The Dollhouse had gone quiet again—but it was a new kind of silence, heavy and full of breath. The kind of silence that listens.
Mikael walked ahead now. His steps were steady, but his mind was chaos. A name tugged at him, unfinished. A face blurred behind fog. A sister—one neither Elise nor Lina could remember.
They reached a long hallway that hadn't existed yesterday. The wallpaper was peeling, revealing old messages scratched into the wood beneath.
"She never left."
"The third sleeps below."
"Don't forget her again."
The temperature dropped. Elise clutched her arms. Lina slowed behind them, hesitant.
"This place... it's getting colder the closer we get," she murmured.
At the end of the hallway, a trapdoor waited—unlocked, unguarded. Mikael didn't hesitate. He opened it.
Stairs spiraled downward. No light. Just the soft thump of his heart as he descended.
When they reached the bottom, they found a room filled with mirrors—each one covered in black cloth. In the center stood a single bed. A girl lay there, motionless, wrapped in faded red cloth like a doll waiting to be unboxed.
Her hair was dark. Her face was familiar.
And when Mikael approached, her lips moved.
"You... remembered?"
His breath caught. "Arielle…"
The name rang out like a bell. The mirrors shattered, the cloths fell away, and suddenly the room was flooded with pasts—fragments of three children playing, laughing, running. Elise. Lina. Arielle. And Mikael in the center, their brother.
They hadn't lost her.
They'd been made to forget.
A voice echoed from the walls. Mechanical. Cold.
"Subject awakening exceeds containment parameters. Initiating collapse."
The Dollhouse began to tremble violently.
Lina cried out, holding onto the wall. Elise rushed to the bed.
"She's waking up, but she's not ready—Mikael, we have to carry her!"
"No," Arielle said, eyes slowly opening. "I'm already awake."
She sat up. The red cloth disintegrated into ash. The room groaned around them.
And with a single glance, the mirrors reversed. Light rushed into Mikael's mind—memories, names, everything that had been taken.
Arielle had never left.
She had been buried.
And now… she was back.