A breath, a dull thump… like a distant drumbeat echoing through vast waters. It could be an awakening… but he is not asleep. In fact, he will never sleep again.

  This choking sensation, this weight on his chest… the urge to scream, to gasp for air. It could be his first breath… but he does not breathe. In fact, he will never breathe again.

  He opens his eyes… an ivory fog, vaguely clammy. His eyelids — if he has any — are coated in a warm, pulsing, whitish film. His right hand rises, trembling… and meets a damp, cottony surface.

  Around him: a shell, alive and silky. A shroud-like cocoon, woven of curdled Ichor and silence. He suffocates in the down.

  But he has no mouth to scream.

  His nails catch the texture, stretching it to the verge of tearing. At first, just pressure. As if he were floating in a throat too narrow.

  Then a crack, a muffled rasp.

  He pushes, scrapes, claws — and the cocoon tears open with the sound of dry flesh. He falls heavily. His bare skin slaps against the cracked tiles, brittle like old porcelain.

  A rasp of stale air seeps into his nostrils. He coughs, but it’s not breath. It’s a cold wave passing through dead lungs.

  He opens his eyes.

  A narrow room, damp, pierced by two windows sealed with iron bars. The yellowed plaster flakes off like crust, revealing layers of ancient bricks, stained with damp… and a brownish substance. Dried blood, perhaps?

  The rusted feet of an iron bed. On each side of the chipped frame, the restraint straps dangle like tired snakes. On the closed door, a cracked copper plaque: Unit 13 – Room 147 Deep Isolation Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Institute Saint Jean de Dieu…

  That name means something to him… His mind is as foggy as the shroud-like substance that lies around him like dead skin. Focus.

  Saint Jean de Dieu…

  The words dance in his thoughts like wisps of smoke trying to escape. He clings to them desperately — he feels he’s heard them before. But where?

  And when?

  Montréal…

  Without knowing why, the name of the Québec city forces itself into his mind… Yes, that’s it! The Saint Jean de Dieu hospital is in Montréal.

  But he is not in Montréal.

  He is somewhere else.

  In a dead resonance of the world. A dried-out echo.

  A duplicate.

  A spiritual ruin.

  He feels something pulsing inside him. A drop.

  Then two.

  A slow, black, living tide rising within him like a reversed memory. He looks at his hands. His fingers are thin, but perfectly defined.

  Too perfect.

  Sculpted.

  As if they had just been molded. He has no memory.

  No name.

  No before.

  Only one feeling: something is watching him. Something ancient. Something that was waiting… for him to be born.

  A sigh…

  A faint murmur…

  And then the first words, like a whisper. ?You hear me, don’t you?... There, at the edge of nothing.

  You’ve just arrived.vDon’t move. Listen.

  There’s no light here.

  No warmth.

  You already know that.

  But you still feel… something.

  Like a heartbeat far away, like a fire that’s been stolen from you.?

  ?That’s the Ichor. The last fluid. What’s left of you.

  You’re no longer alive, but as long as you possess it, you persist. The Ichor is everything. It gives you form, memory, power.

  It is your soul, liquefied.

  But it leaks, it drains.

  Always.

  Like time flowing backward.

  And when there’s none left...?

  ?...you fall into dust. You melt into the Nothingness that doesn’t even have a name.?

  ?Here, there’s only one way to survive: you take. You trade.

  You bleed.

  You kill.

  You swallow the Ichor of others. Some sell their voice for a few drops. Some burn their memories.

  Some hunt and disembowel.

  And some fall to their knees.

  There are no laws.

  Only the Ichor.?

  ?Some shape it, make weapons or shelters from it. Others pray to it. Still others forget it, until they vanish.

  You... you are different.

  Feel it?

  It’s swelling.

  Slowly.

  Your Ichor doesn’t leak… it returns. It grows.?

  ?…And that, poor soul… won’t go unnoticed.? He waits, strains to listen. He turns his head in every direction.

  His panicked gaze searches the dust and debris for the source of the whisper. But the voice is silent. He pulls his legs in and sits.

  The floor clings coldly to his bare skin. The friction of his thighs on the cracked tiles sounds like the slow tearing of fabric. Using one hand, he gets up and staggers for a moment, as if drunk.

  His gaze falls on the grimy windows, through which a pale light barely filters between the corroded bars of the outer grilles. He approaches the fabrics hanging from the wall, and his hand reaches for what looks like an old medical gown. When his fingers touch the cloth, he feels it crumble into rags.

  His hand drops heavily to his side. His eyes scan the room and settle on the door that seems to beckon him. His footsteps echo faintly on the damp tile.

  He walks slowly, arms crossed over his bare chest, trembling — not from cold, but from a kind of void that pulses around him. He leaves the room. The hallway is long and dark, the only light coming from a few side doors left ajar.

  The plaster on the ceiling hangs in tatters, and stagnant puddles have settled into the floor’s hollows, blackened with mold. The doors to other rooms are closed or half-open, sometimes letting out a creak, a sigh, or a whisper that might be mistaken for a memory. But he doesn’t stop.

  Not yet.

