Perennial Forest, Realm Of Lost Things
It felt like falling sideways through memory.
Colors bent in directions they shouldn't. One moment I was standing beside Antic in the Perennial Forest, my feet slick with dew and earth, and the next—air. Cold, thin, spinning air.
We dropped.
I didn't scream. I'd learned by now that falling didn't always mean breaking.
When the landing came, it was soft. Damp grass. The kind that clings. My dress stuck to my knees and arms, the smell of old moss and something faintly... burnt hung in the air.
I lay there for a moment, unmoving. The sky above—if it was a sky—had a film over it. Pale, flickering like an old lantern behind wax paper. Everything here was dim, like the light had forgotten how to be light.
I sat up.
Around me were things. Piles of them. Scattered. Arranged in strange still-lifes like the room of someone halfway through cleaning but having given up completely. A cracked teacup balanced on a violin case. A dented brass telescope lying across a child's wooden sled. Faded letters with no stamps. Threadbare scarves that still smelled faintly like people.
The Realm of Lost Things.
I knew that's where we were, even if no one told me. It wasn't that the place said it aloud—it just felt like the kind of place that didn't need to introduce itself.
I stood. My bare feet squished into the damp moss. A beetle crawled across my toe. I didn't move.
A thud. A grunt. Then Antic tumbled from the sky like a dropped marionette.
He landed on all fours like a cat, his wild black hair bouncing, the sheen of his skin catching the low light.
"Whew!" He slapped a hand on his thigh, grinning like he'd just finished a rollercoaster. "Not the worst fall I've had, but pretty high on the disorientation chart."
I didn't reply. I was still processing the way his skin steamed, how the vines on his overalls twitched when he moved like they were alive.
He stretched, shirtless of course, which seemed to be his default state. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I cannot see," I said flatly.
He paused, blinked, then laughed. "Still got it."
I turned away. The air was thicker here. Not heavy like the forest, where breath felt wet and green. This was stale. Dry. Like everything around us had been holding its breath for too long.
I stepped forward.
Something pulled at me—not physically, not even spiritually. It was like a whisper with no sound, brushing against the back of my teeth.
Behind me, Antic cursed softly. "This place is... weird."
I didn't disagree. The realm didn't hum like the Perennial Forest. It ached. Like a bruise that had stopped healing. I could feel it in my feet. In my ribs.
He caught up beside me. "No Eyes, do you feel that? Like someone's watching but also like no one's left?"
I said nothing. My head tilted slightly as I picked up a sound.
A music box. Twisting, broken. A lullaby playing backwards.
We walked toward it, the way you walk into a memory you didn't mean to unlock.
The longer we walked, the less it felt like walking and more like wading. Through time, through grief, through something nobody had the words for.
It wasn't just abandoned things here. It was memories. Forgotten, not discarded. That was the difference. These weren't thrown away—just misplaced, like keys you swore you had in your hand a moment ago. You could feel the grief of them trying to remember what they were for.
Antic kicked over a rusted birdcage. The latch swung loose with a tired creak.
"This place makes my horns itch," he muttered. "Like something's crawling in my hair. And I'm not convinced it's not something actually crawling in my hair."
I didn't respond.
I was watching a pile of children's shoes. Hundreds. Tiny, perfect, out of place. Some still tied, some missing laces. Lined up neatly in rows like they were waiting for feet that never came home.
The sound returned. Not from the outside. From inside my skull. A high, trembling whistle—not painful, but pressurized. Like I was tuned to a frequency this realm wanted to hum in.
Antic turned. "You hear that?"
"No."
"Huh. Must just be you getting haunted again."
He tried to smile, but even he seemed uneasy.
The buildings began to form around us. Worn facades, skeletal structures with collapsed beams and wind-bitten roofs. A town half-remembered, refusing to rot all the way. A grocery shop where all the cans had no labels. A post office where the mailbox doors opened and shut in the breeze like yawning mouths.
People drifted through it. Things that used to be people, more accurately.
They moved like smoke—half-there, flickering. Faces washed-out. No expressions. No eye contact. Like a broken film reel stuck in loop.
Antic waved at one, then flinched when it phased right through his hand.
