Prologue Night Shift
At 3:47 a.m., the underground parking garage was still quiet. The fluorescent lights emitted their regular hum, and the security-camera feeds lined up frame by frame across the screens on the wall. Every so often, a car would drive in, then leave again soon afterward, as though no night was ever any different from the last.
Morse sat inside the security office, picked up his coffee—which had gone cold long ago—and took a sip. It was still bitter.
He glanced at the corner of the desk. A black notebook sat there. Its cover had no title, no “Archive,” and no markings of any kind. It was simply an ordinary notebook—so ordinary it could not have been more ordinary.
He reached out and opened it. The pages were blank. The second page was still blank, and the third contained nothing either.
Sometimes he even wondered whether it had all been a dream brought on by staying up too late. If it really had been a dream, it had been far too real.
Footsteps suddenly sounded outside the door. They were very light, unlike an adult’s. Morse raised his head. On the security-camera feed, a boy of about ten stood at the entrance to the underground parking garage. He had no car and no parent with him. He simply stood there quietly, as if searching for something.
Morse walked out of the security office. The night wind blew down the underground ramp, carrying a faint smell of damp concrete.
“Hey, kid. Did you get separated from your family?”
The boy looked up. His eyes were clear, yet unfamiliar. “Mister, can I ask…” He paused, as if he did not know how to describe it. “Have you ever seen people who don’t exist?”
Morse stopped walking. The air seemed to fall silent at that exact moment. He stared at the child before him and did not know why, but he had the persistent feeling that he had seen him before. He just could not remember where.
The boy took a photograph from his pocket. It showed a family of three—the father, the mother, and a child. But at the center of the photograph, where another person should have been standing, there was only a blurred blankness.
The boy said quietly, “Everyone says the photo has always looked like this. But I remember… here.” He pointed at the blankness. “There used to be someone standing here.”
Morse did not answer. He only slowly took the photograph. The instant his fingertips touched it, the black notebook on the desk opened to its first page without a sound. This time, there was no case, no Archive, and no rules. There was only a single line of text that had just appeared:
—CASE 001 《The Unborn》
Morse slowly raised his head. He knew the story never truly ended. A new Archive had simply begun.
Part Two 《Archive II: The Unborn》 Chapter One People Who Don't Exist Section One The Person in the Photograph
At 4:12 a.m., the underground parking garage retained the distinctive silence of the night. Moisture from the rain still clung to the concrete walls, while the exhaust fans rumbled low. The security-camera feeds were arranged frame by frame on the screens in the guard office. Every so often, a car would slowly drive in, then leave a few minutes later. The entire night was as calm as a pool of water without a single ripple.
Morse sat at the guard desk. A black notebook rested on it, with no title, no author, and not even a design on its cover. If anyone walked in, they would assume it was an ordinary notebook bought on a whim to record handoff notes.
Morse, however, had been staring at it for nearly five minutes. He reached out and opened the first page. Blank. The second page was still blank. The third still contained nothing.
He gently closed the notebook and gave a bitter little smile. “Just as I thought…”
That train, Platform Four, Market Zero, and those people forgotten by the world were like a dream so long and vivid that he could no longer tell whether it had been real. After waking from it, life still had to go on. He was still the overnight attendant at the underground parking garage, patrolling the parking lanes every day, dealing with payment-machine breakdowns, and reviewing security footage for drivers who had forgotten where they parked. He was as ordinary as a person could be.
Just then, two light knocks came from the glass window of the guard office.
Knock. Knock.
Morse looked up. A little boy stood outside the window, about ten years old, wearing a blue hooded jacket that had faded from too many washes. A small backpack hung from his shoulders, and the edges of his shoes were still speckled with mud left behind by the rain. A child should not have been here at this hour.
Morse immediately stood and opened the guard-office door. “Hey, kid. What are you doing here?”
The boy did not answer. He only kept his head lowered, both hands clutching a yellowed photograph so tightly that his fingertips had gone faintly white.
Morse crouched down and softened his voice. “Where are your Dad and Mom?”
