Chapter 30: The Secret of the Orphanage
John, exhausted, collapsed onto the grass. Sweat soaked his forehead, and his knuckles were torn from the blows against the main door that had kept them trapped. Dried blood had gathered beneath his split nails.
"Damn it…!" he spat through clenched teeth, sinking his hands into the damp grass before clumsily lifting himself up again.
Richard paid him no attention. His gaze remained fixed on the yellow ball they had found. Old, stiff, and with worn-out seams, it looked like a toy pulled from someone's memory. Damián picked it up in his hands and then tossed it toward Richard.
"There's no real way out here," Damián said after looking at the walls enclosing the yard.
No one answered immediately. John, still breathing with contained rage, stood, trying to keep control. Then he saw it: small footprints pressed into the damp soil. They were from a barefoot child. The heel, the sole, and every toe were clearly marked.
"Do you see this?" Damián said, crouching down to point at the trail.
The prints moved forward until they vanished beneath a neatly trimmed bush. The three of them tensed immediately.
"Where the hell did they come from?" John muttered.
Richard shook his head, not knowing the answer either. "Being here… I don't even trust what I saw before as something unchangeable…"
The entire place was in constant change. It almost felt as if, at any moment, another clue would appear in places they had already passed. It was all far too confusing.
John moved forward without hesitation, following the footprints until he reached the bush. There, on the damp ground, a teddy bear was waiting for him. The toy was dirty and discolored, with one eye torn out and an open seam at the mouth that made it look like a crooked smile. From its arm hung a wrinkled piece of paper.
John picked it up carefully, and the message appeared once again—this time in the sky above the yard:
[Second test: In the immensity of the yard lies a teddy bear. No one must harm it; its innocence is the key. Listen to the laughter it emits.]
Richard frowned slightly. Every moment this felt more and more like a children's game.
The message made no sense—though nothing had made sense since they had been trapped in the dining hall with no way to escape outside.
"What does it mean by 'laughter it emits'?" John asked, still holding the stuffed toy.
Richard looked at it closely."I don't think the damn bear is going to talk… but the message is clear: we must listen. Maybe it's hiding something."
As if in response to his words, a child's laughter echoed in the yard. It was high-pitched, playful, impossible to place. It bounced from wall to wall before cutting off abruptly.
Damián swallowed hard."I don't know if I'm going crazy, but those voices have been creeping me out for a while now."
Richard leaned over the teddy bear and, without thinking too much, greeted it softly:"Hello… teddy."
The grass beneath the toy sank slightly, as if something invisible pushed it from below. Another childish giggle, softer this time, spread through the air.
"Mr. Teddy said that you are very polite for greeting him when no one else did, so he's going to help you."
And then it happened: the main gate creaked violently and began to open slowly.
On the other side appeared a narrow, dark corridor, lit by flickering bulbs. The air grew colder, carrying a metallic smell.
Richard took a step forward, frowning. "If we want to get out of here and find Elías, it will mean going through this place."
The ball was left forgotten on the grass. The teddy bear, motionless by the bush, watched them with its single empty socket as they entered the corridor. The gate slammed shut behind them with a metallic crash, sealing the entrance.
* * * *
Elías walked through the hallways in silence. He didn't know how long he had been walking, nor how many doors he had passed. The echo of his own footsteps mixed with the sepulchral silence of the place, confusing him, but he had no one to consult his doubts with. Each lamp flickered to the rhythm of a heart that wasn't his, and with every flash he could feel a figure make its presence, only to disappear again.
The cold seeped into his bones, but that wasn't what unsettled him. What truly disturbed him was the sensation of walking in circles, trapped in a place that answered to no human logic.
Finally, a different door appeared before him. It was white, with peeling paint, and in its center hung a small metal plaque: Room 14. Elías froze. That number he knew all too well.
With a dry throat, he pushed the door.
The smell hit him first: a sweet aroma of dust and old wood, mixed with the soft fragrance of lavender. A sensation he knew by heart. Elías stepped into the room and the whole place changed, defying all logic—the old building had shifted into what he remembered.
There it was. The orphanage room.
The walls painted light blue, children's drawings taped with yellowed tape, the same toys scattered across the floor. A small bed with wrinkled sheets stood in the corner, and on it, sleeping peacefully, was his sister.
Elías felt his blood turn to ice."No…" he whispered, covering his face with one hand. "This can't be…"
The girl breathed calmly, hugging a rag doll. Her eyelashes rested gently on her cheeks, and on her face there was no trace of suffering, nor of the chaos that had separated them. It was as if nothing had happened, as if they were still living in that lost time full of peace and tranquility.
A knot formed in Elías's throat. The tears he had sworn never to shed again burned in his eyes. He stepped inside, and for an instant, the room wrapped him in the warmth of the past. The pressure on his chest shifted, eased, and the air seemed lighter.
He looked at his hands… and nearly stopped breathing.
They were small. Short fingers, soft skin. A child's hands.
He staggered backward until the wall cut off his retreat. Everything in him had changed: his height, his aching voice, even the weight of his steps. Elías was once again that child from the orphanage, lost in a memory too real to be just a trick.
His sister slowly opened her eyes, as if she had been waiting for him. She smiled sweetly."Eli… shall we play?"
That nickname, that voice, made the world crack beneath his feet.
Elías couldn't answer. His throat was closed, as if every word had turned into a nail piercing through his chest. His sister's smile shattered him. It was so innocent, so pure… as if time had not moved forward a single second since those orphanage days.
The girl slowly sat up, the rag doll still pressed tightly against her chest. Her gaze was crystal clear, identical to the one he remembered from those times before they had drifted apart on their own paths."I was waiting for you…" she said softly, like a whisper filled with a familiar affection that made him tremble.
Elías took a step toward her, but the room answered before he could. The walls vibrated, the taped drawings wrinkled as if they were made of flesh instead of paper. The floor cracked under his feet, showing small black fissures that spread slowly.
Elías blinked and, for an instant, his sister's bed was no longer a bed, but a rotten wooden plank covered in dust. The rag doll was broken, stuffed with insects that crawled toward the floor. His sister, however, was still there, smiling at him as if nothing was wrong."Don't leave me alone again, Eli…"
Her childish voice broke, sliding into a deeper, distorted tone, as if two voices spoke at once. Elías pressed his hands to his ears, trembling from the burning pain as his eardrums threatened to bleed. He wanted to escape, but the feeling in his chest made it impossible to take a single step out of the room.
The air grew thick. An unnatural cold surrounded him, but at the same time, the warmth of his childhood kept him bound to that moment. He didn't know if he was dreaming, trapped in a memory, or if this was part of the punishment he had to face for causing the death of his sister's friend.
If this was hell, if this was punishment for the harm he had done—he would accept it with open arms.
Elías took another step, eyes clouded with tears, and barely managed to utter a word:"Sister…"
The girl extended her hand toward him.
The silence that followed was unbearable. The room stopped distorting, as if the whole world had been suspended in that instant. The drawings, the walls, the bed… everything lost its color, waiting for the outcome.
Elías slowly lifted his hand, trembling, inches away from reaching her.
At the very moment his fingers were about to touch hers, the room's lights flickered, and a suffocating pressure and stench began to corrode everything inside.