My
Consciousness
Is Back
I sensed that
Antic and I have been
walking
through silence like it was stitched into the air.
The fog didn't roll — it clung. Sticky-soft, like it wanted to hold us back. I stepped through it barefoot. Every surface felt different: soft moss, brittle leaves, wood that gave under pressure like it was waiting to crack and swallow me whole. Antic made more noise than I did, mostly because he couldn't walk quiet if someone paid him.
"Y'know," he said, somewhere behind me, "this part o' the realm's a bit…off. Like, extra off. Even the mist's actin' suspicious."
I didn't answer. I didn't know how mist could act.
He caught up with me anyway. He always did. "Don't get me wrong — I'm a sucker for drama. But this place? Feels like we stepped into someone's unsent love letter."
"What's a love letter?" I asked.
He choked. Like an actual sound. "You serious?"
I nodded.
He scratched the back of his neck. "It's... like a fancy letter. You write one when your guts feel weird about someone. But like, in a nice way."
"I've never written about guts."
"Not surprised."
We came around a bend in the fog, and the trees changed. Grew denser. The air felt sticky with memory. Like something had cried here too long and dried itself out.
That's when we heard it.
A crash. Followed by a shriek.
Porcelain.
Sharp and clear.
Antic flinched. "Hell's teeth, what was—?"
I was already moving. Something in the pitch of that scream pulled me faster than sense.
She was small.
That was my first thought.
Just a small, broken thing.
She stood on a pile of shattered music boxes, her porcelain dress cracked, her face split down the cheek like someone had dropped her from a great height and tried to pretend they hadn't.
"Don't come any closer!" she snapped, voice big enough to break the fog. "This is my corner! My graveyard! My f*cking boutique!"
Antic raised his hands, backing up with exaggerated slowness. "Whoa there, lil' miss teacup. We ain't stealin' your corner."
"I'm not little. I'm fashionably scaled."
I blinked. "What's a boutique?"
She whirled on me. "The hell is wrong with your face?"
"Nothing. I just don't have eyes."
Antic coughed — it sounded suspiciously like a laugh he wasn't supposed to let out.
The doll squinted at me. "No eyes?"
"That's what he calls me."
She frowned. "It's literal. You're not being cute."
"I don't know how to be cute."
"Same."
The tension didn't fade — not really — but the doll folded her arms and sat. Right on top of a cracked music box.
"You're not from here," she said after a long silence.
"We're lookin' for answers," Antic said, stepping cautiously closer. "And maybe a hat. You got hats?"
She glared. "You think I'd stock commoner headwear in my boutique? This is a house of taste."
I sat cross-legged on the ground. The fog was cold against my skin, but I didn't mind it. "Do you have things that help people remember?"
She looked at me for too long.
And then she said, too quietly: "Only for a moment."
"Only for a moment," she said.
The doll's voice was sharper than it should've been for someone so small, but not angry anymore. Just tired. Like the sound glass would make if it could sigh.
She jumped down from the music box, landing with a porcelain click. Her dress clinked with it—too stiff to be fabric, too clean to be alive. The color of forgotten lace and old secrets.
"Y'know," Antic started, "ya might consider offerin' tea or somethin'. If yer runnin' a whole boutique outta a damn trash graveyard, hospitality wouldn't kill ya."
She ignored him.
Instead, she walked toward a crooked door made of button panels and melted vinyl records. With a grunt, she yanked it open, disappearing into the dark without a single word. A velvet bell chimed. A sound so soft it almost didn't exist.
Antic turned to me. "Reckon we follow the murder doll or go get eaten by fog?"
I walked through the door.
Inside was...warm.
Not temperature-warm. But...memory-warm. Smelled like chalk and mothballs and expensive perfume someone used only once before they died. The boutique was shaped like a music box. Everything circular. Walls lined with mannequins — headless, armless, faceless — all draped in dream-stuff. Gowns made of mist. Trousers stitched from clouded glass. Shawls that glowed faint blue like the skin of a bruise.
