Cora crossed the flooded street and pushed open the heavy, creaking door of her rundown apartment building.

She shook the freezing rain from her jacket and started the climb up the dim, narrow stairwell to the third floor. Her wet sneakers squelched on the dirty concrete.

She pulled her keys from her pocket. Her fingers were stiff from the cold. She unlocked the door and stepped inside. Total, suffocating darkness greeted her.

Cora peeled off her soaked hoodie and dropped it on the floor. She walked straight into the tiny, cramped bathroom.

She turned on the faucet. The pipes groaned. She gripped the edges of the porcelain sink with both hands, leaning her weight on her arms. She gasped for air, her chest heaving.

Slowly, she lifted her head. She forced herself to look into the cracked mirror. She stared at the ruined, dark red flesh on the right side of her face.

The memory of the little girl's scream echoed in her ears. Karen White's disgusted eyes flashed behind her eyelids. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.

Cora turned the water to hot. She plunged her hands under the stream, grabbed a bar of cheap soap, and began to scrub her face.

She rubbed the scar tissue violently. Her skin turned bright red. It burned, but she couldn't stop. She scrubbed until her fingers ached, desperately trying to wash away the feeling of being dirty, of being a monster.

When she finally stopped, she dried her face with a rough towel. She walked into her bedroom, collapsed onto the narrow mattress, and stared blankly at the water stains on the ceiling.

The next morning, her alarm blared at six. Cora moved like a machine. She got out of bed and pulled on a thick, dark turtleneck sweater.

She brushed her long, dark hair forward, carefully arranging it to fall over the right side of her face. She swung her heavy backpack over her shoulder and left the apartment.

She rode the packed subway to the New York University archaeological research center. She kept her head down the entire ride.

When she walked into the main lobby, she stopped. The janitorial staff was frantically polishing the glass entrance doors.

The usually cluttered hallways were spotless. Someone had even laid down non-slip mats over the tiled floors.

Cora frowned. She adjusted her backpack straps and walked down the stairs to her basement laboratory.

She had just set her bag on her stool when her coworker, Lena Sullivan, slid over. Lena was holding a steaming cup of coffee.

"Did you see the lobby?" Lena whispered, her eyes wide with excitement. "There's a massive VIP coming to inspect the facility today."

Cora pulled a pair of blue latex gloves from the dispenser. "Which VIP?" she asked, not really caring.

"Word is, it's the heir to a massive conglomerate," Lena said, waving her free hand. "Billionaire status. They fund half the university."

Cora lost interest immediately. She turned her back to Lena and flicked on the bright LED light of her sterile workstation.

She picked up a pair of metal tweezers. Carefully, she lifted a small, delicate bone fragment from the Victorian era and placed it under the microscope.

The second her gloved finger brushed the surface of the old bone, her heart slammed against her ribs. A sudden, vivid auditory hallucination pierced her eardrums-the distant, sweeping melody of a string quartet playing a Victorian waltz, layered over the frantic rustling of heavy silk skirts. The phantom smell of burning beeswax candles and old dust filled her nose. It wasn't just panic; it was a visceral plunge into a memory that didn't belong to her current life. The sensory overload paralyzed her.

Cora's hand jerked. The metal tweezers slipped from her fingers and hit the stainless-steel table with a sharp clack.

Lena jumped at the noise. She turned around, her brow furrowing. "Cora? Are you okay? You look like you're going to pass out."

Cora took a deep, ragged breath. She forced the panic down into her stomach. She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just slipped."

Before Lena could press the issue, the heavy sound of synchronized dress shoes echoed in the hallway outside.

The laboratory door swung open. Dr. Thorne's assistant poked his head inside, looking frantic.

"Everyone drop what you're doing," the assistant ordered loudly. "Report to Conference Room One on the third floor. Right now."

Cora peeled off her latex gloves and threw them in the trash. She followed a buzzing, excited Lena out of the lab and toward the stairwell.

Cora and Lena pushed through the heavy oak double doors of Conference Room One.

The room was already packed. The atmosphere was thick with nervous tension. No one was talking above a whisper.

Cora immediately gravitated toward the back. She found an empty chair in the darkest corner and sat down. She tilted her head, letting her hair fall forward to shield her scar.

Dr. Marcus Thorne stood at the front of the room. He was sweating slightly as he adjusted the projector on the ceiling.

In the front row sat the university's top brass. Chairman Powell and Director Evans were wearing their most expensive suits, sitting rigidly in their leather chairs.

Dr. Thorne cleared his throat. He clicked a button on his remote.

A high-resolution aerial photograph flashed onto the projector screen. It showed a dense, dark forest in Upstate New York.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Dr. Thorne began, his voice shaking with excitement. "During a routine geological survey, we have uncovered a massive, perfectly preserved family crypt dating back to the Gilded Age."

He clicked the remote again. The slide changed. It showed the entrance to a stone tomb, covered in intricate, gothic Victorian carvings.

A collective gasp echoed through the conference room. Finding an untouched mausoleum from that era was practically unheard of.

"Because of the immense funding we've just secured," Dr. Thorne continued, "we are assembling an elite advance team to begin excavation immediately."

He picked up a clipboard from the podium. He started reading names.