The boy was silent for several seconds before slowly looking up. There were no traces of tears in his eyes, but they held a bewilderment that did not belong to a child. He held the photograph out to Morse. “Mister, I’m looking for someone.”
Morse took the photograph. It showed a family of four, with the entrance to an amusement park in the background. The father stood on the left, the mother on the right, and the boy in front, grinning happily. Yet between the parents was a strange empty space. It did not look as though they had intentionally stood apart. It looked more like—someone should originally have been standing there.
Morse frowned. There were no tears in the photograph, no blurring left by editing, and no trace that anything had been cut away. That space was simply unnaturally empty.
The boy asked softly, “Mister, can you see it?”
Morse did not answer right away. As he stared at the blankness, a line of extremely faint black writing suddenly appeared on the surface of the photograph. It was only a short sentence, but it made his breath catch for an instant—“Find the person who was originally standing here.”
Section Two There Is No Fourth Person
Morse’s fingertips remained on the edge of the photograph. The black writing lasted for only a second before slowly disappearing, as though ink were seeping into the paper.
“Mister?” the boy called softly.
Morse came back to himself and looked down at the photograph again. It had already returned to normal, as if those words had never appeared.
“Who gave you this photograph?” Morse asked.
The boy shook his head. “It was always kept at home. I found it yesterday while cleaning my room. But…” He paused. “I feel like something’s wrong with it.”
“What’s wrong?”
The boy held out his small finger and pointed at the center of the photograph. “It’s too empty here.” He continued, “Every time I look at this spot, I feel like someone should be standing there. But Dad says there have only ever been three people in our family. Mom says the photo has always looked like this too.”
The boy lowered his head, his voice growing quieter. “But I remember… someone was holding my hand.”
Morse said nothing. He only studied the photograph carefully. The amusement-park entrance, the ticket booth, the Ferris wheel in the distance—every detail was perfectly clear. Only that empty space in the middle seemed unnaturally conspicuous.
It was not that the people had stood too far apart when the picture was taken. All their postures seemed to revolve around someone. The father’s shoulder tilted slightly toward the center. The mother’s hand looked as though it were resting on someone’s shoulder. The boy’s gaze was not directed at the camera, either. His eyes were tilted slightly upward, as though he were smiling at someone beside him.
The entire photograph was filled with traces that “a fourth person had once existed,” yet there was no fourth person.
Morse’s heart sank. This was not photo editing. Reality was erasing an existence.
“What’s your name?” Morse asked.
“Lin You’an,” the boy answered.
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“Why did you come here today?”
Lin You’an hesitated for a while before taking a sketchbook from his backpack. It was somewhat old, and the cover showed a family of four.
Morse opened it to the first page. It showed the family at the seaside. The second page showed them in a park. The third showed them celebrating a birthday. Every drawing had four people, but the fourth person had been drawn as a gray human silhouette with no facial features, no clothes, and not even a name—only a human shape.
“My teacher said yesterday…” Lin You’an lowered his head. “She said I drew one person too many.”
Morse stared at him. “Too many?”
“She said our family only has three people, so she changed my drawing to three people.”
Lin You’an turned to the last page. It was a drawing that had been erased many times. The gray human silhouette had almost been rubbed away completely, but beside it remained a line written in pencil: “Don’t erase my brother.”
Morse’s breathing faltered slightly. “Your older brother?”
Lin You’an nodded, his eyes beginning to redden. “I know I have an older brother. But… I can’t remember his name.”
Silence filled the guard office.
Just then, the black notebook on the desk opened to its first page by itself. There was no glow, no anomaly—only a new line of text slowly appearing:
—CASE 001 《The Unborn》. Case Status: Investigation begins.
The next line paused for several seconds before slowly writing down the first Investigation Subject:
—The Lin family. The lost: an older brother who doesn't exist.
Section Three The Lin Family’s Four-Person Family Photo
At 5:08 a.m., the sky was still gray and hazy. Morse handed off the shift to his coworker early and left the underground parking garage with Lin You’an quietly following beside him. The boy barely spoke along the way. He only kept clutching the yellowed photograph, as if afraid that if he let go even for a moment, the last thing remaining in the photograph would disappear as well.