"Okay, that's gonna stay with me tonight," he muttered. "Ghosts with social anxiety. What a combo."
One figure stood in front of a broken record player, its arms stiff at its sides. The vinyl spun but produced no music. Just that soft, scratchy static. The figure tilted its head, again and again, as if trying to remember what the song used to be.
Another ghost stood before a mirror that had no reflection.
They weren't violent. Just... tired.
I could feel their exhaustion under my skin. Apathy clinging to my bones like cold water.
"They don't want us here," I said. "They're not angry. They're… resigned."
Antic looked around. "Resigned? Like what, like office workers waiting for retirement?"
I didn't answer. A man with no mouth and button eyes brushed past me. I didn't flinch. He smelled like dust and wet paper. He left no footprints.
We walked on.
The road narrowed into a corridor between leaning buildings. Broken signs creaked overhead in a language that shifted when you weren't looking at it.
Antic muttered, "I feel like I'm walking into a sad painting nobody wanted to finish."
Then we found the square.
A clock tower with no hands stood over a dried-up fountain, the water crusted in dark green film. In the middle, a music box played an off-key tune—twisting itself open and shut like a mouth chewing a lullaby.
Surrounding it, five shadows.
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, backs to us, staring at the box.
I moved closer. Antic put a hand out to stop me.
"Don't—No Eyes—maybe we shouldn't mess with—"
Too late.
The nearest shadow turned.
Its face was stretched, like the skin had tried to smile but forgot how. It looked directly at me with eyes that weren't eyes—just wet patches where tears had once been.
Its voice creaked like a door that hadn't been opened in years.
"Leave."
The others turned, one by one, whispering it like prayer.
"Leave…"
"Leave…"
"Leave…"
They weren't threatening.
It was worse.
They sounded like people who'd given up on being heard.
Antic stepped back. "Okay, yep. Got the message. Loud and clear and deeply unsettling."
I didn't move. The shadows didn't follow.
They just stood there, whispering into the music.
Like if they said it enough times, maybe they'd vanish altogether.
The scent hit me first—like lavender sachets left too long in a drawer. Powdery, old, but clinging to something desperate. Antic gagged as we passed beneath an archway made entirely of bent parasols and mannequin arms.
"Ugh—what the hell is that smell? Smells like... makeup and dying dreams."
I didn't answer. I was too focused on the shifting shimmer of color that flickered through the doorway ahead.
Nestled between a crumbling dollhouse and a tower of headless rocking horses was a storefront. No name, no signage—just a window filled with dresses that shimmered in and out of memory. A 1950s prom gown with bloodstains on the hem. A Victorian corset laced too tightly. A tattered tutu that hummed like it remembered applause. Everything floated ever so slightly off the floor. Not quite displayed. Not quite at rest.
Antic raised an eyebrow. "No sign, no business hours, and a tutu floating in the air. Yep. Totally normal. Absolutely not cursed."
The bell above the door jangled itself.
We stepped in.
The boutique was much larger inside, like the inside of a music box someone had cranked open too wide. Bolts of fabric fluttered on their own. Hangers spun lazily, whispering secrets. And in the far corner, seated at a sewing machine made from bone-white porcelain and clock parts—
"Oi, get out or buy something," snapped a voice like royalty dipped in vinegar.
There she was.
A Porcelain Doll.
Perched on a velvet stool, legs crossed, one cracked hand delicately adjusting a spool of black thread. Her porcelain face was flawlessly painted save for a jagged fracture running from her temple to her jaw. A tiny tiara gleamed from her wild, ribbon-tangled hair. She wore a fur stole made of discarded teddy bears and a gown that looked like it was stitched from faded dreams.
"Is this—uh, are you open?" Antic asked, elbowing me. "She's not gonna... throw scissors, is she?"
The Doll didn't look up. "It's always open. People just forget."
That made sense here.
Antic turned to me, whispering behind his hand. "Okay but why do I feel like she's got, like, a secret knife collection made of regret?"
I stepped forward. "You make the dresses?"
She paused, finally glancing up at me. "They make themselves," she said. "I just... remind them what they were."
