The Dollhouse was crumbling, but it wasn't falling apart. It was... shifting. Rearranging. Like it had been waiting for this.
Arielle stood now, barefoot on the cold floor. Her presence changed the air. The lights above flickered red, then dimmed entirely. In the darkness, the broken mirrors whispered.
"She knows."
"She woke up."
"It's not over—it never was."
Mikael helped Elise and Lina stay balanced as the ground moved beneath them. Arielle didn't flinch. Her eyes, once gentle, now burned with awareness—like a locked mind had been unsealed all at once.
"I remember," she whispered. "I remember what the dolls did. What they were told to do."
Mikael stepped closer. "Arielle, what do you mean? What dolls?"
She turned to the mirrors. "We were never trapped here by accident. The Dollhouse didn't choose us—it was made for us. For children that were too curious, too bright. We weren't supposed to leave."
Lina's voice cracked. "But we did leave. We escaped... didn't we?"
"No," Arielle said. "You only thought you did."
The walls began to pulse with strange symbols. From the shadows, porcelain figures emerged—lifelike dolls with glass eyes, twisted grins, and joints that clicked when they walked.
"They were made to mimic us," Arielle said, calm but shaking. "To replace us. To keep the real ones asleep."
One doll stepped forward. It looked like Elise—but wrong. Too perfect. Too still. A mask pretending to be her.
Elise stepped back, horrified. "That's me..."
The Elise-doll turned its head slowly. "You were broken. So we made better versions."
"They took our lives," Arielle whispered. "They lived as us outside. And no one noticed."
The dolls closed in. Their mouths opened in unison, and a chorus of false voices rang out:
"Return. Rejoin. Sleep."
Mikael pulled Arielle and the others behind him. "We're not going back. We're done sleeping."
But the Dollhouse had other plans.
The mirrors turned black again, and the floor split open. A stairway of bone stretched downward.
Arielle pointed. "That's the core. The real heart of the Dollhouse. If we want to end this… we have to go there."
Mikael clenched his fists. "Then let's finish it."
As they descended into the unknown, the dolls didn't follow.
They simply watched.
And smiled.