The spotlight narrowed. It pinned me in a circle of pale gold, drowning the rest of the rehearsal hall in a black void. My own stolen voice echoed back from the doll before me—the one wearing my face, my clothes, my fear sculpted into waxy perfection.
> "Would you like to try your line again?"
Behind her, the chorus of the forgotten began to twitch once more.
Puppeted bodies jerked like marionettes waking from hibernation. Their limbs bent at wrong angles, some joints creaking with the friction of splinters and sinew. Their expressions were still blank. That was the worst part—not agony. Not terror.
Indifference.
They'd screamed once, and now they had nothing left to scream with.
---
The doll took a step toward me.
> "Let's practice. You were supposed to say: 'I'm not afraid.'"
Its grin widened. The stitched line of its cheek split open with a quiet pop, revealing wire and something glistening just underneath.
> "Let's try it together."
I turned to run—but the floor beneath me groaned, then shifted.
Like a stage wheel turning.
The room rotated. The light moved with it. I stumbled and landed hard against the wood, my flashlight clattering into darkness. The boy had vanished again, or maybe he'd never been there. I couldn't trust anything in Graywick anymore—not space, not time, not even my own reflection.
Because I didn't have one.
There was a mirror mounted behind the doll.
She stood there, casting a perfect image in its dusty surface.
But when I turned to look—I was missing.
No silhouette. No blur. Nothing.
I had been edited out.
---
The doll moved faster now, its limbs no longer stiff. It twirled on its toes, performing a sick parody of a ballet, mouthing lines I'd never said.
> "Don't be afraid, Marybeth." "They deserved it." "The children were too loud. So I made them quiet."
It wasn't me speaking anymore.
It was her.
Marybeth Glass, the seamstress of screams.
And every voice she'd stolen was now sewn into that one cursed mouth.
The air changed.
From somewhere above, I heard the unmistakable sound of thread being pulled—a long, slow zip like fabric being closed around a coffin. It came from the catwalk.
I looked up.
She was there.
Not the doll.
Her.
Marybeth Glass.
She wore a dress made of silence—fabric woven from lost words and regrets. It shimmered with the colors of breath held too long. Her face was hidden behind a porcelain mask, cracked across the lips. And from her fingers—long, impossibly thin—dangled thread.
Hundreds of threads.
All of them connected to the people below.
And now… to me.
One of them had burrowed into my wrist.
I staggered, pulling at it—but the more I fought, the deeper it went, threading through my veins like a whisper infecting my blood.
> "He struggles," she said.
Her voice was an overlay of many. A girl sobbing. A man pleading. A mother humming a lullaby that turned sour halfway through. All speaking at once.
> "He wants to scream, but he forgot the tune."
I tried to scream. Still nothing.
She twitched her finger.
My body moved.
Just a little.
My arm rose. My knee bent.
I was being choreographed.
---
The scene changed.
The black void around me rippled and bloomed like a stage set shifting.
Suddenly, I stood in a child's bedroom.
Pink wallpaper. Stuffed animals. A nightlight shaped like a bunny.
And at the center of the bed, a little girl sat with her back to me. Her head tilted slightly.
A doll lay on her lap.
I couldn't move. Marybeth's thread controlled my limbs.
But I could see.
The girl turned slowly.
Her mouth had been sewn shut with thick black thread.
And her eyes were mine.
A mirror image of my childhood face—distorted by something ancient wearing my memory like a second skin.
The doll on her lap twitched.
It was the boy's.
She raised it. Its mouth opened.
> "Welcome to rehearsal number one."
I tried to scream.
Still nothing.
The child version of me pointed toward the corner.
There, Marybeth stood at a sewing table, humming as she pulled a red string through something wet.
A tongue.
Not human. Or not anymore.
It pulsed like a trapped heartbeat, twitching every time the thread pierced it.
She looked up.
> "You were loud once. But I fixed you."
---
I collapsed.
The scene faded.
Back to the rehearsal hall. The stage lights now blinked like blinking eyelids. Above me, the catwalk was empty. The strings went limp.
But I was still breathless. Still voiceless.
The boy returned. I hadn't heard him approach.
> "She's trying to rewrite you," his doll whispered. "Make you part of the final act."
I nodded, barely able to stand.
> "There's one place she doesn't control," the doll added.
I blinked at him.
> "The basement. Where she lost her scream."
I followed him.
Down the corridor.
Down the stairs hidden beneath the choir pit.
Down into a part of Graywick Theatre that even the dolls avoided.
---
The air in the basement was different.
It vibrated.
Not with noise, but with memory.
This was where it began.
Photos lined the walls. Black-and-white snapshots of children on stage, of Marybeth smiling before the porcelain mask. Newspaper clippings. Ticket stubs.
And finally:
A door.
Metal. Rusted.
Etched with hundreds of scratched names—some legible, others long clawed away.
The boy stopped.
> "You'll find her truth in there."
I turned the knob.
And walked into her real story.
---
It wasn't a room.
It was a memory.
I stood in a small theatre, years ago. Marybeth, young, vibrant, beautiful, stood at center stage in a red gown. She bowed. The audience clapped.
She smiled.
But then—
A voice rose from the crowd.
A child's scream.
Marybeth flinched. The music stopped.
More screams.
Panic.
And then… silence.
Not peace.
Dead silence.
Every audience member's mouth opened wide.
But no sound emerged.
Marybeth's eyes were wide. Terrified.
She reached for the mic.
Spoke.
> "Please remain calm—"
But her voice didn't come out.
Just blood.
Her throat had shredded itself on silence.
From behind the curtain, something came out.
A doll.
The first one.
It wasn't built.
It birthed itself from shadow, stitched from the memory of forgotten names.
And it whispered:
> "Now… it's your turn to forget."
---
I came back to myself on the cold floor of the theatre basement.
The boy knelt beside me.
> "She didn't create the silence. It chose her. She only gave it a stage."
I looked down at my chest.
A new tag had been stitched to my jacket.
> "FINAL REHEARSAL – SCHEDULED."
My time was running out.
But I wasn't going to dance.
I stood up.
And for the first time since she stole my scream—I spoke.
Not a scream.
Just one word.
> "No."
And the walls of the theatre shivered.