  The silence is heavy, too heavy to be mere silence. He feels eyes — somewhere. Perhaps behind the walls.

  Perhaps within himself.

  He walks to an alcove on the right. A half-torn door hangs from its hinges. LOCKER ROOM — STAFF The sign is carved in capital letters on a peeling plaque.

  He enters.

  A shiver runs through his palm. Something pulses in there.

  Like a forgotten heart.

  The room is narrow and low, saturated with the smell of oxidized metal and stagnant water. Rusty metal lockers, aligned in two rows, eaten by time. Most are open, gaping like hollow jaws.

  All of them are empty.

  All of them… except one.

  The last one, at the very back. Closed.

  The lock dangles, rusted, but intact. He approaches, reaches out… hesitates. He places his hand on the locker door.

  He pulls.

  The locker opens with an atrocious creak, and a smell of damp ashes wafts out. Inside: A linen shirt, worn canvas trousers, a dark corduroy jacket, a tired pair of black shoes, and a pair of fine-framed glasses. He reaches for the jacket.

  A sensation — vague, but persistent. A memory without shape.

  Not an image.

  A weight.

  A habit, perhaps?

  He knows these clothes.

  He knows these glasses.

  Of course — they’re his.

  He dresses as if donning an ethereal armor. The laces are frayed, and he has to try several times to tie them. When he stands, his eyes catch the reflection in a fragment of tarnished mirror, fixed to the inside of the door.

  He looks at himself.

  The reflection isn’t quite him. The features are there, roughly… but the expression isn’t his. It’s as if he were seeing the memory of a face, not a living one.

  He stares at his reflection, struggling to read a name in it. A story. But it’s only a mask — the mask of a man he does not recognize.

  A man wearing his glasses, his clothes, his scar… but not his memory. Someone has etched something just below, scratched into the metal with a fingernail. ?No name.

  No peace.?

  ?Remember… or become what the Ichor wants.? The mirror quivers for a moment, then cracks in a clean, horizontal line. Like a scar opening in reverse. A sound.

  Sharp.

  Fleeting.

  A child’s laugh.

  He freezes.

  The locker room seems to empty of all air, as if the sound had suspended time. The giggle came from far away, muffled, yet clear… like a badly filed memory. A second laugh, shorter, raspier.

  Then a voice sings softly, faint as a drowned music box: - ?One, two, three… the shadow’s gonna find thee...? There are no children here. He knows that. Not really.

  He brushes the armrest.

  A fleeting vision blinds him.

  A man screaming without a voice, his eyes rolled back, a copper helmet clamped to his temples. The air thickens with phantom electricity. He steps back. - ?Four, five, six… the Shadow’s in the walls so thick...? That voice again, that distorted nursery rhyme, sung without innocence.

  It seems closer now.

  He returns to the hallway and continues through the gloom, ears alert. Farther on, a crooked door. He pushes it open.

  The smell hits him: lime, mold… soaked flesh. Rusty bathtubs lined up like open coffins. Some are still filled with a stagnant substance, covered with an iridescent film.

  Worn straps float limply in the liquid. He approaches one of the tubs. The water seems to ripple.

  He leans in.

  A small translucent hand brushes the surface on the other side. He startles. The reflection is gone.

  The voice is coming from a lower floor. He feels it.

  He leaves the room, almost fleeing the liquid mirror. His steps quicken. At the end of the hallway, a stairwell.

  He bounds down the steps four at a time, nearly falling headlong. His shoes make a racket that echoes sharply off the walls. The lower floor is also plunged in darkness.

  Only a single light pulses farther ahead in the frame of a set of double doors. The two small porthole windows near the top of the doors look like glowing eyes in the gloom. The glass is so filthy it’s impossible to see through.

  Without hesitation, he pushes the two wooden panels, which creak as they swing open. A low-ceilinged operating room. A single window pours in its white light.

  Tools hang in a neat row on the wall: mallets, ice picks, a hand drill. Near the radiator, files lie scattered on the floor, covered in crossed-out names, all bearing the same annotation: “deceased.” He approaches an operating chair, its headrest split open, the sheet stained with blackened blood. He brushes one of the picks.

  A heat rises up his arm.

  A mental scream — long and piercing — drills into his temples. He recoils, his absent heart pounding louder than ever. - ?Ten… and the shadow’s found you.? Then… silence. A shiver.

  The air turns cold, suddenly.

  He turns around.

  In the doorway, a red balloon rests on the floor. It hadn’t been there a second earlier. It rolls slowly toward him, pushed by an invisible breath.

  For long seconds, he stands frozen, eyes fixed on the balloon now stopped at his feet. Almost hesitantly, he crouches and reaches for the toy. The rubber surface is ice-cold.

  He grabs the balloon, but the moment it’s in his hands, the scarlet skin cracks and crumbles to dust between his fingers. He stands, his gaze fixed on the darkness of the hallway through the twin portholes that seem to beckon him. Without hesitation, he leaves the operating room and plunges once more into the shadows.

  No light — only a faint hissing sound in the distance. Like a whisper, the noise repeats itself. Again.

  And again.