The Lin family lived in an old apartment building more than twenty years old. There was no building attendant, the mailboxes on the first floor were somewhat rusty, and the stairwell was filled with the damp smell of concrete. The nameplate for the residents on the wall read: Lin Zhiyuan, Chen Yawen, Lin You’an. Only three names. There was no fourth.
“Was it… like this before too?” Morse suddenly asked.
Lin You’an froze for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I never paid attention before.”
Fourth floor, Room 402. The boy took out his key and opened the front door. The smell of breakfast drifted from inside. A woman was frying eggs in the kitchen, while a man sat on the sofa in the living room watching the morning news. Everything was as ordinary as it could be, like any other normal family.
“Mom, I’m home.”
The woman turned her head. Seeing the unfamiliar Morse, she looked puzzled. “And who is this?”
Lin You’an lowered his head. “He’s the man from the parking garage. He said…” The boy hesitated. “He wants to look at the photograph.”
The woman smiled. “It’s just a photograph. There’s nothing special about it.” She dried her hands and accepted the yellowed photograph. After one glance, her expression did not change at all. “Isn’t this the picture we took at the amusement park last year? Is there a problem?”
Morse quietly observed her. Her gaze did not linger on the blank space in the center of the photograph, as though she truly could not see anything unusual there.
“Ma’am,” Morse asked softly, “don’t you feel like someone is missing here?”
The woman froze for two seconds, then laughed. “Someone missing? No. It’s always been the three of us.”
Mr. Lin, who had been sitting on the sofa, came over as well. He glanced at the photograph and frowned. “You’an, are you thinking about that again?”
The boy did not answer. He only lowered his head in silence.
Mr. Lin put the photograph back on the table, his voice carrying a note of fatigue. “The doctor said it’s just that the kid has an overactive imagination. He’s been saying there’s another older brother in the family lately. But we only have one child. We always have.”
Morse did not contradict him right away. His gaze fell on the bookcase in the living room, which was filled with framed photographs—travel pictures, graduation photos, birthday pictures, holiday family photos. Every one showed three people. Yet each photograph held a strange sense of wrongness. In some, Mr. Lin’s hand seemed to be resting on empty air. In others, there was clearly room for someone beside Mrs. Chen, but no one stood there.
The strangest was a family portrait with the living room in the background. Four candles had been stuck into the cake, and four place settings had been arranged on the table, but only three people appeared in the photograph.
Morse’s heart suddenly sank. He slowly approached the photograph and examined it carefully. Just then, a small album beside the frame slid off the bookshelf.
Smack.
It hit the floor.
Mr. Lin jumped. “That’s strange… I could’ve sworn I put it down properly.”
Morse crouched and picked up the album. The instant his hand touched the cover, an extremely soft voice sounded beside his ear—“Big brother…”
It was not Lin You’an. It was not anyone in the apartment. The voice seemed to come from inside the album.
Morse slowly opened it to the first page. The first photograph had already yellowed. It showed a newborn baby, with another baby lying beside it. But one of the babies was slowly becoming transparent. Beneath the photograph, a line of handwritten text remained on the verge of disappearing:
—“Big brother, take care of your little brother.”
The instant Morse finished reading the sentence, the black notebook on the table silently opened to a new page several miles away. Its first record appeared at the same time:
—Evidence One: The Lin family once had two children.
(Four) “The Second Passenger”
At the end of the corridor was an empty train car. It had no seat numbers and no final stop, only a stretch of gray-white beyond the windows. The train was neither moving forward nor stopping, as though it remained forever in some nonexistent place.
Morse stood at the doorway and did not step inside right away. “Something’s wrong,” he said quietly. “There’s one sound missing.”
Even a normal train, no matter how quiet, would have vibrations, wind, and the scraping of wheels against the rails. But there was nothing here, as though it were a photograph frozen far too completely.
Asti paid no attention. She slowly walked into the car, one step, then two. On the third step, the entire car suddenly lit up—not with lights, but as row after row of windows simultaneously reflected their images. But—only Morse had a reflection. Asti had none.
