For seventy-three years, I slept.
Not the sleep of peace, but the kind that feels like drowning in memory—aware, but unmoving. The deep ocean was my tomb and my cradle, and I belonged to it.
The wreck of the Titanic had become a quiet kingdom of rust and ghosts. I thought it would stay that way forever.
But one day, in the year 1985, light returned.
At first, I thought it was the souls again—those faint, drifting lanterns of the dead.
But this light was sharper. Artificial. It cut through the dark like a blade.
Something mechanical approached—the sound of whirring propellers, a metallic hum. I felt the vibration echo through the ocean floor.
And then I saw it—a submersible, small and round, its lights bright enough to pierce the darkness that had wrapped me for decades.
Two human figures inside, staring out through the thick glass.
---
They drifted over the debris—metal frames, teacups, chandeliers still clinging to the mud like memories refusing to die. Cameras flashed. Mechanical arms reached and turned.
I watched in silence as they explored the grand staircase, the broken hull, the scattered belongings of those who never rose again.
Then one of the lights swept over me.
For the first time in more than seventy years, I was seen.
The beam lingered, moving slowly from my porcelain face to my glass eyes. Dust and silt floated around me like pale smoke.
Inside the submersible, I saw one of the explorers lean closer, pressing his hand to the glass. His voice, faint through the static, reached my mind like a ghost echo:
> "My God… what is that?"
The other answered, voice shaking slightly,
> "A doll… a perfectly preserved doll."
Their mechanical arm descended, brushing away the sediment that had become my second skin. As the murk cleared, my reflection appeared in their lights—untouched by time.
Not a single crack.
Not a trace of decay.
Only the same porcelain face Elias had once admired in his workshop so long ago.
---
The explorers seemed to forget the wreck around them. All attention turned to me. Their cameras clicked, and flashes burst like tiny stars.
Through the radio static, I heard the words that would soon echo around the world:
> "The perfect doll has been found in the Titanic."
The phrase carried through the years of rust and silence, a declaration that reached even the stillness of my consciousness.
The perfect doll.
If only they knew.
If only they understood what perfection had cost me.
---
I felt the metal claws lift me from the seabed. The pressure of the deep ocean pressed harder as I rose, and for a moment I feared I would shatter.
But I did not.
The shipwreck faded beneath me, swallowed again by darkness. The lights above grew stronger. Brighter.
Then, for the first time since 1912, I broke through the water's surface.
The sunlight blinded me.
I had forgotten what warmth looked like.
They brought me aboard the research vessel—a modern ship filled with the hum of machines, cameras, and excitement. Men in wetsuits and gloves surrounded me, their voices buzzing with awe.
> "Look at the detail on the face."
"It's impossible—no corrosion, no decay."
"This must have belonged to a first-class passenger."
They didn't know that somewhere, decades ago, a family name—Elias—had once been whispered over the sound of waves and laughter.
---
They placed me carefully on a white table, cameras still flashing, and one of them leaned down close.
His eyes met mine.
For a split second, something strange happened.
He froze. His hand trembled slightly.
> "Did… did it just blink?"
The others laughed. "It's your imagination," one said. "Must be the light reflection."
But the man didn't move. He kept staring, uneasy.
And for a moment—I wasn't sure either.
Had I blinked?
Or had I only imagined it again, like I did in the boutique years ago?
I couldn't tell.
But deep inside, beneath layers of porcelain and silence, I felt something stir—something faint but growing.
Warmth.
Awareness.
As if being seen again after so long had awoken something buried in me.
They took more photographs, their excitement masking the strange chill in the air. Then they covered me gently with cloth, labeling the container that would preserve me for study.
> Artifact #C-237: "The Perfect Doll" — recovered from Titanic wreck, 1985.
And as the lid closed above me, sealing me once again in darkness, I felt a quiet pulse behind my unmoving eyes—like the faint beat of a forgotten heart.
The world had found me again.
And for the first time in nearly a century…
I was not alone.