  In total darkness, he gropes his way along the corridor, guided by sound. Farther ahead, a dim glow appears. He quickens his pace, risking a fall, afraid the light might vanish.

  As he draws closer, he makes out a flickering emergency light above the hinges of a rusted metal panel. The door groans slowly under his hand. A twisted plaque hangs by a single nail: Isolation C The air here is dry, almost sterile.

  His muffled steps barely echo on a thick carpet of dust. The walls exude a scent of human grease and condensed fear. A single narrow, grimy window in the ceiling lets in a pale beam of light that comes from no known moon.

  At the center: a glass cell.

  Inside: a child’s chair.

  Empty.

  All around, drawings scribbled on the walls: distorted faces, burning figures, eyes open everywhere — lidless. All drawn with a finger, in a dried, brownish substance. - ?One, two, three...? The voice echoes very close. Behind the wall.

  Or beneath his feet. - ?Four, five, six...? A shiver crawls up his neck. He turns around. The red balloon is there.

  Right behind him.

  Motionless.

  But this time, he hears something else. A footstep.

  Light.

  Accompanying him.

  A barely perceptible weight in the air. He leans toward the cell. And in the misted glass, a reflection that isn’t his own.

  A child, with eyes black and shiny like tar, stares at him from behind the chair. - ?Seven, eight, nine...? The light flickers. The image vanishes. The cell door slams shut on its own. - ?Ten.? Silence erupts all at once — brutal.

  He stands frozen.

  Then, a scraping sound.

  Very slow, insistent.

  Just behind the wall.

  A whispered voice, like a smile with no mouth: - ?You’re here… at last.? He exits the padded room, heart pounding like a war drum. But the hallway is no longer the same. The walls seem taller, narrower.

  The ceiling lights flicker without reason, casting shadows that don’t match the shapes. And at the far end, a light. Pale, trembling.

  Like a forgotten nightlight.

  He walks forward, more pushed than guided. The laughter echoes again, much closer this time. Muffled.

  Smothering.

  A half-open door awaits him.

  On its back, scrawled in chalk: Playroom The word “play” is underlined several times. The handwriting is childish. Or pretending to be.

  He pushes the door open.

  A square room.

  Peeling paint, miniature furniture. Gutted stuffed animals, incomplete puzzles, eyeless dolls lined up on a shelf. At the center of the room: a round, threadbare rug, on which porcelain teacups are arranged, all filled with black dust.

  And there, sitting upright like a stake, a little girl. A faded pink dress, stained with unidentifiable marks.Hair pulled back by a washed-out bow.In her arms, a damaged doll with half its face torn off.Her eyes — huge, blue — lock onto his. She doesn’t move.

  Doesn’t blink. - ?You came.? Her voice is calm. Too calm.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He stands there, frozen.

  A word rises to his lips.

  Dies before being spoken.

  She lifts the doll.

  Brings it to her ear.

  Listens. - ?She says you’re forgotten. That you burned away everything you were. But that it kept you.? She tilts her head. - ?You still smell like smoke.? Silence.

  Then she stands.

  With a mechanical, slow gesture. Her bare feet glide soundlessly across the floor. - ?You want to know your name?? she whispers. She holds out the doll. - ?Then you have to play.? He doesn’t move.

  The doll remains outstretched toward him, its head tilted at an impossible angle. One of the glass eyelids blinks — alone. A dry click, like a dying spring.

  The little girl says, without looking at him: - ?It’s easy. We play Remember. You ask a question.

  I ask one too.

  If you lie, she knows.

  If you refuse, she cries.

  And you don’t want her to cry.? She stares at him, and behind her eyes, something stirs. Not the soul of a child. Something else.He feels his lips part.

  She smiles.

  A smile too wide. - ?Who are you??

  - ?Too soon.? Then, in a sing-song voice, she asks: - ?What did you do to deserve forgetting?? And he falls. Into darkness. A final phrase follows him, whispered right against his ear — but there are no lips in sight: - ?When you know your name… the Ichor will come for you.? The shadows swallow him in their thick cloak.

  He regains consciousness in a dense, muffled silence, like being buried under layers of night.The floor beneath him is no longer tiled, but covered with an irregular patchwork of fabrics and torn clothing. Some still bear stitched labels: hand-embroidered names, inventory numbers. A scent of cold wax and old flesh lingers in the air.

  He tries to sit up, but a shiver twists his spine. No pain.

  Just weight.

  An organic unease, as if his body refuses to make sense of its surroundings. Around him, the walls are covered in children’s drawings — scenes scribbled in chalk, dried blood, and black fluid that beads along certain lines. Stick figures cry, scream, fall into voids, or burn beneath black suns.

  Hastily painted shapes twist and writhe, faceless. There are dolls, too. Everywhere.

  Some hanging, gutted.

  Others seated in a circle, as if watching an invisible play. Their glass eyes follow him through the gloom. And in the center of the room, a heap.

  A small mound of personal items — rings, glasses, children’s shoes, dentures, notebooks — all coated in a sticky, brownish film. An altar. His gaze lingers on the walls, then drifts to the ceiling: there, like an opened cocoon, a gaping slit lets drip a strange substance, solidified into fine stalactites. - ?Ichor…?, murmurs the strange voice he heard upon waking.

