Nolan couldn't move.
The little girl stood in the threshold of the chamber, her white dress soaked in something dark, dripping onto the floor that no longer felt like concrete, but skin.
Her eyes weren't just bleeding — they were crying memory.
"Natalie?" he asked, unsure why the name came to him, like a whisper from another life.
She said nothing. Just stared, as if trying to recognize him.
The chamber began to shake, slow at first, then violently — like the very walls rejected her presence. The ash from Kinsley's remains swirled around her in chaotic motion, then vanished into her chest like it had always belonged there.
Nolan took a step forward. The ground pulsed under his boots.
"You left me."
Her voice was a whisper — yet it echoed like thunder through the chamber.
"You locked the door. You walked away."
"I didn't know…" Nolan muttered. "I didn't remember."
She lifted her hand, and the chamber responded — lights flashed overhead, revealing new walls rising from the floor. Now, it wasn't a round room. It was a maze. Shifting, alive, as if the house itself had been waiting for this moment to trap him again.
And then… the static started.
Not sound.
But a feeling. A buzzing, low-frequency wrongness pressing against his skull.
Suddenly, the floating newspaper clippings returned, but they were changing — reshaping into live images. Footage of him at his old precinct, sleeping in his car, interrogating suspects.
Except something was wrong.
In every scene, his reflection was missing.
The girl took another step toward him. Her mouth opened — but it wasn't her voice that spoke.
It was his.
"I lied in every report. I covered up the truth. I chose to forget."
Nolan backed away.
"I was trying to protect—"
"Yourself," the voice snapped. "You let the darkness win once. Now it wants more."
Behind him, the maze twisted again. A door appeared. Marked with the number 2. Blood seeped from the edges.
"Every room is a memory," the girl whispered. "And you're still running from the one that matters."
She turned and walked toward the door.
"You want to survive, Nolan? Follow me. But leave the badge behind."
"Why?"
She looked back, and for the first time, smiled.
"Because in the next room… you're the villain."