The town looked the same—but it wasn't.
The streets were too clean. The sky too quiet. And no one else was there.
No footsteps. No cars. No voices. Just the distant sound of wind brushing rooftops.
Elise walked past her old school. The windows reflected her face but nothing else. No desks inside. No books. No memories. It was like the town had built itself from her mind—but only the outline.
"This isn't our real home," she whispered. "It's… a memory pretending to be one."
Mikael stood beside her, arms crossed. "Then the Dollhouse didn't let us go. It changed shape."
Lina frowned. "But why would it fake our town?"
Arielle's voice came soft, but sure. "Because it's not finished."
They turned to her.
"It let us think we escaped. Gave us something familiar. So we'd stay here and stop searching. So we wouldn't look deeper."
She pointed at the clock tower in the distance. Its hands didn't move.
"There's still one room left," she said. "The one where the Dollhouse hides its heart."
Elise's voice shook. "I don't want to go back in."
"You're not," Arielle said. "You're going forward. But we can't take the next step if we're standing in a lie."
Mikael touched his pen—still warm in his pocket.
"Then let's end it for real."
They made their way to the tower.
As they approached, things began to… unwrite. Streetlights faded into outlines. Trees blinked in and out of shape. The town began to unravel like a story read too many times.
Inside the tower, the stairs wound up forever—but they climbed. Step by step. Memory by memory.
Halfway up, the walls began whispering. Lines from old pages. Things they had once said. Things they had been told.
"You were always too emotional."
"You don't make sense."
"Why can't you just be normal?"
Lina pressed her hands to her ears. "Stop…"
Mikael grabbed her hand. "They're not true anymore."
They reached the final door.
No key. No lock.
Just a message scratched into the wood.
"Only the forgotten may enter."
Arielle reached forward—and the door opened.
Inside, there was no throne. No monster. Just a mirror.
And four empty chairs.