  And in one corner, on a rotting mattress, she is there. The little girl. Motionless.

  She still holds the doll — but this time, she rocks it. Slowly. Her eyes are locked on him, wide, unreadable.

  No smile.

  Only that dull, animal tension. She rises soundlessly.

  The doll drops without a sound. Her gaze stays fixed on him, but her bare feet make no noise on the soiled floor. - ?You’re not like the others,? she says. He sits up, slowly.

  His breath makes the flames of the nightlights flicker, planted all around the room. Their glow makes the air seem almost alive. She steps closer.

  For a moment, her small hand reaches toward his bare chest — toward the center, where a white light suddenly begins to pulse. But she stops. Instantly.

  Her fingers twitch.

  A shiver runs through her. - ?Why… why is your fluid speaking to me?? she whispers, almost angrily. ?They scream, usually. They want to leave.

  But yours… yours is watching me.? Her eyes darken for a moment. A black liquid seeps from her nostrils, which she wipes away with the back of her sleeve — annoyed, like a frustrated child. - ?You’re not supposed to be here. You’re… like a bad seed.? She suddenly backs away.

  And all around them, the dolls begin to tremble, to spin on themselves. The whispering of trapped souls swells into a broken chorus. He tries to rise, this time to flee, but the floor clings to him — alive, somehow.

  She screams, suddenly: - ?Get out! This is my nest!

  You can’t… you’re not allowed to stay!? And without knowing how, he is alone again. Standing in the deserted hallway of the asylum. Behind him, the door he entered through no longer exists.

  He still carries the scent of wax and ash on him. And on his chest, where his skin had trembled beneath the child’s fingers, a blackened mark — like a burn or an ancient scar. The hallway seems to have spat him out.

  The man still stumbles, a dull ache in his back, as if something invisible had pushed him out of a dream too real. He moves forward without thinking, guided by a flickering glow at the end of the corridor. An open door lets through the warm light of an oil lamp resting on a shattered desk.

  On the wall plaque, corroded with verdigris, he reads: Dr. H. Bolton — Chief Psychiatrist The wooden door creaks softly as he pushes it open.

  A smell of dry ink, wet leather, and human dust fills his nostrils. The room is in ruins, but strangely ordered. Splintered bookshelves.

  Stacked files.

  Empty vials.

  And behind the desk, a seated figure. Tall.

  Rigid.

  Draped in a long, dark coat.

  A corvid mask, made of tarnished iron, covers its face. Two circular lenses — orange, like two rotting moons — glow faintly. The sound of wood beneath a cane.

  The figure rises. - ?Hm...? The voice is deep, dry. Toneless. Like the echo of a memory. - ?So you’re still alive.

  Or… what’s left of you.? He takes a step back, but the voice doesn’t shift. - ?Sit down.? A cracked leather armchair stands before the desk, its armrests worn by former patients. The man obeys, slowly. Dr.

  Bolton watches him.

  Or rather, looks at him through his mask. The silence lingers. Then: - ?You saw Sally.? It’s not a question.

  He nods, slowly. - ?She should’ve drained you like the others. Sucked you dry of Ichor. That’s what she does to the new ones.

  That’s what she is.? He approaches slowly, his cane tapping against the floor in regular intervals. - ?But she let you live. Now that… is fascinating.? The doctor pauses, then adds, more softly: - ?You don’t understand what you are, do you? You think you’re dreaming?

  Sick, maybe?...? He leans on his cane. - ?You’re dead. And this...? He lifts a gloved arm, gesturing to the peeling walls, the shadows clinging to the ceiling corners, the stench of dried Ichor in the wood’s grooves. - ?…is the other side.? The stranger doesn’t respond. Bolton goes on, impassive: ?The Ichoréon.

  That’s what we call it.

  A lining of the world.

  An echo.

  A prison without walls, for what remains of us after the fall.? Silence falls — dense as lead. Then Bolton tilts his head slightly. - ?You don’t yet know… what you’re carrying. But others… will soon feel it.? The man remains seated, motionless, but something stirs inside.

  He doesn’t understand.

  Doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel. But the word keeps echoing in his mind, like a sound refusing to die: dead. Bolton studies him at length, wordless.

  Then, in a lower voice, almost… gentle: - ?You have more Ichor than you should. Much more.? He leans over the desk. - ?But you don’t feel it yet, do you? You’re like a blaze that doesn’t know it’s burning.? The man tenses.

  His eyes search for a way out, but the room seems to have pulled back behind him. As if it were holding its breath. Bolton smiles behind his mask — or at least, the man feels the smile. - ?She marked you, didn’t she?

  The little one.? He gestures with his chin toward the blackened trace on the stranger’s chest. - ?You got away from her. No one gets away. Not since I left… my post.? He turns away, approaches a broken shelf, and pulls out an old, tattered file. - ?Sally Wilkinson.

  Subject 9-C-SAL1875.

  Early-onset schizophrenia, homicidal impulses. Strangled to death in 1882. Officially.? A dry, metallic laugh. - ?But here, nothing truly dies.? He sets the file down. - ?She wants this asylum.

