Page 45 of Barbie: Dreamscape

I swallow. No. I didn’t. I think about what the woman said. There’s always a way out—

Then leave, the shadows whisper. Go on.

And those shadows… they reach toward me, just as those trees in the forest did. I close my eyes, grip my necklaces, and try. I try to escape.

But I’m filled with such regret… such shame…

See. We knew you couldn’t do it. And look at you now.

I open my eyes and gasp. I can’t—I can’t see anything. Only darkness. The shadows have closed in completely. I look up…

And the sky is just an inky smudge beyond the pit. All the light has vanished.

Posey’s words are in my head. Light exists in even the darkest places. You just have to find it.

But there isn’t any left. And my soul… it feels heavy, as if drenched in sorrow. My skin feels cold. My pulse is slowing.

My knees buckle. My legs hit the sharp ground, but I barely feel it. No, I’m just filling to the brim with this debilitating hopelessness.

I could stay here forever.

Yes, stay… the shadows hiss.

I wouldn’t be Robin’s burden anymore.

She would be free of you, finally…

Tears prick my eyes. Robin deserves to be free, without a Fateless girl hanging around who isn’t even her real daughter…

She doesn’t want you. She never did.

I grimace. Maybe the shadows are right. Maybe Robin just felt obligated to take me in because of her friendship with my mom.

Stay here.

Where you belong.

I sink deeper into the ground.

Everything goes dark and quiet and still.

Until a laugh echoes from the depths of my mind, searing through the shadows.

Robin’s laugh as she catches up to me in the corridors.

The shadows start to hiss, but I can’t hear them. Not through the laughter.

Light exists in even the darkest places. You just have to find it.

I have light in me. It lives in my memories—the beautiful ones. I let those come to the surface, let them smother my worst moments, let them pour into me:

I’m running, giggling through Swancrest’s halls as a kid, being chased by Robin and her birds in a game of tag.

She always played with me. She smiled and laughed and—it doesn’t look forced. She wanted to play.

I was wanted.

I’m gasping, tears streaming down my face as I show Robin a skinned knee, and she picks me up and with a wave of her fingers, makes my knee whole and new.