Julien cross-referenced the postal codes. 72800—La Flèche. He searched local news archives. In 1995, during the renovation of the town hall, workers had found a sealed basement room. The police were called. The case was closed as “suspicious structural damage.” No further details.

Julien, a sound engineer by trade, felt a cold itch at the back of his neck. He opened file 001. A single audio spectrum attached as binary text. He converted it. A 4.2-second recording: wind, a dog barking in the distance, then a whisper so faint it was almost static: “Ils sont sous la mairie.” (“They’re under the town hall.”)

Julien ran. He didn’t stop until he reached his car. When he got home, the folder was gone from his desktop. The .rar file was corrupted. Even his backup drive showed the folder as empty.

He drove to La Flèche that weekend. The town hall was modest, limestone, with a locked iron gate at the side alley. He waited until 2 a.m., as the timestamps suggested. He brought a portable audio recorder and played file 001 on speaker near the gate.

That night, Julien heard scratching inside his walls. Not mice. Fingernails. And a child’s voice, counting backwards from ten.