In the second row, Chloe Vance and Jessica Lane sat up perfectly straight. They exchanged confident, eager smiles.

Dr. Thorne read off the names of three senior specialists. Then, he paused.

He looked up from the clipboard. His eyes scanned the crowded room and locked directly onto Cora in the back corner.

"Cora Foster," Dr. Thorne said clearly into the microphone.

The entire conference room went dead silent. Every single head turned to look at the back row.

Chloe whipped her head around. She let out a loud, theatrical scoff of pure disgust.

Jessica leaned over to Chloe and whispered loudly enough for half the room to hear, "Why is she going? Is this some kind of pity charity case?"

Cora felt the blood rush to her face. Her cheeks burned. She intertwined her fingers in her lap and squeezed until her joints ached. She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.

Dr. Thorne tapped his pen against the microphone to regain control. "Need I remind this room of the unidentified harbor remains from last year?" he said firmly, his voice echoing off the walls. "Ms. Foster was the only one who correctly identified the subject as a 19th-century Irish dockworker, based entirely on the wear patterns of a single carpal bone-a conclusion later verified by isotopic analysis. Her intuition and foundational knowledge are exactly what we need out there."

Chairman Powell nodded in agreement. He stood up and announced that the meeting was adjourned. Everyone needed to pack their gear.

The crowd began to filter out. Chloe walked past Cora's row. She intentionally veered off course and slammed her shoulder hard into Cora's.

Cora stumbled sideways against her chair. She didn't say a word. She just kept her head down and started packing her notebook.

Dr. Thorne walked up the aisle and stopped in front of her. He handed her a thick stack of papers.

"Non-disclosure agreements," he said softly. He looked her right in the eye. "I know how good you are, Cora. Ignore the noise."

He patted her shoulder gently. "Take tonight to pack. And maybe go visit your father before we leave. We'll be off the grid for a while."

At the mention of her father, Cora's eyes dulled. A cold numbness spread through her chest. She gave a stiff, tiny nod.

She shoved the NDA documents into her backpack. She turned and walked out of the emptying conference room.

Cora walked down the quiet hallway back to her desk. She took a deep breath, preparing to look at the preliminary blueprints Thorne had emailed her.

Cora locked the NDA forms in her desk drawer. She grabbed the printed blueprints of the crypt and headed back to her apartment.

By the time night fell, a cold, steady rain was beating against her thin windowpanes.

Lena knocked on her door around eight. She let herself in, holding a few extra copies of the structural layouts.

Lena spread the large papers across Cora's tiny, scratched dining table. She excitedly pointed to the center chamber on the map.

Cora leaned over the table. Her eyes traced the complex, Victorian architectural lines of the crypt.

Without warning, a massive, crushing wave of grief slammed into her chest.

She stared at the geographical coordinates printed in the corner of the map. Her eyes filled with hot, unexplainable tears. Her throat tightened so hard it ached.

Lena looked up and saw Cora's pale face. "Cora? Are you okay? You look exhausted."

Cora blinked rapidly, forcing the tears back. She forced a weak, fake smile. "I'm just dizzy. I think I need to get some sleep before the trip."

Lena nodded sympathetically. She gathered up the extra papers. "Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning." She walked out and shut the door.

Cora walked over to her tiny kitchenette. She filled a glass with tap water and swallowed two melatonin pills. She turned off the overhead light.

She curled up on her narrow twin bed. She listened to the rain hitting the glass until the pills pulled her under.

The nightmare hit her like a freight train.

Suddenly, her vision was blinded by the glaring light of a massive crystal chandelier.

She looked down. She was wearing an incredibly heavy, suffocatingly tight gilded-age corset and a massive lace gown.

The sound of a waltz played in the background, but the air in the room was thick with pure, toxic hatred.

A woman stood in front of her. The woman had a breathtakingly beautiful face, but her eyes were venomous. It was Isolde.

Isolde's red lips moved. She spat out vicious curses and mocking insults that cut like glass.

In the dream, Cora-who knew with absolute certainty that her name was Seraphina-felt a tearing physical pain in her heart.

Isolde lunged forward. She shoved Seraphina hard in the chest.

Seraphina lost her balance. She fell backward. The surrounding aristocrats erupted into cold, cruel laughter.

The sensation of falling was instantly replaced by the terrifying weight of damp soil covering her nose and mouth.

She was in the dark. Someone was frantically shoveling dirt on top of her. She opened her mouth to scream, but only dirt rushed in. She was suffocating.

In her apartment, Cora convulsed on her bed. Her hands gripped the cheap bedsheets like a vise.

She shot up into a sitting position, her eyes snapping open. She gasped violently for air, her lungs burning.

Cold sweat soaked her t-shirt. Her dark hair clung to her forehead and the scar on her cheek.

She looked frantically around the dark room. She saw her dresser. Her window. She was in New York.

But the metallic smell of wet dirt and the sound of Isolde's cruel laughter still echoed loudly in her skull.

Cora threw off the blankets. Her bare feet hit the freezing hardwood floor. She stumbled toward the door.

She yanked the apartment door open and stumbled out into the hallway. She needed oxygen.

The motion-sensor lights flickered on. Cora leaned her back against the cold tile wall, clutching her chest, trying to force her heart to slow down.