The room wouldn't stop breathing.
Every time Mikael blinked, the walls inhaled and exhaled softly—like lungs stitched from old velvet and faded wallpaper. The mirrors were gone, replaced by black curtains that rippled without wind.
The girl clung to him now, her fingers cold, her voice quiet.
"You remember me," she said.
Mikael stared at her.
He didn't speak. He didn't nod.
But he remembered.
A summer when the lights had gone out in his old neighborhood. A girl who had always waited under the broken theater sign. Her name…
"Lina," he whispered.
She looked relieved, but broken.
"You never wrote me in," Lina said, voice trembling. "You wrote around me. I was always backstage. Always waiting for my turn."
Elise stood nearby, arms folded, silent.
"She shouldn't be here," Elise finally said. "She's not part of the script."
Mikael turned on her. "Then how is she alive?"
Elise's eyes narrowed. "Because you made her real by forgetting."
Lina looked between them, confused. "I don't understand. Mikael, what is this place?"
"The Dollhouse," he answered. "A reflection of all my unfinished stories… all the roles I left behind."
Lina trembled. "I waited for years. I kept thinking… maybe one day, I'd get a name. A scene. A single line."
Mikael reached for her, but Elise stepped in.
"She's a wound," she said. "One that never healed. If you keep her here, this place will change again. It's already starting."
The hallway behind them cracked.
Wood groaned. Lights popped. A voice echoed down the corridor.
"Curtain call. Curtain call…"
And then the hallway twisted.
New walls rose. New doors appeared. This time they were white and stitched shut with red thread.
"Someone else is waking up," Elise said grimly.
Mikael held Lina close. "Then we go forward."
Elise hesitated. "The next one… she won't forgive you so easily."
"Who?"
Elise met his eyes.
"The one you wrote too much of."