Red's Letter to Anabelle

Visual Description for Prop:

• Paper Type: Lightly crumpled parchment-style or aged printer paper.
• Ink: Handwritten look (brown or black pen, optional smudge).
• Folding: Folded twice, as if hastily stuffed in an envelope.
• Optional: Coffee stain in one corner. Slight water damage.

✉️ Page 1

Anabelle —

If you're reading this, it means I ran out of time. Not just time on the clock — I mean mine-time. The kind you feel behind your ribs. The kind that tells you when to duck before a cave-in. And mine-time says something is very wrong.

They opened it. I told them not to.

You remember the old stories, right? The chants. The map I gave you with the red line that just stopped? It never stopped, Bright Eyes. They just buried the end of it.

Now they’ve unburied it.

I found something in Shaft 13C. Not rock, not ore — something older. The men say it hums. One said he saw a door. I’ve been having dreams. Bad ones. And I think someone else is too.

You always knew how to read between the lines.

You were the only one who ever listened — really listened. Not to what people said, but to what they were scared to say. I need you to do that again. Follow the fear. Find the silence. Someone erased something important. And it wasn’t just paperwork.

✉️ Page 2

Page 13 is gone from the logbook. I wrote a copy. It's hidden — not where they'll look. Ask Issac. He knows grief better than anyone. I slipped it in where his patients won't check.

You may have to lie. You may have to act like you’re part of the team. But don’t ever forget — this was never about mining. This is about remembering. Or being remembered.

Genevieve may act like she’s done with this place, but her father died for the union same as mine did. She’ll fight if you give her reason.

Don’t trust the new tech. It flickers when it gets too close to the door. The drones aren't mapping terrain — they’re tracking who’s listening. And someone is listening back.

If I’m gone, finish what I started. Seal it again. Or burn the map.

You were always my brightest light in the shaft.

— R.