I couldn't speak.
It wasn't like losing your voice after a fever, or the rasp of exhaustion. This was something else—something taken. My mouth moved, but nothing emerged. No breath. No sound. Not even a whisper.
And yet I could still hear her.
> "You gave it away. And I stitched it up."
The voice wasn't spoken aloud—it pulsed in my bones, in the marrow of my skull. Marybeth Glass was inside me now. Or maybe she always had been. Maybe stepping into Graywick was never about discovering a forgotten town.
Maybe it was about remembering what I used to be.
---
The boy led me out of the library using back corridors I'd never noticed. Hidden doors. Trap floors disguised under rugs. At one point, we crawled through what felt like a heating duct lined in puppet cloth and child-size shoes. The deeper we went, the colder it became, like the sun itself had forgotten this place.
Eventually, we emerged in what used to be a municipal hall—a wide, open chamber filled with wooden risers and murals half-burned from age. Here, silence wasn't empty. It was crushing. My ears buzzed, desperate to register anything. Even my own breath felt fake, like a dubbed sound in a horror film.
The boy paused.
He pointed to the center stage.
That's when I saw them.
Rows of people.
Not mannequins. Not statues.
People.
Lined up like choir members awaiting a conductor.
Some stood. Some sat in wheelchairs. Others lay curled on the floor. All of them had the same vacant, glassy eyes and mouths slack with nothing left to say.
At first I thought they were dead. But their chests moved. Slowly. As if breathing was an afterthought.
And then, music.
Scratchy. Old. A children's chorus singing from an unseen gramophone:
> "Round and round the record spins… Until the voice forgets its sins…"
The choir moved.
Not with rhythm. Not with joy.
With instruction.
Like puppets.
Arms lifted. Legs twitched. Faces contorted in attempts at expressions long since stolen. One man raised his hand like a conductor, twitching as if electrocuted. A woman stood and twirled once—graceful, tragic—then collapsed like her strings were cut.
> "They're rehearsing," the boy whispered. Or rather, his doll did.
He sat beside me, resting the stitched creature on his lap.
> "They do this every morning. Every dusk. Until their part is right."
> "Their part?" I mouthed.
The boy nodded.
> "Each one is a story. A memory stitched wrong. She makes them dance it over and over until it sounds like hers. When it does—she erases it."
I watched them move.
There were dozens. No, hundreds.
All dressed differently. All in stages of decay. Some missing fingers. Others with puppet joints hammered into their knees and elbows. One little girl danced with a music box clutched to her chest. The box didn't play. But her feet still tapped.
This wasn't a performance.
It was punishment.
The stage was her prison.
And rehearsal was her control.
---
My camera still worked. I raised it, filmed what I could.
But even as I did, I felt a sick certainty:
These recordings wouldn't make it out of Graywick.
> "She feeds on the memory," the boy said. "If no one remembers your scream, it never happened. If she makes them dance it wrong long enough… it's gone. For good."
I looked around.
Every single one of them had a tag.
Pinned to their chest. Written in ink that bled.
> "VIOLATED SILENCE – INCOMPLETE."
> "DISOBEDIENT MEMORY – AWAITING EDIT."
> "SCREAMED BEFORE PERMISSION."
> "REHEARSAL #43 – FAILURE."
One man's tag was stitched directly into his skin.
He turned toward me suddenly.
And mouthed something.
I didn't understand.
He mouthed it again.
So I leaned closer.
And this time I understood:
> "She's behind you."
I turned—too late.
The doll with my face was standing only feet away.
But now it wasn't silent.
Now, it spoke with a voice stolen.
Mine.
> "Would you like to try your line again?"
The choir froze.
The gramophone clicked.
A spotlight flared.
And all around me, the dead rehearsed their final screams.