The room was no longer a room.
It breathed.
The Little Door pulsed faintly, casting a sickly light across the floorboards. Its glow wasn't warm—it was the pale gleam of old bone and broken promises. The kind of light that made you remember things best left forgotten.
Note stared at it, unmoving.
His fingers brushed the locket—the one with no photo inside. He used to think it was empty because of what he lost. Now, he wasn't so sure. Maybe it was waiting for something. Or someone.
> "You said you'd protect her…"
The voice didn't come from the door this time. It came from inside him. The part of him that had never left that night. That final night. The night the door took her.
---
Note knelt.
He wasn't afraid. Not of the dark. Not of the dead. He had seen worse things in dreamless sleep. Worse things in himself.
He pressed his palm against the floor.
It yielded.
Not like wood. Like memory.
The door swung open again—not gently this time, but hungrily. Wind screamed up from within, carrying the scent of old earth and scorched photographs. The hum in the key intensified until it cracked clean in half where it lay.
No turning back.
He descended.
---
The passage sloped downward, impossibly far. The further he walked, the more the corridor distorted. Time buckled. Walls bent. The ceiling breathed. It was like crawling through the lungs of something that used to be human.
Lights flickered ahead—lanterns swaying from ropes that had no ceiling to hang from. On the walls were drawings—crude, childlike. Stick figures. A girl with braids. A boy with a red scarf.
Then… the door.
Not the Little Door. A new one.
Painted on the wood in shaky white strokes was a phrase:
"NO BOYS BEYOND THIS POINT"
Note smiled despite himself.
It was her handwriting.
---
He reached for the handle.
The wood screamed when he touched it. Not a sound—an emotion. Panic, blistering and raw. It didn't want him here.
He opened it anyway.
---
Inside was a bedroom.
Not just any bedroom—hers. Perfectly preserved. A child's dream frozen in time. Paper stars hung from the ceiling. A record player spun nothing but silence. On the bed sat a stuffed rabbit with one eye sewn shut.
And there she was.
Sitting cross-legged on the rug, hair in the same tangled braids he remembered. Drawing with red crayon on the floorboards.
She looked up.
And smiled.
> "You took your time."
Note's heart stopped. Not from shock—but because it was her. Not a ghost. Not a memory. Her. Older now—maybe fourteen?—but unmistakable.
He stepped forward.
> "How are you here?" he whispered.
She tilted her head.
> "You left me here, Sandy. Don't you remember?"
His knees buckled. The guilt hit like a flood. He remembered running. The corridor. The panic. The way the Little Door had closed behind him before she could follow.
> "I tried to go back—"
> "You didn't." Her voice was sharper now. "You ran."
Silence filled the space between them.
Then she softened.
> "But you're here now."
---
She stood and walked to the wall. There, she touched a spot between two paper stars. A seam appeared—another door.
> "You have to see what they built. What they used us for."
Note hesitated.
> "Who?"
> "The Echo Makers," she said. "The ones who built the Little Doors in every city. The ones who started Deadlight."
> "You know about the Deadlight?"
She nodded.
> "It's not a disease. It's leakage. From beyond. They used me to open a way. They wanted you too. That's why they let you live."
Note stepped closer.
> "And you've been hiding here?"
> "No," she said. "I've been holding the door shut."
---
She opened the seam.
Beyond was not a hallway.
It was a labyrinth—a churning space of staircases that led nowhere, windows that opened into screams, and doors that bled rust when touched. Floating symbols etched in red circled above, constantly rearranging themselves into languages no human tongue could pronounce.
> "This is where they come from," she whispered. "This is where they listen."
Note stared into the abyss.
And something stared back.
---
Behind them, the bedroom began to collapse. The paper stars burned. The walls twisted in on themselves.
A whisper came from the void.
> "Sandy…"
It wasn't her voice this time.
It was their mother's.
> "Don't follow her."
Note turned. He could see the silhouette of a woman standing at the edge of the stars, face obscured in static.
> "She isn't your sister anymore."
The girl beside him tensed.
> "She lied to you before, Sandy."
His sister didn't speak. Her shadow was wrong. Too long.
Note stood between them—between a door that led to the impossible and a voice from the grave that claimed to protect.
---
He had a choice.
And whichever path he chose…
Someone would die again.