  She feeds on it.

  She thinks it belongs to her.

  And yet...? He turns toward the man. - ?Maybe you can remind her that it doesn’t.? The silence thickens. The stranger straightens halfway. - ?What do you expect from me?? Bolton doesn’t respond right away. He steps closer, slowly, and places two gloved fingers on the man’s forehead.

  A moment.

  A heartbeat.

  He feels a pressure — as if something were trying to enter him… or probe him. But a wave rises, uncontrollable. His Ichor reacts.

  Suddenly.

  Bolton recoils, shaken, his cane pressed across his chest. - ?Interesting…? he breathes, almost admiring — but with a trace of fear. The psychiatrist turns away. - ?Rest. You’ll need it.

  There are… other things in this hospital. And not all of them wear your face.? The silence stretches on. The stranger remains standing, tense.

  He stares at Bolton, fists clenched. - ?I don’t want to rest. I want to understand. What I am.

  Why I’m here.? The spectral doctor tilts his head, almost amused. - ?And you think the answers will come sitting in a chair, chatting with a dead man??? He strikes his cane against the floor — the sound rings out like a death knell in the room. - ?Good. You want answers? Then… let’s start with an experiment.? He turns, grabs an old black notebook bound in leather.

  Its pages are stitched together with rusted thread. He opens it to a page marked with a human fingernail. - ?Elisabeth Giovanni. Subject 14-B-GIO1879.

  Major dissociative disorder.

  Hysteria.

  Chronic instability.

  Final diagnosis: non-reintegrable.? He closes the notebook with a mechanical sigh. - ?She hides in the west wing. Between the old behavioral therapy rooms and the hydrotherapy storage. She burrows like a beast.

  Recites scraps of her own memory. And she slips through my fingers.? He leans in, the orange lenses of his mask glowing softly. - ?I’d like you to convince her to come see me. Not by force.

  By… what you are.

  What radiates from you.

  If she follows, then I’ll know.? He turns on his heels and returns to sit behind his desk. - ?You want answers? Be useful.? He snaps his fingers. One of the bookcases slowly pivots, revealing a narrow passage behind the wall.

  The scent of chlorine and mold immediately seeps from the crack. - ?You’ll find her territory that way.? The man stands still for a moment, hesitant. - ?And if she refuses?? Bolton doesn’t even look up. - ?She will refuse. That’s not the question. What matters to me… is what you’ll do next.? The passage revealed by Bolton leads to a rusted spiral staircase, descending into a forgotten wing.

  The doctor hands him an antique oil lamp, its flame flickering behind the dirty glass. The man takes it without a word, and after one last moment of hesitation, places his foot on the first step — which groans ominously. He begins his descent, and the opening to Bolton’s office above him is quickly swallowed by darkness.

  As he moves forward, the walls begin to change around him: older, more chaotic. Entire sections are covered in shards of broken glass, fixed into the mortar with some kind of dried, blackish substance. They aren’t ordinary mirrors.

  Each fragment reflects his image — but slightly altered. In one, he is covered in blood. In another, mutilated.

  In yet another, he’s smiling… though he isn’t. A never-ending staircase. The reflections begin to whisper: - ?She’s waiting for you...?

  - ?She already sees you...?

  - ?You’re just like them...? Then the whispers become voices, then screams that rise in a crescendo, piercing his eardrums.

  In a futile gesture, he presses his hands over his ears — but the sound doesn’t fade. His feet slip on the rusted steps; he nearly drops the lamp and just manages to catch himself on the handrail. When he pulls his hand away, his palm is covered in rust dust.

  In a surge of anger, he slams his closed fist into one of the mirrors — it shatters. Silence returns instantly. A thin crimson line drips between his fingers, but after a quick look, he finds no glass lodged in his skin.

  When his eyes fall on the broken mirror, his entire body stiffens. Behind the shattered surface: a human eye, embedded in the wall. Elisabeth is watching.

  It’s through sheer will that he manages to resume his descent, and the eye fades quickly into the darkness. At last, the steps end at the threshold of a doorway without a door — opening into what looks like a disused treatment room. Strapped beds are arranged in a circle, each one holding a spectral body, motionless, still bound.

  Their faces are twisted in agony. Vein-like tendrils stretch across their skin, connecting their heads to a central device from which drips a thick fluid — Corrupted Ichor, perhaps? Black-green.

  Viscous.

  On the walls: words carved over and over with a nail. ?I DON’T WANT TO FORGET.?

  ?MEMORY IS A CAGE.?

  ?I BELONG TO ME.? As he approaches the central machine, one of the souls begins to convulse. It tries to scream, but only a hissing sound escapes.

  He realizes that Elisabeth feeds on them slowly, through this device — like a kind of harvest. One step closer, and the Ichor within the machine stirs: it knows he’s here. He hesitates, his hand reaching toward the machine, hovering for a moment — the Ichor begins to boil — then falls back.

  The fluid instantly calms as he moves away from the strange mechanism. At the back of the room, a long corridor opens — narrower still. Voices, human, full of agony: - ?Help me...?

  - ?I beg you...?

