Mira landed hard on damp stone. The air was wet, metallic—blood-scented.
This wasn't the house.
This was beneath it.
A massive cavern stretched in every direction, the walls glittering with mirrored stone and lichen-like growths that pulsed with cold light. Black roots jutted from cracks in the walls, twitching faintly.
She rose, breath catching.
The sound down here was unbearable.
Whispers. Screams. Cries. Laughter. Her own voice.
All overlapping.
All wrong.
She walked, slowly, past mirrors embedded in the rock—each one showing not just reflections, but memories. Her mother, weeping. Her father—gone too early—speaking a name she couldn't hear. Herself at thirteen, bleeding in the woods, clutching her stomach like something had been taken from her.
Every step deepened the noise.
And at the center of the chamber—an altar.
Built of mirror shards and bone.
On it lay a shape.
Child-sized.
Covered in a black cloth.
Mira didn't want to pull it back.
But her hand moved on its own.
The cloth fell away.
Underneath was a doll—stitched in her likeness.
Eyes sewn shut. Mouth missing.
Heart carved with a single name.
Myrah.
She screamed.