The sky above the Dollhouse cracked like porcelain.
Mikael blinked. One second, he was at the burning table with Elise and Lina—the next, he stood alone in a vast white hallway lined with framed paintings. But these weren't art. Each frame showed a moment from his life. His first memory. The day he met Elise. The time he dreamed of something watching him from the mirror.
And at the end of the hall was a mirror.
But this time, the reflection wasn't his.
It was a puppet, hanging limp, with strings made of scribbled words instead of thread.
He stepped closer. The puppet twitched.
"Don't move," said a voice beside him.
It was Elise, or someone wearing her shape. Her eyes were hollow. Her mouth didn't move when she spoke.
"This place feeds on choices. If you step through the mirror, you become what the Author writes. If you destroy it, you become the story's end."
Mikael stared at the puppet again. "Which one is real? You or Lina?"
She smiled. "Wrong question."
Suddenly, the mirror shattered. Ink spilled from the cracks like blood, and from it rose the Author's true form—an enormous skeletal figure made of torn pages and burnt typewriter keys. Its head was a quill. Its voice was thunder.
"YOU. ARE. DRAFTED."
Lina burst through the wall of paintings, dragging Mikael back just as a bony hand lunged forward.
"This isn't just a Dollhouse anymore," she said, panting. "It's a library of forgotten lives. And we're next on the shelf."
The trio ran, chased by flickering shadows shaped like characters—unfinished, broken, abandoned.
Mikael yelled over the chaos, "What happens if we finish the story?"
Elise screamed, "Then it ends! But if we rewrite it—maybe we live!"
As the Author roared behind them, the hall bent like a spine cracking open. Pages rained down, each one etched with Mikael's name in blood-red ink.
He had to decide.
Become the puppet. Or take the pen.