️ Zane Faulkner and the Echoes of the Past

London, UK – 8:47 PM

The rain tapped like cold fingers on the café window as Zane Faulkner stirred his black coffee. His mind was elsewhere — tangled in fragments of a story that refused to stay buried.

Across the table, Eli shuffled through a dusty envelope.

"These were sent anonymously," he said. "Sealed blueprints of a Transylvanian monastery... and a letter that just says: ‘The past remembers.’"

Zane raised an eyebrow. "Charming."

"But here’s the real kicker," Eli leaned in, lowering his voice. "That same monastery — it burned down in 1947. No known survivors. No records. And yet, two weeks ago, someone filed an electrical permit in its name."

Zane smiled faintly. "Ghosts with a wiring problem?"

Their conversation was cut short by a sharp knock on the café window. A tall woman in a trench coat stepped inside — soaked from the rain, cheeks flushed, eyes like sharp amber.

"Dr. Lyra Vance," she said, tossing her coat over the chair. "I’m the reason you're on this case."

Eli blinked. "The Lyra Vance? Military historian? Cryptographer? Award-winning expert on Eastern European war crimes?"

Lyra ignored him, fixing her gaze on Zane. "This isn’t a puzzle, Mr. Faulkner. It’s a scream from beneath a hundred-year-old grave. And if we don’t follow it now, someone else will die."

Zane looked amused. "You had me at scream."

Two days later, they stood in front of the crumbling remains of Monastirea Fecioarei Ascunse — “The Hidden Virgin Monastery.”

The air in Transylvania was thick and cold. Fog wrapped the building like a corpse’s shroud.

Inside the ruins, Lyra led them to a wall covered in ancient frescoes. "This place housed a war-time psychiatric prison," she explained. "Unofficial. Brutal. Forgotten by history."

She tapped on a panel. "This fresco was painted in 1946… but beneath it, there's an older layer."

Zane crouched. "You brought me all this way for peeling paint?"

Lyra’s voice turned sharp. "That paint hides a confession — one the world was never meant to read."

Eli glanced around. "Does anyone else feel like this building is... watching us?"

Using heat tools and a solvent, Lyra revealed what lay beneath the fresco.

Carved into the wall in Latin were five words:

"Sanguis innocens. Nihil ignoscetur."

(Innocent blood. Nothing will be forgiven.)

Zane ran his fingers over the letters. "Someone confessed to a massacre — or swore revenge for one."

And then, in the silence, a faint mechanical whir echoed through the stone walls.

Zane’s eyes narrowed. "We’re not alone."

Following the sound, they entered an underground chamber. There, to their shock, stood a fully functional, hidden war room — untouched by time. Files. Photos. Old surveillance equipment... still humming.

Lyra gasped. "This... this room shouldn’t exist. It’s pre-Cold War tech. The kind only the Soviet elite had access to."

Eli picked up a dusty journal. "It’s in Romanian... but there’s a name circled over and over again."

Zane looked over.

"Lyra Vance."

Silence.

Lyra turned pale. "My grandfather was a field medic here... I was told he died in the war."

Zane read aloud a line from the journal:

"Vance betrayed us all."

Lyra sat on a cracked stone bench, trembling.

"My family name was changed after the war. This explains why I was drawn to this place... something inside me always knew there was unfinished business here."

Suddenly, a hidden door slammed shut.

Footsteps.

From the shadows, a tall man in black appeared — sharp-featured, late 60s, eyes cold as steel.

"You shouldn’t have come back, Dr. Vance."

Zane stepped forward. "And you are?"

"I am the last warden of this place," the man said. "And I remember your bloodline."

A gun glinted in his hand. "Your grandfather didn’t die. He fled. And I swore if any Vance returned, I’d finish what the fire couldn’t."

He aimed at Lyra.

BANG.

The shot rang out — but Zane was already in motion. He struck the man with a table leg, disarming him and sending him crashing into the wall.

Eli blinked. "How did you move so fast?"

Zane straightened. "He talked too much."

Later, in a Romanian police station, Lyra sat quietly, tears in her eyes.

Eli patted her shoulder. "You okay?"

She nodded. "He wasn’t wrong. My grandfather worked here… but he also helped prisoners escape. That’s why he was branded a traitor. I always thought he was a coward. Turns out… he was a hero."

Zane sipped his coffee. "History always echoes, Lyra. Sometimes the truth is buried so deep, it can only be heard when someone like you listens."

Lyra looked at him — angry, sad, and somehow grateful.

"Don’t make me thank you."

"You won’t," Zane smirked. "But you’ll join us on the next case."

She rolled her eyes, but the ghost of a smile tugged at her lips.

"Just don’t get yourself killed."

Zane winked. "I try not to."