Antic muttered behind me, "This place smells like my grandmother's wardrobe... and disappointment."
The doll was already at work, moving like a storm in a teacup. She pulled gloves from a drawer filled with coins. Scarves from a birdcage. Tiny boots from inside a hollow book.
She spoke as she worked.
"People don't come here by accident. Something pulls them. Something they miss, maybe. Something they think they forgot." She held up a lavender bonnet trimmed in wilted pearls. "I give them back pieces. A scarf that smells like a dead lover. A jacket that still has tears in the lining from the last panic attack."
Antic leaned against a mannequin with no arms. "Sounds... kind of cruel, don't it?"
"They remember for five minutes." Her voice didn't waver. "Then it fades again."
I walked to a rack of dresses. I didn't touch them. One dress was stitched from what looked like paper. Another had sleeves that moved like they were breathing.
"But you're still here," I said.
She paused.
"I can't forget myself," she whispered. "That's the problem."
Something heavy passed between us then. Not like a shared thought. More like... mutual ache. The kind that doesn't ask for attention, just sits on your ribs until you forget what breathing felt like before.
Antic broke it. "Aight, well, this got real sad real fast."
The doll turned, snapped, "It was always sad."
Her voice echoed. Sharp enough to slice fabric. For a second, she looked like she might throw something. But then her shoulders dropped, and she sighed like someone who's tried screaming and realized silence hurts more.
"You two are lost," she said, facing a wall of hats. "But not in the same way."
I tilted my head. "What way am I lost?"
She didn't look at me when she answered. "You forgot on purpose."
I blinked. "That doesn't make sense."
"Does anything here?" She yanked a drawer open, flinging a handful of marbles onto the floor. They rolled across the boutique like tiny stars trying to escape.
Antic bent down to pick one up. "What's this do?"
She smirked. "That one holds a broken promise."
Antic dropped it like it bit him.
He wiped his hands on his shorts. "Okay. I'm officially over this memory fashion hellhole."
Then—
The bell rang again.
But the door hadn't opened.
The sound echoed through the boutique, deeper now. Less like a chime. More like a warning.
The lights flickered.
The dresses shifted on their hangers.
Antic looked around. "...Was that supposed to happen?"
The doll went very still. "They're coming."
"Who's they?" Antic asked.
She didn't answer. Instead, she snapped her fingers, and the walls of the boutique began folding inward. Literally—like a pop-up book closing in reverse. Mannequins collapsed, drawers vanished, racks folded into the floor. The boutique wasn't just a shop. It was a pocket. A shell. A shell closing fast.
She turned to me.
"You can stay here and forget everything again," she said. "Or you can follow the sound."
"I can't hear it."
"You will."
Then she was gone. Disappeared behind a curtain made of hair ribbons.
I looked to Antic.
He shrugged. "I don't trust her. But I trust her more than the boutique eatin' itself."
I nodded once and stepped through the curtain.
We followed her into fog.
We stepped back into the dead street, the shop now just a pile of buttons and dust.
I didn't remember what I was looking for.
But I knew I had to find it.
I stepped into the fog and it swallowed me like a mouth that didn't chew.
The boutique was gone behind us. Gone like it had never been there to begin with. No more button walls or haunted bonnets. Just dust, and the faint scent of hot glue and lavender regret.
Antic walked beside me. His shoulder brushed mine now and then, either on accident or on purpose. I couldn't tell. I didn't ask.
He had his hands in his pockets, but he kept glancing behind us. Not subtle. Head on a swivel like we were being hunted.
"Y'ever get that feelin', No Eyes…" he muttered, voice low, "like yer bein' followed by somethin' that used to be alive?"
"I don't feel anything."
"You wouldn't," he said. "Yer whole vibe's like... a sleepin' knife."
I tilted my head. "Knives don't sleep."
He looked at me. Smiled like I was a strange painting he didn't want to stop looking at. "Exactly."
