The girl didn't wake.
Mikael carried her through a corridor that looped in impossible circles. Walls folded inward, peeling back like stage curtains to reveal older versions of the same hallway—dustier, darker, filled with laughter that no longer echoed.
"She's still stuck in the first act," Elise said beside him.
Mikael didn't answer. His hands were trembling. This girl—whoever she was—had once been real. Not just a character. Not just a name in the Director's ledger.
"Why can't she wake up?" he asked.
Elise pointed ahead.
A door stood crooked in the middle of the hallway. No frame. No wall. Just the door itself—painted deep crimson, like dried blood.
"She won't wake until the curtain lifts."
Mikael stepped forward. The door pulsed faintly.
"What's behind it?"
"Your first lie."
He turned to her. "Why are you helping me?"
"I told you," she said, her tone unreadable. "Because you wrote me to."
He pushed the door open.
Inside was a dressing room.
A dozen mirrors lined the walls, each one fogged over, each one with a single name scrawled across it in red lipstick. Names Mikael recognized—actors, old friends, people who had vanished from the stage and the world.
A familiar scent hit him.
Lilacs and chalk dust.
He turned toward the largest mirror.
It didn't reflect him.
It reflected a boy in a tattered school uniform, hands red, notebook clutched to his chest. Behind him, a fire consumed a theater stage. Dolls screamed on strings as flames licked at velvet curtains.
The boy looked terrified.
It was Mikael.
But not him.
Younger. Hollow-eyed.
And standing beside him in the reflection—was Elise.
Except she wasn't smiling.
"You let it burn," Elise whispered behind him.
The image shattered.
Crimson smoke billowed out of the mirror, curling around Mikael's throat. Whispers flooded his head.
You promised. You wrote us. You left us.
The mirrors cracked one by one. The dressing room groaned.
Mikael knelt, clutching his head.
"I didn't mean to," he said. "I don't remember!"
"You will," Elise said, kneeling beside him. "That's what this place does. It makes you remember the roles you tried to forget."
The girl in his arms stirred.
Her eyes opened—glasslike, frightened.
"M-Mikael…?"
He froze.
"Do you remember me?" she asked.
He did.
And the memory shattered him.