The ride back to the Oldest House was unusually quiet. Trench and Reyes sat in the back of the Bureau transport, the weight of their actions in Ashwood pressing heavily on their minds. Outside the tinted windows, the world seemed blissfully unaware of the rift they had just sealed—a fragile normalcy that the Bureau worked tirelessly to maintain.

"You think the Director will buy our version of events?" Reyes asked, breaking the silence.

Trench leaned back in his seat, his fingers drumming on the edge of his dampener. "He doesn't need to buy it. He just needs the incident contained. The rest is noise."

Reyes's brow furrowed. "Even if that noise involves him?"

Trench shot her a sharp look, his voice low but firm. "We leave Northmoor out of this. For now. Until we have more than just suspicions."

Reyes didn't reply immediately. Instead, she looked out the window, her expression unreadable. "Fine. But if he's tied to this, we're going to find out eventually. And when we do, I'm not keeping quiet."

Trench nodded, though his jaw tightened at the thought. The threads they had unraveled in Ashwood pointed to something larger, something rooted in the Bureau's shadowy past. But challenging Northmoor without concrete evidence was a risk neither of them could afford to take.


The Oldest House loomed before them, its brutalist architecture as imposing as ever. Stepping through the ever-shifting corridors, Trench felt a strange sense of unease. The building itself seemed to hum faintly, as if aware of what they had just encountered.

"Let's get these reports done," Trench said, gesturing toward the central operations hub. "The sooner we file this, the sooner we can move on."

Reyes gave him a sidelong glance. "Move on to what? Another rift? Another mess someone else left behind?"

Trench smirked faintly. "That's the job."


The operations hub was its usual hive of activity, agents and analysts moving between terminals and briefing rooms. Trench and Reyes made their way to a small, enclosed office in the corner, the kind of space reserved for after-action reports and debriefings.

"I'll take the first draft," Reyes said, dropping into a chair and pulling a tablet from her bag. "You're better at making things sound official, so you can polish it later."

"Fair," Trench said, settling into the chair opposite her. He leaned back, his eyes scanning the ceiling as Reyes began typing.

The report came together quickly. They described the events in Ashwood with clinical precision, detailing the discovery of the rift, the hostile entities, and their eventual containment of the anomaly. But as they worked, Trench found his thoughts drifting back to the entity's words.

Director.

It had called him that repeatedly, as though it wasn't just mistaking him for someone else. The word had carried weight, a certainty that unsettled him more than he cared to admit.

"Hey, Reyes," he said, interrupting her typing. "Did the entity ever call you anything specific?"

Reyes frowned, looking up. "Specific? No. It was always more about the Bureau in general—'your kind,' 'what you left behind.' Why?"

Trench hesitated, his fingers tapping the edge of the desk. "It kept calling me 'Director.' Not once, but consistently. Like it knew something I didn't."

Reyes raised an eyebrow. "Weird. But maybe it's just a side effect of the rift—entities like that don't exactly have a clear grasp on linear time. Maybe it saw a version of you that was Director."

Trench shook his head. "I don't buy that. I've never wanted the top job. Too much politics, too many eyes on you. Northmoor can keep it."

Reyes studied him for a moment before shrugging. "Maybe it's nothing. Or maybe it's trying to mess with you. Either way, we've got bigger things to worry about right now."

"Yeah," Trench said, though the thought lingered. The entity's certainty, its tone—it all felt too deliberate to dismiss entirely.


Hours later, the report was finished, edited, and submitted. Trench and Reyes left the operations hub, their steps slow as exhaustion settled in. As they passed through the hallways of the Oldest House, Trench couldn't shake the feeling that the building was watching him, its shifting walls whispering secrets he wasn't ready to hear.

"You good?" Reyes asked, noticing his distracted expression.

Trench nodded. "Just tired. It's been a long day."

"Understatement of the year," she said with a small smile. "Go home, Trench. Get some rest. We'll deal with whatever's next when it comes."

As Reyes walked away, Trench lingered in the corridor for a moment, his gaze drifting to the walls. The question gnawed at him, unanswered and unrelenting.

Why did it call me Director?

Turning away, he made his way toward the elevator, his mind already spinning with possibilities. The Ashwood incident was over, but its echoes were far from silenced.