the name of his father hovering like a specter.
He described sneaking into the lake house basement, discovering a hidden stash of vials and containers.
“There’s a chest,” he wrote, “filled with strange liquids and notes. I tried to tell you, but he…”
A gasp escaped my lips, throat raw, the hallway echoing the sound.
The paper trembled under my fingers as I read the final line: “You have to stop him before it’s too late.”
Suddenly, the building shuddered, and a shrill wail ripped through the corridor.
The fire alarm blared, a deafening, metallic scream that swallowed the quiet.
Lights flickered, sputtered, then died, plunging the science wing into a strobe of emergency red and deep, suffocating darkness.
I stood frozen, the letter half‑unfolded, Owen’s words burning in my mind as the hallway faded into black