  - ?She’s gone… she won’t come back…? Unlike the mirror’s screams, these pleas no longer reach him.

  He raises the lamp before him and quickens his pace until he finds a pale green door with peeling paint. When he pushes it open, he discovers a waiting room, where weakened silhouettes sit with lowered heads, fingers clenched around imaginary files. Their skin looks dried out — silent, mummy-like figures, their lips stitched shut with surgical thread.

  The man approaches, leans in, and passes the flickering light of the lamp across the parchment-like faces. No reaction. He extends a hand — but once again halts the gesture.

  Something in him whispers that these souls are nothing but husks: mental traps Elisabeth has left behind to lure the naive through compassion. Anyone who touches one of them becomes one of them. He withdraws his hand.

  As he straightens, something has changed: One soul in the back is looking at him. Its mouth begins to twist, lips tearing at the thread that binds them. At last, it manages to whisper in a hoarse hiss: - ?You think she’s mad…

  But she sees the Ichor differently.? The man shrugs and closes the door, leaving the poor souls to wait for eternity. - ?She sees the Ichor differently…?, he murmurs to himself. What did that soul mean ? This Elisabeth seems, for now, quite different from the little girl and the doctor.

  She acts more like a hunter — a predator. Bolton said she eludes him. What did he mean by that?

  His footsteps now echo through the corridor, but the atmosphere begins to shift as he moves forward. The walls still seep that spectral mold so typical of the Ichoréon, but here, something feels different. A new door stands ajar, revealing a room strewn with debris.

  There is no furniture, save for a small wooden chair — and seated upon it: a porcelain doll. The contrast is striking — the object bears no sign of decay, no trace of the spectral. Its complexion is smooth, its painted eyes still shine, and its ruffled dress is spotless.

  He approaches.

  When he brushes against it, he feels a faint warmth. Like an echo — a trace of life. He almost expects the toy to come alive.

  It’s the first thing he’s found since waking that doesn’t seem tainted by the Ichoréon. He finally leaves the toy behind and returns to the corridor. This hallway seems endless.

  Farther along — this time on the right — another room. A patient’s chamber. As everywhere else, the floor is covered in dust and debris, while the walls peel with slow decay.At the center, a metal bed with moth-eaten sheets and blankets.

  Yet on the torn pillow lies a beige-covered notebook. A fine chain with a tiny golden lock dangles across the stained fabric. A diary?

  The leather is soft — recent.

  Opening it, he sees fresh ink, trembling handwriting, almost feverish. The words appear to be in Italian. Some pages are filled with childlike drawings, others with fragmented memories: a garden, a blurry man, a white room.

  It all feels real — too real for this place gnawed by rot. With his eyes, he scans the room, searches through the rubble, and the objects begin to reveal themselves: A cameo pendant, hanging from a rusted handle. A music box with a red metal crank.

  A child’s dress, hooked onto a twisted iron peg. The man furrows his brow. Why these objects?

  Why here?

  And why haven’t they decayed like the rest? He doesn’t feel any hostile presence. Not yet.

  But the entire place seems to be watching. At last, the corridor ends at a closed door. And when he pushes it open, he understands.

  The room beyond is larger, bathed in a supernatural light — diffuse and gentle. The furniture is arranged like in an old-fashioned bedroom: a vanity, a dresser, a folding screen, a mirror. Each piece radiates emotional coherence, as if a soul had clung to every memory, shaping them with care.

  And there, at the far end of the room — she is there. She doesn’t look at him at first. Seated on a high-backed chair, hands folded on her knees, she whispers to an absent shape.

  A doll, perhaps.

  Or nothing at all.

  Elisabeth’s skin is as pale as the porcelain she creates. Her eyes are ringed in black, her mouth curved in a smile that is almost gentle, almost sad. The man hesitates on the threshold.

  He doesn’t dare step further. - ?You can come in. They don’t anymore, but you do. You don’t wear their chains,? she whispers. - ?I’m not here to hurt you,? he replies softly.

  She slowly turns her head toward him. Her gaze is steady, but not empty. She watches him the way one observes an uncertain object, a new strangeness. - ?You’re not like the others…

  Your Ichor still breathes.

  You haven’t tainted it yet.? She rises slowly. The doll falls from her lap with a dull thud. Around her, the space seems to contract — as if the entire room were holding its breath. - ? All these objects… you made them?? he dares to ask.

  She tilts her head, then gives a crooked smile, almost childlike. - ?Yes. They’re… my memories. Fragments.

  I shape them with the Ichor.

  It’s my secret.? She approaches a vanity, runs her fingers along its smooth surface. - ?They say the Ichor is only for hurting, for defending, for prolonging existence, for keeping the void at bay. But me, I’ve learned to make it sing. To give it shapes.

  This mirror, this dress, this doll… They’re my little vows.They hold me together.?

  - ? Is that why Bolton sent you here? Because you can create?? She laughs softly, a short, broken sound. - ?No.

  He sent me here because he failed. He tried everything, you know. But the Ichor doesn’t want him.

  Not the way it wants me.

  He thought it was because of his dead nerves. But I think… it’s because he has nothing left to love. He’s forgotten what keeps him here.

