At first, Mira screamed.
She screamed until her voice vanished into the stale, unmoving air of the dollhouse.
But no one heard her.
Not her parents.
Not Ruby.
Not the world she had once belonged to.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been trapped here. Time bled together. There was no sun, no clock. Just endless twilight and the silence of porcelain mouths sealed shut.
Mira could still move—walk, run, cry. But her reflection betrayed her: a porcelain girl in a pink dress, painted lips curved in a soft, haunting smile. Glassy green eyes stared back, unmoving.
I can still feel… I can still think, she told herself again and again, like a mantra to fight off the fear.
But outside, no one saw her. No matter how much she pounded on invisible walls, no matter how much she screamed or tried to throw things, the real world remained untouched.
Once, she saw her parents—huddled together on the couch, tearful and pale. Mira had stood inches from them, shouting their names. Her mother had looked right through her.
The only ones who looked at her now… were the dolls.
They filled every corner of the mansion-like dollhouse: sitting in antique chairs, perched on shelves, slumped in corners. Some were pristine. Others cracked and dusty. But all of them stared.
Unmoving. Unblinking.
Watching.
Sometimes, Mira thought they shifted. Not when she was looking directly—but in the space between blinks. A head turned. A smile deepened. A hand shifted positions.
She didn't want to admit it, but the truth clawed at her:
They were like me once.
Children. Teens. Maybe even adults. All of them taken.
Just like I was.
The Collector's presence was nowhere to be found. No footsteps. No voice. Just the heavy echo of nothingness, as if the house itself was holding its breath.
Mira wandered deeper through the dollhouse. Each room was more ornate than the last—filled with glass cases, faded dresses, jewelry boxes, rusted music boxes that never played.
She found a cracked door leading to a forgotten room.
Inside were broken dolls.
Piles of them—limbs missing, eyes shattered, dresses torn. They were stacked in corners like discarded toys. But Mira could see the truth in their faces. There was grief in the way their mouths had been sculpted. There was pain in the way their hands curled inward.
On the wall above them, carved deep into old wood:
WISHES COST.
Mira stared at the words, heart pounding.
She stepped closer to one of the dolls—its arm snapped off at the elbow, its face split down the middle. Something poked from its chest. She reached out and gently pulled it free.
It was a scrap of parchment. Faded, stained.
"I wished for peace. She gave me silence."
A cold shiver ran through Mira. Her own wish had been for peace, hadn't it? For the fighting to stop. For her parents to be happy again.
But she never imagined this.
She looked at her porcelain hands. At the dress. At the ring missing from her finger. The one her mother now clutched in the real world like a relic.
You only get two, she remembered the tag saying. Make a wish. But be wise.
And now her wishes were spent.
She wandered back into the hall, past rows and rows of silent dolls.
I have to find a way out, she whispered. There has to be something. A weakness. A clue. Anything.
Somewhere, far away, she felt the faintest pull—like someone thinking of her. A glimmer, maybe, from the world outside. But it faded as quickly as it came.
She didn't cry.
Not anymore.
Mira pressed her hand against the wall and whispered, to no one in particular:
"I'm still here. And I won't let whoever it is win."
For a moment, the silence seemed to shift—almost as if the house heard her.
And from the darkest hallway, a single doll slowly turned its head toward her. Its eyes glowed faintly green.
Then it whispered, in a voice like dust:
"Then you must remember before she takes that too."