In a time that seemed endless, darkness enveloped the corners of the old theater. The plays Crawford once directed still flickered in Caleb's mind like living threads of drama, weaving between past and present. He walked steadily through the narrow corridors, where the theater's crumbling walls whispered tales of ghosts who had long haunted the place before the eternal performance began.
In one of the abandoned corners, a doll stood on an old wooden table, its glass eyes nearly cracking from sheer fear and anxiety. This doll was unlike any other — its features were almost human, as if it wasn't just wood and tattered clothes, but something more alive in a body not quite human. She was Crawford's former servant, and her long-faded eyes suddenly flickered with that familiar look Caleb knew too well: remembrance.
Despite the pale light, her face glowed faintly at the moment her memories returned. "He isn't dead, he's just waiting!" she screamed in a muffled voice, as if talking to herself — or perhaps to some lost being from another dimension.
Her words echoed in Caleb's ears, sending a chill through him. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. How could a dead thing — a doll — remember and cry out like that? He felt something important was hidden here, but he couldn't quite solve the puzzle.
He turned to approach her, and when he touched her cold hand, it was as though life surged back into her. Her glassy eyes seemed to shift through time. "You're not who you once were," she said quietly, then added, "I know what happened. I... I was there."
"How?" Caleb asked, unable to restrain his curiosity. "Why do you scream those words every night? What do they mean?"
The doll grasped his hand with her hard wooden fingers, marked by time, and began to tell an ancient story — one not confined to this theater, but one that carried secrets of the undead. As she spoke, her human memories seemed to return piece by piece, like unfolding pictures revealing a dark secret at the heart of the stage.
Then she said, in a faltering voice, "A room beneath the theater… it has everything… all the files… the victims…"
Shock overtook Caleb as he tried to comprehend her words. The files she spoke of might hold the key, but he also knew this might be a path with no return.
He looked at her again and asked, "The seven scars… what are they?"
The doll answered with a blank stare, her eyes filled only with confusion and sorrow: "Each one… holds a piece of the lost memories. Every scar represents part of something, maybe… maybe something you shouldn't remember."
Suspense quickened Caleb's heartbeat. He knew that every word from the doll could be a clue to solving this riddle.
The time Caleb spent in that underground room was more than mere moments. Its blackened walls, lined with broken shelves, bore the heavy burden of secrets hidden from the world. But now he saw those secrets up close. Each file screamed with pain and mystery.
The doll, with her returned human memories, spoke in low, broken tones — as if translating an ancient silence into desperate words. She seemed to be stitching together the lost threads of moments she thought forgotten. Yet memory always finds its way into awareness, and the strings tying her wooden form to what was once human still glimmered in the unseen world.
"The files… they're all here," she said, her cold fingers brushing over the scattered papers. "Every victim, every one of them — there were tangled threads, timing, unfinished stories."
Caleb approached the table with rising tension. Most of the papers had started to decay, but on some pages were cryptic writings and strange numbers scrawled in jagged lines. The files were full of symbols, seemingly unbreakable codes, but one message was clear: all the victims were part of a "performance." A show no one could escape, meticulously prepared as the final act of a grand play, with Crawford as the director connecting all the pieces.
"His father…" the doll whispered as Caleb focused on the files. "His father knew everything. He was one of the players in that game — part of the Shadow Group. He knew everyone would become a victim. Even me."
Caleb was stunned. Was that the father of the first victim the doll referred to earlier? Was this all not just a coincidence, but a carefully orchestrated tragedy?
He stepped back, recalling what the doll had said about the seven scars. These were ancient symbols, more than just physical wounds. They were keys — tied to time, to a place, to a person holding the answers.
But what struck Caleb the most was the doll's final haunting words: "He isn't dead… he's just waiting." They could only mean one thing — Crawford wasn't dead, as everyone believed. He was still alive, watching from somewhere, planning something bigger — something no one could anticipate.
Fear began to seep into Caleb's bones. This theater, this place, was hiding something vast. This was the final chapter of the game Crawford had started — a game Caleb might never escape.
The doll, her memories awakened, pointed to something new within the scattered files — something that might reveal the final piece of this dark puzzle. But Caleb knew every step forward might lead him to a point of no return.
As Caleb turned the pages, his breath quickened. Each new file deepened the mystery and anxiety shrouding the place. The decaying sheets contained detailed information on every victim — their names, dates of death, and most disturbingly, the reasons they fell into Crawford's trap. But one file was different from the rest.
In the lower corner of the page, a name was written in an unusual script — "Father of the first victim." The information was scrambled, nothing clear or directly connected. But the title alone sparked suspicion in Caleb's mind.
"You want to know more about the father of the first victim, don't you?" said the doll, her expression frozen in a cold smile, unable to hide the sorrow in her eyes. "He was part of the game — maybe more than you think."
Caleb felt something strange creeping into his thoughts. He had believed this was all about Crawford. But now he saw things ran far deeper. The father of the first victim had been one of the masterminds behind the game, and he might have been the one who brought Crawford back to life. Was this all his doing? Was he the true leader of this deadly game?
Caleb took a deep breath, paused, then decided: he had to know more. "Where is he now?" he asked the doll, his voice low but firm with determination. "Where can I find him?"
The doll looked at him, then suddenly went silent. As if stepping back, her eyes locked on something distant in the dark. Then, in a faint whisper, she said, "He's here… close to you. Near the curtain."
The words were strange and unclear, but Caleb felt their weight. The curtain… did she mean the theater curtain? Was that the place he needed to go?
He had no time to think. These were the final pieces of the puzzle he had long sought. When he turned back to the doll, she was gone. As if she had dissolved into strands of dim light in the shadows, leaving behind a deep sense of emptiness.
Caleb moved toward the theater's lower entrance and stood before the grand curtain veile
d in darkness. This was where the story began, but would it…