  He’s forgotten what he loved…

  He has no anchor.? She steps closer to the man. Her eyes shine with an elusive glint. - ?But you… You’re full.

  Your fluid overflows, even if you don’t see it yet. You could create anything. Worlds.

  Refuges.

  Or nightmares.? She touches him lightly with her fingertips, just above his heart. - ?You’re dangerous. And that’s why he loves you. And why they hate you, of course !? A silence. - ?Why did you stay here?? he finally asks.

  She lowers her eyes. - ?Because if I leave, they’ll take everything from me. And I’ll become again… the girl they cut apart.?

  - ?You say they’ll take everything. But if you stay here, you’re already losing everything.? She looks up at him.

  Her features harden for a moment, frozen. Then she turns her gaze away. - ?Here, I choose. Here, I can remember.

  Out there, they erase.

  They look at you with their dead eyes, and you empty out. They suck you dry until there’s nothing left, and then you join the void.?

  - ?You don’t want to be alone for all eternity. What you’ve built here… it’s beautiful, yes.

  But it’s not real.?

  - ?It’s more real than anything I ever had while alive. More real than the needle. Than the metal they pushed into my eyes.

  You think I’ll go back to where they split me open like a thing?? she snaps. A silence. The man hesitates. - ?I’m not them.

  And I’m not Bolton.? She freezes. The name cuts like a blade. - ?He says you no longer matter. But if he sent me to you, it means he’s still afraid.

  Afraid of what you can do.

  Afraid that you might be free,? he tries to reason. She steps back. Her hands barely tremble, but something has wavered. - ?Free?

  (a bitter laugh) You don’t understand. He left me here because he knew I wouldn’t leave. He knows me.

  He knows I need my walls.

  My objects.

  My forgetting.The anchors I create.?

  - ?Then let me create new ones for you.? She stares at him, stunned. - ?I don’t know how yet, but I can feel the fluid… It moves. It responds.

  You could teach me.

  You could leave this place, keep what matters, remake it. You wouldn’t be alone.? A long silence follows. The only sound is that of the music box, which has begun to turn on its own.

  Elisabeth breathes: - ?You don’t know Sally. You don’t know what she does to those who leave their holes...?

  - ?Then we leave together. Or not at all.

  But I won’t go without you.? She closes her eyes. Whispers almost to herself: - ?I saw you, you know… before you came in. I saw you in the puddle, at the end of the corridor.

  Your reflection was whole.

  That never happens here.? She opens her eyes again. Harder now — but wet. - ?If you help me keep my things… If I can take a part of myself…

  Then maybe.? She reaches out her hand. Not for him to take it — but to give him something: the pendant. It’s light, warm, and hums faintly at his touch. - ?Keep it.

  It will know if you’re telling the truth.? A sharp crack. A shift in the air — imperceptible, but immediate. Even the music box stops.

  The pendant in the man’s hand suddenly vibrates, like a silent alarm. Elisabeth lifts her head. Her pupils contract — tiny, feral.

  She steps back, her face emptied of all expression. A breath moves through the room — cold, ancient. And within that breath, a figure: tall, rigid, draped in black.

  The raven mask cuts through the light like a scalpel. Bolton is there. - ?Enough games.? His voice is a dry rasp, sharp as a blade. Before Elisabeth can react, he raises his cane.

  The tip flares briefly — then explodes in a jet of black Ichor, fluid and slicing, like a living whip.The fluid slashes through the air with a shriek and strikes Elisabeth, hurling her backward into the vanity, which shatters. She screams. Not in pain — in fury.

  The man steps back instinctively. The impact has cracked the floor. The room’s pale light falters, devoured by creeping shadows slithering from the corners of the ceiling.

  Bolton advances, his mask pulsing faintly with a rotten orange glow. - ?Your sanctuary is nothing but an illusion, Elisabeth. A sick child’s playground. You think you shape.

  You think you create.

  But you’re just recycling scraps. Waste.

  I can raise you higher.

  Channel you.

  Discipline you.? He raises his cane a second time — this time, a more focused burst: a hardened needle of Ichor shoots straight toward the young woman’s temple. A guttural scream. Her own fluid erupts from her palms — a translucent, crystalline spiral that solidifies on contact with the projectile, shattering it into a cloud of black shards.

  She rises, panting, a trail of Ichor running down her forehead. - ?You never understood, Henry... You strike to control. I create to remember.? Her hand opens — a storm of porcelain fragments from the shattered doll whirls around her, animated by her Ichor, like razors made of memory.

  The porcelain shards spin at full speed around Elisabeth, slicing the air with a high-pitched hiss Her Ichor guides them, strengthens them. Each shard bears a trace — a frozen tear, a carved name, a childhood memory. They are not weapons.

  They are vengeful vows.

  Bolton lifts his cane with a sharp motion. A black wall rises before him, forged of compressed Ichor. The shards slam into it, embedding — some explode, others remain trembling, poised to strike again.

  He doesn’t flinch.

  His voice rings out, hard as stone: - ?You still refuse. Even now. You’d rather burn your strength in this theater than make yourself useful.? His arm extends, and the wall liquefies, spills to the ground, then surges back up reshaped into chains that slither toward Elisabeth at high speed.