She turned the crank on the sewing machine and a low hum filled the air. A long, tattered robe floated down from a shelf, spiraling toward a mannequin that hadn't been there a second ago.
A ghostly customer—flickering, translucent—appeared beside it.
Dolly didn't acknowledge her.
The mannequin dressed itself. Slowly, precisely. The ghost stared at it, eyes glassy with something close to recognition.
Then, just as suddenly, both vanished.
Dolly let out a tired sigh. "They come to feel it for a minute. That thing they forgot. What it was like to dance. To sing. To want something."
Antic blinked. "You... give ghosts fashion therapy?"
Dolly snorted. "I give them memory. Which is more than most people bother with anymore."
She turned to me. "You don't belong here."
I didn't flinch. "I don't belong anywhere."
Her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. More like her face remembered how to make one.
Antic sauntered to a rack and pulled a jacket that shimmered like it had been made from moonlight and sarcasm. "So what, these... clothes? They help people remember who they were?"
Dolly didn't look at him. "No. They help people feel who they were. Then they forget. That's how this place works."
She stood, brushing off invisible dust from her skirt. "Every soul that lands here is clinging to something. A song. A toy. A dress. You think they're lost because they're broken. But they're broken because they're lost."
There was a long silence.
Then, Antic, quietly: "...That's actually kinda beautiful. Sad. But, like, poetic-sad. The type Dolly probably yells at in private while drinking tea made of tears."
"Don't flatter me, leaf-boy," she snapped. "You'll only embarrass yourself."
He saluted. "Aye aye, your majesty."
But there was a flicker of warmth there. Just a glimmer.
And I understood something unspoken: Dolly wasn't just helping the forgotten. She was one of them.
Her boutique was a memory made real. A stitch in time where things almost made sense again.
'' GET THE FCK OUT!'' Dolly Shouted
We left the shop through a curtain made of neckties. The boutique didn't have a proper back exit—just a vague opening into more fog. No signs. No warnings. The world beyond felt… quieter. Not safer. Just quieter, like the sound had been filtered through velvet.
The boutique owner didn't follow us. But I could feel her eyes.
She hadn't given a name. We hadn't asked. It didn't occur to me until after we'd walked a few paces that I didn't even know if she had one.
Antic slung a scarf over his bare shoulder like he'd won a prize. "Well, that wasn't traumatic at all," he muttered, then whistled low through his teeth. "Y'know, I've been patrolled, stabbed, nearly eaten, and serenaded by sentient mold—but that shop gave me the chills."
"She's lonely," I said.
He glanced at me. "You always do that?"
"What."
"Say things like they're math problems."
"I didn't say numbers."
Antic gave a short laugh. "You're a real riot, No Eyes."
I stopped.
It was here again. That ache behind my ribs. Like a wire being plucked deep in my chest.
There was no sound—no real sound—but I heard something. Like breath against the shell of my ear. Calling.
Something deeper in the ruins. Not calling my name. Just… calling.
I walked forward.
"Ah, bloody hell." Antic jogged to catch up, bare feet thudding softly beside mine. "You get like this sometimes. Like you're being possessed by a haunted shopping list."
"Something's there," I said simply.
The ruins opened wider now. Less town, more… sprawl. Collapsed furniture and rusted machinery. Garden gnomes stacked like bones. And something that might have been a church—or a toy factory. It leaned sideways, held together with ivy and time.
Antic kept one hand near the dagger at his hip, the other adjusting his overalls. "This place is gettin' thicker. Heavier. Like breathin' through syrup, yeah?"
I nodded. Though for me, it wasn't just the air.
Something was waking up inside me. Not a memory—those were gone. But instinct. A heat under my skin. A humming.
Antic slowed as we passed a crooked streetlamp with vines for wires. "No Eyes," he said softly, his voice suddenly serious. "I know that look. You're about to do something daft."
"I feel it," I whispered. "Like I'm standing in a place that used to love me. But it forgot how."
"Okay, that's beautiful and alarming. Great."
We crossed what remained of a plaza. A rusted fountain in the middle sprayed only mist, and a carousel groaned in place. Everything was still. Like the realm itself was holding its breath.
Antic moved close. "We should head back soon. Before the sky starts doing the whole blood-oath pink thing again. Hate that."