We walked in silence after that. For maybe a minute. Maybe longer. Hard to tell when the fog made the world look like a frozen dream halfway through a nightmare.
Then the sound came back.
Faint.
A low scratching. Like claws on glass. Or teeth grinding bone.
"Ah hell," Antic muttered. "I know that sound."
I didn't.
But I felt it.
My head pulsed. Behind my white eyes, something itched. Something twisted. Like a worm crawling in my thoughts. I grabbed Antic's arm.
"I don't like it."
"Yeah, well neither does my nose—"
His face suddenly snapped forward. Blood shot from his nose in a sharp red stream. It sprayed across his chest like a busted tomato. He didn't even curse. Just blinked and leaned his head back.
"Fuckin'—seriously? Again?"
I stared. "You're bleeding from your face."
"Yeah, thanks, sweetheart, I noticed. Gimme a sec—"
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of dried moss, and shoved it up one nostril with the finesse of a man stuffing a sandwich into a mailbox.
"Good as new."
It wasn't. He looked like a handsome corpse.
"Something's wrong," I said.
"No shit," he said, sniffling. "I'm drippin' outta both ends over here."
"I mean with the fog."
He quieted.
We turned a corner.
And the air changed.
It stopped being mist and started being hot. Not warm. Hot. Like the sun was breathing down our necks even though the sky was grey.
That's when I saw the figures.
Not people.
Not ghosts.
Not even memories.
They looked like... melting dolls. Heads too big. Eyes sagging down their cheeks. Limbs soft and dripping like wax left on a stove. They weren't walking. They were twitching forward. Boneless. Groaning.
Antic stopped cold. "Don't fuckin' move."
I didn't.
One of the melting things twitched its face at us. Its jaw opened sideways. Like a crack spreading across a plate. A sound came out—
click click click click—
Not a voice. Not a growl.
Just clicking.
Antic slowly reached for the knife at his belt.
"You ever seen a lost thought try and remember it's a person?"
"No."
"Good. Let's keep it that way."
One of the things lunged.
Antic grabbed my arm. "RUN!"
We bolted.
Down the broken road. Over shattered porcelain and the bones of forgotten toys. My feet stung every time I stepped on something sharp, but I didn't stop.
The creatures shrieked behind us. The sound of a thousand shattered memories screaming to be remembered.
We turned a corner.
More of them.
Cornered.
Antic grabbed me, shoved me behind a busted carriage wheel.
"I'll distract 'em."
"That's dumb."
"It's brave."
"It's dumb and brave."
"Fuckin' poetic, ain't I?" He flashed me a crooked grin, blood still drying on his upper lip.
Before I could stop him, he jumped out, waved his arms.
"HEY! OVER HERE, YA SAGGY-ASS TOY STORY NIGHTMARES!"
They turned.
And lunged.
He bolted the other way, hooting, laughing, his boots slamming the stone like he was born to cause chaos.
And then—
Crack.
One of them caught his arm.
He yelped, spun, slashed with his knife. Black ooze sprayed the walls. It sizzled like acid. Another one leapt. He dropped flat, rolled, scrambled.
"NO EYES RUN! GO FIND—"
A shriek cut him off.
I didn't run.
I turned.
And standing just behind me was the doll.
Not the melting ones.
The doll.
The one with the cracked porcelain cheeks and glassy blue eyes.
She had a dress on now. Black velvet, short and flaring. Lace like cobwebs.
She held a parasol.
She looked pissed.
And perfect.
"Why," she said, voice a whisper full of teeth, "are you running in MY realm?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
She lifted her hand—
—and with it, the melting things froze.
Then burst into dust.
Antic collapsed to the floor, panting, covered in filth and blood.
She strutted over. Stepped over his body. Didn't even look down.
"Well," she said, glancing at me. "Took you long enough."