  She screams, throws her arms wide, and from her bursts a pure wave — white, rare, almost sacred — that obliterates the first chains on contact. But some reach her. One coils around her ankle.

  Another pierces her left shoulder. The man steps back, stunned, heart pounding hollow, a helpless witness to this titanic clash. Elisabeth’s pain is real, too real.

  Ichor smokes around her wounds, and her knees buckle. But she does not fall. She screams, and the Ichor from her injuries transforms, boiling, she weaves it into cloth, into shifting ribbons that stitch her raw and bleeding, then whip the air like burning tentacles, crashing down on Bolton.

  The doctor tries to retreat, but one of the ribbons strikes his hip: a crack echoes. His cane falls. He staggers.

  The left lens of his mask shatters with a filthy orange gleam. The man tries to step forward, but the floor erupts beneath him, the Ichor pulses everywhere, wild, uncontrollable. The room changes.

  The walls open onto fragments of memory — childhood bedrooms, hospital corridors, isolation cells. Their battle tears the world, makes reality bleed. Bolton rises, furious.

  He is nothing now but hatred and black fire. - ?You are nothing against me, pitiful lunatic. Everything you create, I can break. I am the voice of the real in this place.

  You are a remnant.

  A poetic tumor.? He raises both arms. His Ichor condenses, into spikes, into needles, into jagged jaws — a swarm ready to strike. Elisabeth laughs.

  A broken laugh, magnificent. - ?Then come break me, Henry. But remember… I always put myself back together.? And she lunges at the doctor.

  They collide one last time, at the center of the room. The impact is devastating: the floor splits, furniture erupts in plumes of shadow, shards of mirror fall from the ceiling, and the man is thrown against the wall, his breath crushed out of him by the fury of the fluid. The world twists.

  Screams.Black blood.

  Flashes of filthy light.

  Fragments of childhood and pain. The two souls tear each other apart. The stench of burned Ichor fills everything.

  And just as it all seems on the brink of collapse, a sound cuts through. A voice splits the air. Gentle, mocking, unbearably calm: - ?Really now…

  Fighting over him like two starving dogs.? Time stops. Even the Ichor, that stubborn, flowing matter, freezes. Elisabeth’s ribbons hang motionless in the air.

  Bolton’s chains tremble, then fall limp. The doctor’s mask jerks to one side. Elisabeth steps back.

  Even the objects she shaped seem to wither under the pressure of this new presence. And she is there. Not entered.

  Not descended.

  Appeared.

  A child in a floral dress.

  Bare feet stained with soot.

  Her face is serene.

  Too serene.

  Like an unfinished ivory doll.

  Her eyes, however, are bottomless wells. And from her skull, like a crown, rise slow strands of black fluid, suspended in the air like insect antennae. She smiles.

  And in that smile, something screams without sound. Sally.

  She moves through the room as one might push a dream out of bed. The floor makes no sound beneath her steps. - ?You took your time, Henry. And you, poor doll, you’re still bleeding.

  All this… for him.? She stops in front of the man, who, still on the ground, struggles to breathe. She tilts her head, studying him like a child watches a wounded animal. - ?You… you didn’t ask for any of this. And yet here you are.

  Making them all run.

  I should tear you apart, rip out your Ichor and feast on it. Now. Before you grow.? She reaches out.

  Her fingers tremble — with pleasure or rage, it’s impossible to tell. But she doesn’t touch. She straightens. - ?Not yet.? Then she turns to the other two.

  Bolton, upright but frozen.

  Elisabeth, wounded, but still standing. - ?He’s slipping through your fingers, and you feel it. So you mark him. One with chains, the other with memories.

  You’re… pathetic.? Her laughter is a shattering of glass. Then, with a sigh: - ?But I suppose he needs a name. He has no memory of who he was, he’s forgotten everything.

  Without a name, he’s nothing.

  And you’re exhausting me.? She spins slowly in place — a slow, almost elegant turn. Then, in a syrupy voice: - ?What shall we call him ?? Bolton wipes the edge of his cracked mask. - ?That’s not yours to decide.? Sally laughs. - ?Of course it is. I saw his reflection first.? She leans toward Elisabeth. - ?You?

  Any thoughts, little doll ?? Elisabeth stares at her, lips tight. - ?It’s not a name he needs. It’s a story.?

  - ?Yes, but he’s too empty for that. Too clean.

  We must start with something more… disposable.? She turns toward the man, and this time, her eyes lock onto his. - ?Anonymous, then: Anon. It’s neutral. It’s sad.

  It suits him.? A long silence.

  Then, like a sentence passed: - ?Let him keep that name… until he earns another.? Without another word, Sally turns. And vanishes. Not in movement, in absence.

  The room seems to settle.

  The ceiling holds.

  The floor no longer shakes.

  Elisabeth breathes, with effort. Bolton turns away, retrieves his cane. They do not look at each other.

  They know this is neither victory nor defeat. Just a reprieve. The man straightens.

  And whispers, as if tasting the word: ?Anon…?

  Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to follow for future updates.