The scream echoed—not just through the cavern, but through her bones. Her voice came back to her fragmented, like a dozen different versions of herself all wailing in unison.
The doll sat motionless on the altar. But its chest rose and fell, slow and mechanical, like the breath of something trying to remember how to live.
Mira stumbled back. Her heel caught on a root that hadn't been there a moment ago—slick, black, and writhing. It recoiled at her touch, slinking beneath the stone altar like a serpent returning to its nest.
The altar pulsed with heat. Faint red veins glowed through the surface of the stone, rhythmic and sickly, like something alive beneath the slab was trying to claw its way out.
Behind it, a mirror cracked—not shattered, but split. A long fracture ran from top to bottom. The glass spread open, slow as a smile, and gaped wide.
It wasn't a reflection inside.
It was a corridor.
Narrow. Endless.
And red.
Not painted red, but bleeding. The walls wept. Not metaphor—actual rivulets of crimson slid down the smooth surface, vanishing into cracks that slurped them up like thirsty mouths.
A sound issued from within—not footsteps, not breathing. It was like someone dragging their nails along a ribcage. Hollow and scraping. Hungry.
Mira's hand reached for the pendant at her neck—a small onyx teardrop, the last thing she had of her mother.
It burned cold.
The air changed when she stepped closer to the mirror. The cavern behind her stilled, as though holding its breath. The doll on the altar tilted its head.
The corridor called.
Mira stepped through the broken glass.
It didn't cut her. It rippled—like water, like skin.
The first thing she noticed was the silence. The dripping blood made no sound here. It fell in slow motion, each drop hovering a moment before vanishing into the floor. The air was warm. Too warm.
The corridor narrowed as she walked.
She ran her hand along one wall. It gave slightly, spongy. Not stone. Not wood.
Flesh.
The entire hallway pulsed like a throat. The bleeding intensified. Her footsteps squelched.
"Where are you taking me?" she whispered.
Something answered.
Not in words, but in pressure. A shift in gravity. The walls trembled, and the light grew deeper—no longer red, but the kind of darkness found behind closed eyelids. The kind that remembers every nightmare you've ever forgotten.
She came to a door.
It stood at the end of the corridor, impossibly tall and wrong in proportion—narrow at the top, bloated at the bottom. Its surface was made of bone. Teeth lined the edges like hinges.
As she approached, it breathed open.
Beyond it lay a room Mira had never seen, but instinctively feared.
It resembled a nursery.
Faded wallpaper peeled from the walls in curling strips, revealing markings beneath—symbols etched in something darker than ink. A mobile dangled above a crib, made of tiny rib bones strung together with hair.
There were toys, scattered in ruin. Some broken. Some twitching.
In the crib lay another doll.
This one looked like her.
Not the child version of her. Not an old photograph brought to life.
It looked like her now.
Same eyes. Same scar across her wrist. Same line of freckles along her collarbone. It even wore her shirt—today's shirt.
It blinked.
Then smiled.
"Found you," it said, in her voice.
Mira screamed again. Not from fear—but from a refusal to accept.
She grabbed the crib, flung it across the room. The doll shattered on the floor—but not like porcelain. It came apart like meat. Wet, red, and too real.
She stumbled back. Blood spattered her arms.
The walls shook.
Whispers rose from the symbols carved beneath the wallpaper. Chanting. Overlapping voices that sounded like her mother. Her father. Herself.
Names—real ones, hidden ones—tumbled through her ears.
Myrah.
She hadn't heard that name aloud in years.
Not since the night of the fire.
Not since the house forgot who it was.
Or rather—remembered what it had been.
The floor dropped.
Mira fell—not into darkness, but into light. A burning, white-hot shaft of pain. Not physical pain, but memory pain. The searing knowledge of something she had buried.
She landed in another room.
Not the house.
Not the corridor.
This was... real?
No.
It looked like her childhood bedroom. The real one. But cleaner. Too perfect. The bedsheets freshly folded. A tea set on the shelf, unchipped. The window open to a summer breeze that didn't exist anymore.
A figure stood in the corner.
Her mother.
Young. Beautiful. Hair long and unburnt. Eyes full of sadness that had not yet turned cruel.
"Mira," she said, holding out her hand.
Mira didn't move.
"You're not real," Mira whispered.
"No," her mother agreed. "But the pain is."
Behind her, the mirror portal slammed shut with a wet, final sound.
Trapped.
The room began to unravel.
Walls cracking.
The bed melting.
The tea set crying blood.
Her mother began to scream—face splitting open, eyes melting down her cheeks, hands stretching into claws.
Mira ran. To the door. To anywhere.
It didn't budge.
The mirror was gone.
The crib returned.
The doll returned.
Only this time, the doll was already dead. Head split open, ribs cracked. Inside its chest was something coiled, black and wet.
A heart?
A key?
No.
A tongue.
It lashed out—wrapped around Mira's wrist, yanked her down.
She struggled. Screamed.
Then bit it.
Blood sprayed her face.
She tore free.
And the walls caved in.
When Mira opened her eyes again, she was back in the cavern.
The altar was empty.
The doll gone.
But in her hand was the tongue.
No—not a tongue. It had hardened. Changed.
It was a key.
Old. Bone. Twisted.
The mirror was closed now.
But the altar still bled.
And the house would not let her leave.