The Hollow Box (Part-2)

Episode 2: "The Man in the Blue Coat"

The day following the funeral, Lara visited Arundel General Hospital again — not for comfort, but for answers.

She walked by the nurses' station, her mother's old office, the patient halls. Everything was the same. But everything felt. off. As if someone had scrubbed the place too clean.

Lana sat outdoors in the café across the other side of the road, watching through the rain-speckled window. Lara had told her to stay put — just in case.

As Lara rounded the corner near her mother's locker, she nearly collided with a man.

He was tall, wearing an old-fashioned blue woolen coat, a bit too tidy for a hospital worker. His shoes didn't belong on the floor — leather soles on tile, but they were silent. And his eyes were an odd grey, like storm clouds that had faded.

"You are Lara Clark," he said calmly, in a gravelly voice that was dripping with honey.

"I knew your mother. She was asking questions before she died. Dangerous ones."

Lara jerked back, her heart racing. "Who are you?"

He smiled weakly. "Call me Mr. Winter."

He handed her a crumpled paper, no larger than a matchbox. There was a symbol on it: two serpents entwined around an hourglass. Underneath, in her mother's handwriting:

"Order of Nox – Don't trust anyone bearing this symbol." Lara looked up — but Mr. Winter had disappeared. Nothing but the paper was left in her hand, still warm.

"Do you think Lara is getting closer to the truth… or walking into a trap?"