I didn't respond.
Because standing in the middle of the plaza was the shopkeeper.
The porcelain girl.
She'd followed us after all.
She stood barefoot on the edge of the broken fountain, arms folded, staring at the carousel.
Antic raised a brow. "She teleport?"
She didn't look at us.
Her head tilted slightly. "Do you hear it too?"
I stepped closer. "The pull?"
She nodded once. "Been followin' it for years. You think you're the only one that feels it?"
Antic scratched the back of his neck. "You're really into the whole cryptic fashion ghost vibe, huh?"
She turned, eyes glittering under the cracked porcelain glaze. "I follow the pull, and I mend what I can. Until they forget again."
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know." Her voice dropped. "But I think it remembers me."
We moved in silence, but it wasn't the peaceful kind. It was the kind that stuck to your skin. Made you aware of your breathing. Of each step on the dirt-cracked ground.
The porcelain girl led us now. She didn't explain where. She didn't ask if we'd follow. She just walked with her tiny fists clenched and her head tilted like she was listening to something we couldn't hear.
Antic leaned down to me as we passed a staircase that led to nowhere. "Y'ever feel like we're in a bad bedtime story written by a drunk librarian?"
"Yes."
He blinked. "Wait, seriously?"
"It's the only thing you've said that makes sense."
He stared at me for a beat. "Damn, No Eyes."
We came upon an alley shaped like a question mark. The sky was darker here. Like fog had skin and it wrapped everything in it. Every now and then we passed items leaning against buildings—old boots, cracked mirrors, a wedding dress folded on a chair with a single letter in its lap. It wasn't just the stuff. It was the weight of having once mattered.
Antic whistled low. "Sheesh... every item here's got a story. Can feel it buzzin' in my teeth."
The girl turned her head slightly. "Most of them forget. But not all."
"What is this place?" I asked. "Really."
She slowed. "The realm of lost things. Where what gets forgotten ends up. But they don't stay still. Memories get restless."
We followed her into a narrow corridor of stone and moss. At the end was a narrow door shaped like a teardrop. She paused and knocked once.
Nothing happened.
She looked over her shoulder at me. "It only opens for those who don't know what they're looking for."
I stepped forward. The door unlatched with a click like dry laughter.
Antic muttered, "Welp. That's not suspicious at all. Ladies first."
I entered.
The inside was... warm. Like standing in someone's attic, but it remembered you. The air was thick with incense and static, and shelves stretched impossibly high above us, filled with unmarked boxes and jars and half-melted candles. Shadows darted between shelves like small animals, too quick to see.
Antic stepped in behind me, glancing up. "Why do I feel like we just walked into somebody's memory palace?"
The girl followed last. "Because that's what it is."
A soft humming began to fill the room. Not from a machine. From the walls.
I felt it move under my skin like a heartbeat. It wasn't threatening. But it wasn't kind, either. It just was. Watching us.
A soft whisper brushed my mind.
"Do you remember yet?"
I staggered. Antic caught my elbow. "Hey, hey—stay with me."
"I heard something."
"Yeah, I hear a lotta somethings in this joint. Mostly bad ones."
"I think it was me."
The porcelain girl walked ahead, guiding us past a row of mannequins wearing mismatched gloves.
She pointed at a black door at the far end. "That's where the strongest ones go."
"The strongest what?" Antic asked.
"Memories," she said. "The ones too heavy to forget. The ones that hurt."
We stopped.
Something behind that door felt like it knew my face.
Antic gently touched my shoulder. "You don't gotta open it."
"I think I already have."
The ones that hurt.
The black door loomed in front of me, tall as a chapel gate and shaped like an open mouth. It didn't creak or groan when I pushed it. It just… gave way. Like it wanted me inside.
Antic didn't follow right away. His voice was low, firm. "You sure, No Eyes? This place smells like it bites."
"I'm not scared," I said.
That was mostly true.
He scratched the back of his neck. "That's... great for you. I'm shittin' bricks over here."
I stepped inside.
The air snapped shut behind me like a jar sealing. Sound died. Light changed.
