No windows. No lights.
Just a soft, unnatural glow from a small, flickering lantern in the corner.
Waxed paper covers the walls.
Hundreds of pages.
Drawings.
Of me.
Not just now.
From childhood.
From years no one should remember.
Me riding a bike with scraped knees.
Me crying in a uniform I haven’t seen in a decade.
Me undressing, eyes wide with confusion.
Me sleeping, limbs tangled in Damien’s sheets—this week.
He’s been following me my entire life.
But it wasn’t Damien.
I move toward the centre of the room, legs shaking, and that’s when I see it.
The doll.
Sitting on a chair of old wood and steel. Bent arms. Paper skin.
A doll in my image.
Dressed in my clothes.
Braided hair like mine.
Someone has stitched its throat shut.
In its lap—a human tooth.
I stagger back.
My hand hits a lever—accidentally—and something shifts.
The floor cracks. Opens.
A panel drops, revealing a pit beneath the room.
Inside?
A body.
Or what’s left of one.