Morse’s pupils contracted. “Come back!”
Asti turned around. “What is it?”
“You don’t have—” Before he could finish, another figure appeared in every pane of glass at once. It stood beside Asti and looked exactly like her—the same face, the same clothes, the same expression. The only difference was that this person was smiling.
Asti froze. “What is that…”
The reflection of herself slowly raised its right hand. Asti did not move, but in reality, her right hand rose on its own.
Morse rushed over and grabbed her wrist. Crack! Every pane of glass shattered, but the shards did not fall. They remained suspended in midair. Each shard reflected a different Asti—one crying, one covered in blood, one wearing an unfamiliar uniform, and one who was not human at all.
Finally, all the shards spoke at once: “Find me.”
The next second, the shards vanished. The entire train car returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
Asti panted and looked at her hand. A piece of paper lay in her palm. It had not appeared suddenly; it was as if she had been holding it all along. The paper was old, and it bore only one sentence:
—The Second Passenger has completed boarding.
There was no name beneath it, only a familiar stamp—Archive.
Morse’s expression changed for the first time in earnest. He knew the notice was not written for Asti, but for another “her.”
Just then, a familiar voice sounded softly from the other end of the train car. “It’s finally begun.”
Morse whipped around. There was no one there. But a pair of wet footprints had appeared on the floor, extending one step at a time deeper into the train.
Morse did not follow them, because he knew the truly dangerous thing now was not the owner of the footprints, but Asti standing beside him.
She kept her head lowered, as though listening to someone speak. A moment later, she slowly raised her head. A smile spread across her lips, entirely different from the one she usually wore. “Hello. Nice to meet you. I’m your partner.”
(Five) “Partner”
The train car fell silent again. The sentence held no emotion, yet it was more unsettling than all the anomalies that had come before.
Morse did not answer. He slowly stepped in front of Asti, shielding her behind him. Asti, however, remained standing where she was. The smile on her face was unfamiliar—not her usual slightly shy smile, nor the occasional mischievous grin, but the calm, rational smile of someone observing prey.
She tilted her head slightly. “You know me.”
Morse remained silent.
“But the person you know isn’t the me who’s here now.”
Asti held out her hand and looked at her palm as though she were using this body for the first time. She clenched her fist, opened it, then clenched it again. “This time… I’m more complete than last time.”
Morse finally spoke. “Who are you?”
Asti blinked. “I’m your partner.” She paused, then added, “At least, that’s what all of you call me.”
Morse frowned. “What about Asti?”
“Asleep.” Her answer was perfectly calm. “She needs to rest.”
“What did you do to her?”
“It’s not that I did anything to her.” The partner smiled. “She’s only lending me her place for a while.”
At that moment, the train announcement came on without warning. “The train will soon arrive at—Station That Doesn’t Exist. Second Passenger, please prepare.”
The announcement repeated three times, with a different voice each time. The first was an adult woman, the second an old man, and the third was Asti’s own voice.
Morse clenched his fists. “The Second Passenger… is that you?”
The partner did not answer. She only looked out the window. The gray-white scenery outside began to change. A platform appeared beyond the glass—a platform with no station name, no lights, no clock, and no passengers, only rows of benches. A person sat with their head lowered on every bench. All their faces were hidden behind thick file folders.
The train slowly stopped. The doors opened without any alert tone, and only a rush of cold air poured into the car, carrying the sound of pages turning.
Swish—swish—swish—
Then the first person stood up, followed by the second and the third, until everyone on the platform had risen. They still covered their faces with file folders, but they all turned toward the train in perfect unison, as though waiting for someone to get off.
The partner looked outside and said quietly, “They’re not here to receive me. They’re waiting for… Asti.”
Morse’s heart jolted. “Why?”
The partner slowly turned her head. For an instant, her eyes regained Asti’s gentleness, but it was quickly covered by another kind of calm. “Because she was originally supposed to be a passenger on this train.”
The instant she finished speaking, everyone on the platform lowered the file folders covering their faces. But their faces had no features. There was only a bright red stamp, bearing a single word: “Absent.”
The next second, they all took their first step toward the train.