It wasn't dark in here—not exactly. Just dim, like the whole world had been stained with bruise-purple and rust. The walls pulsed faintly, as if they were breathing. The floor was made of something soft, like velvet soaked in rainwater.
Then I saw the glass.
Rows and rows of floating panes, like museum displays suspended in air. Inside each one was a memory—mine? Someone else's? Didn't matter. They all felt like mine.
I approached one.
Inside, a young girl in a white dress—tattered, barefoot, her hair in a long braid—stood in a photo studio, surrounded by adults whose smiles were paper thin. A man pointed a camera at her while a woman with sharp hands fixed her hair over and over. The girl never smiled. She never blinked. She stood like a statue. A product.
I reached out. My fingertips brushed the glass.
The scene moved.
FLASH.
The bulb went off.
The little girl flinched.
"Hold still, darling," said the woman. "You're a symbol. Symbols don't cry."
My stomach twisted.
The memory cracked.
Hairline fractures spidered across the glass as the woman's voice played again. "The world loves a tragedy. Especially when she's beautiful."
A second crack bloomed across the girl's face.
Another voice, deeper, sour with amusement: "Don't take any wooden nickels, sweetheart. Smile for the people."
Then the glass shattered.
Blood poured from the empty frame.
I didn't scream. But I stepped back.
Antic appeared at my side like a ghost, eyes wide. "What the fuck was that?"
I didn't answer.
He looked around, breathing shallow. "This place is sick. It's like walkin' through someone's skin."
He reached toward another memory. A different one.
"Don't—" I warned.
But he'd already touched it.
The glass blinked alive.
This time it was a field of poppies. Red, endless, swaying like they knew something. In the center stood a man with half a face, smoking a long pipe. His skin was stitched in patches like a rag doll, and where his eyes should've been were candles burning blue.
The man turned toward us.
He smiled.
Antic yanked his hand away. "Nope. Nope. Fuck this."
"Why are these here?" I whispered.
"I don't know, but if this is what your brain looks like on the inside, you need therapy and an exorcist."
More panes began to flicker awake on their own. A crying mirror. A violin playing itself with strings made of teeth. A bathtub filled with long, black hair.
And in the center of the vault… a throne.
Not grand. Not gilded. Just a tall, crooked thing made of broken doll arms and silver utensils. A cracked tea set rested at its feet.
And sitting on the throne… was me.
Or something like me.
Her skin was porcelain. Her dress was whiter than snow, stitched up the middle with red thread. Her braid had been chopped off at the shoulder. Her mouth was painted in a perfect smile.
But her eyes… were hollow sockets leaking black fluid down her cheeks.
I didn't breathe.
Antic stepped between us. "Is that... you?"
The figure stood.
She moved stiffly, like her limbs remembered how to be human but had long since stopped trying.
Then she spoke.
Her voice was my voice, but sweeter. Glazed. Artificial.
"Welcome back, Pecola."
The name landed like a stone in my chest.
Pecola?
It echoed—but it didn't belong. Not to me. Not yet. It was like overhearing a secret meant for someone else.
I blinked, lips parting.
"What... what did you just call me?"
She only smiled.
"You'll forget this too."
Then she burst—porcelain, blood, silence.
Antic pulled me backward, breath hot near my ear. "You okay? You—shit, you're shaking."
My hands were wet. Not with blood. With something colder.
"I think," I murmured, voice hollow, "she thought I was someone else."
Antic didn't correct me.
Neither of us spoke as the last memory pane cracked behind us and shattered.
Past the ghostly outskirts of the Lost Town, down an alley lined with crooked lampposts and wilted banners of forgotten parades, a narrow stairway led underground—stone steps slick with moss, etched with faint names long scratched away. The moment they descended, the temperature dropped. The air smelled like powder and rot, cinnamon and rusted hinges.
At the base of the stairs stood a pale violet door, shaped like a heart split down the middle. Above it, carved into the decaying archway, flickered a crooked wooden sign:
"The Déjà Vu Wardrobe"
Where memories dress themselves
BLACKOUT
I blinked
Where am I?
I feel
Nothing
I sense Nothing
I forgot something
I think?
My senses are coming back
It's foggy
I feel grass
I feel Antic?