I sat cross-legged on a tree root, watching Antic bleed into the grass again. His nose was a mess. Dried red, speckled with flecks of whatever gunk had come out of those melting things. He kept tilting his head back too far, which I'd read once only made it worse. But I didn't tell him.
Because he wouldn't listen anyway.
Dolly—if that was her name—stood a few feet away, turned sideways so she didn't have to look at us. Or maybe so we couldn't see her face.
She was pretending to ignore us. Which meant she wanted to be noticed.
Antic groaned and spat into the grass. "Y'know... I'm startin' to think this rescue mission was more like walkin' into a goddamn blender."
"You were never sent to rescue me."
"Sure I was. They said, 'Antic, yer pretty, yer fast, and you're dumb enough to follow a ghost into a cursed forest. Go fetch.'"
"You didn't fetch anything."
"Fetched a bloody nose and a porcelain banshee with anger issues. Close enough."
Dolly flinched. Her tiny fingers clenched the hem of her skirt. I saw it. She didn't move otherwise.
"You're being cruel again," I told him.
"I'm bein' honest." He groaned, leaning back with both hands behind his head. "Honest hurts."
"Your face hurts."
He cracked a grin. "Aye, now that's comedy."
I turned to the doll. "You haven't told us your name."
Her head twitched toward me.
Then back.
Antic raised an eyebrow. "C'mon, porcelain. We shared trauma. That's basically first base."
She slowly turned, letting her glare crawl across his face like a centipede. "You think this is a joke?"
"I know it ain't," he said, softer this time. "But laughin's cheaper than cryin', sweetheart. And less messy."
She didn't laugh.
But her lips trembled. Just for a second.
I took a step toward her.
"I don't think you're broken."
That stopped her cold.
I continued. "I think you remember what it felt like to be someone's favorite. And now you think that's gone forever."
Her shoulders drew up high, then down like a breath she didn't want to take.
"I'm not anyone's anything anymore," she whispered.
Antic muttered under his breath, "Fuckin' tragic toy story."
I ignored him.
"You can come with us," I said. "We're not favorite things either."
She looked at me now. Her glass eyes were sharp. Tired.
"I don't even know where you're going."
I didn't either.
"Somewhere different," I said. "Somewhere else."
Silence.
Then she said, "You'll leave me. Like the last ones."
Antic stood. Walked over to her. Stuck out his hand.
"We probably will," he said honestly. "But not today."
She stared at his palm.
Then slapped it away.
Then grabbed his wrist and held it tight.
He winced. "Ow—damn, you got a grip for a doll."
Dolly let go.
Turned.
Started walking without waiting for us.
Antic chuckled, rubbing his wrist. "She likes us."
"No, she doesn't," I said.
"Exactly."
I followed her.
I don't remember deciding to stop. I just... did.
Dolly stopped too. She stared at me.
"I used to belong to someone," she said. "I was on a shelf. I had a name. And they loved me. I think."
She sat down suddenly.
Like her legs gave out.
"I think I was... a gift."
Antic looked at her like she was something fragile wrapped in rage and bows.
"Y'ain't gotta remember it all now."
She hugged her knees.
I sat beside her.
Then so did he.
We didn't speak for a long time.
She looked at us finally. "I want to be found."
Her voice cracked.
Antic leaned back on his elbows. "Don't we all."
I said, "We're looking for ourselves too."
She looked at me like she wanted to believe it. But didn't know how.
He extended his hand again.
This time, she didn't slap it.
She took it.
Tight.
Like she was drowning.
We walked together again.
Side by side.
No talking.
Just breathing.
The fog parted a little. The forest opened like it had been watching us and decided we could pass.
Antic grinned wide. "Admit it. You like us."
Dolly scoffed. "Like you? You talk too much and smell like roasted tree bark."
"That was a compliment in my culture," he shot back.
She didn't deny it.
I felt something shift between us.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But something warmer than distance.
Something like possibility.
And as we crossed back into the whispering woods of the Perennial Forest, I had the strange feeling—
we weren't just found things anymore.
We were becoming something else.