Berlin. August 10, 2028. 2:58 AM.
Storage 9. Year 2 of the Annual Dinner.
Claire set the last photo down.
Daniel was reading the 9th name.
The room was warm. Quiet. No flickering.
It was working.
knock knock knock
Three knocks. On the door.
From the outside.
Claire and Daniel froze.
There was no one in this building at 3am. The FBI had the whole floor sealed.
knock knock
Louder.
Daniel looked at the shadows. They were still.
But all 9 of them had turned their heads toward the door.
Claire pulled her gun. "Stay here," she whispered.
She opened the door.
Hallway. Empty.
At the end of the hall, by the elevator: a woman.
Young. 20s. Wet coat. Holding a white plate. Blue rim.
She looked up. Smiled.
"Hi. I heard there was dinner?"
Claire’s blood went cold.
The plate. The same pattern.
"Who are you?" Claire asked.
"Mara," the woman said. "Mara Weiss."
She held up the plate. "I found this. In my grandmother’s attic.
She said if I ever got hungry, I should bring it here.
Said Table 9 would feed me."
The name hit Claire like a brick.
Weiss. Chair 1. Anna Weiss.
From inside the room, the 9 shadows stood up. All at once.
The temperature dropped 20 degrees.
Daniel stepped out behind Claire. "Mara, you need to leave.
This isn’t a real dinner."
Mara tilted her head. "But the note said the 10th seat was always open.
For family."
She looked past them, into Storage 9.
And waved at the shadows.
"Hi great-grandma."
Chair 1’s shadow reached out. Toward the door.
Toward Mara.
The drain in the floor started to breathe again.
Claire stepped between them. Slammed the door shut.
Locked it.
On the other side, Mara knocked again. Softer.
"Are you sure? I’m really hungry."
Daniel pressed his forehead to the door. "She’s blood.
The contract... it allows blood to take the seat."
Claire looked through the small window in the door.
Mara was still standing there. With the plate.
And behind her, in the dark hallway, 8 more shadows.
The other 8. They had followed her.
"She didn’t come alone," Claire whispered. "They brought her."
Mara smiled one last time. Then turned and walked to the elevator.
The doors closed.
Silence.
Inside Storage 9, the 9 shadows sat back down.
But now there was a 10th shadow. Faint. At the head of the table.
It looked like Claire.
The recorder was still on.
Claire’s voice shook: "Annual Dinner... interrupted.
New variable detected: Bloodline.
Protocol failed."
Daniel looked at her. "We didn’t break the cycle.
We just made it hereditary."
From under the door, a white plate slid in.
Mara’s plate.
And under it, a new note in handwriting that wasn’t Mara’s:
_The family is home.
• The 9_