Stage 73 - You Don't Know
Stage 73 - You Don't Know
If you turned, you would see no one there.
Suddenly, your reflection flickered across the wall—alive and independent. It did not mirror your movements. It stepped forward when you stayed still. Its eyes were yours, but wrong. A bit brighter, like there was a spark that you seemed to be missing. A gaze that burrowed a bit too deep. The skin, rosier maybe. No, darker... tanner. If you looked at your own hand, it would seem almost ashen comparatively.
“You drank it,” the reflection said. “You gave up the anchor.” The imitation claimed.
When you shared your memory, the reflection would smile, cold and crooked.
“That one was allowed to stay.”
Behind you, the corridor was no longer empty. The mannequins had moved. Closer. Just a step. Their heads tilted, limbs posed ever so differently slightly, like puppets in the moments before the strings are pulled taut.
One of them was holding a doll. Red velvet robe. Buttery burlap skin. You knew that one, Twinkle. But there was something different about this Twinkle. This Twinkle had a stitched smile. Wide and encompassing, this Twinkle had a strange, eerie expression of glee.
The walls began to hum.
“Let the pattern end,” a dozen voices whispered from nowhere. “Let go of the thread.”
The floor cracked beneath your feet, lines spiraling out like veins in shattered glass. Light began to bleed through the fractures underfoot. The light was not bright, it was not warm. the light was pale and hollow, as if reality itself was trying to force itself upon you.
The floor would shatter and you would fall away.
__________________
The dream was not just a metaphor. The corridor was not a real place, but it was a place you had been before. This corridor was not symbolic, it was a prison of the mind. A hall of silence where people, like you are placed, piece by piece, until nothing remains but the name stitched into their robes. Moments such as this one are diffused into the ether, forgotten.
Canbrey made you forget because you saw something. Something beneath and within the school. Something terrible and dark, infesting the walls and the floors. Something in the dolls. Something Canbrey doesn’t want to be known.
Please re-enter this adventure following the thread of another doll. This is relevant to your story, you have lived this but you have forgotten!
If you turned, you would see no one there.
Suddenly, your reflection flickered across the wall—alive and independent. It did not mirror your movements. It stepped forward when you stayed still. Its eyes were yours, but wrong. A bit brighter, like there was a spark that you seemed to be missing. A gaze that burrowed a bit too deep. The skin, rosier maybe. No, darker... tanner. If you looked at your own hand, it would seem almost ashen comparatively.
“You drank it,” the reflection said. “You gave up the anchor.” The imitation claimed.
When you shared your memory, the reflection would smile, cold and crooked.
“That one was allowed to stay.”
Behind you, the corridor was no longer empty. The mannequins had moved. Closer. Just a step. Their heads tilted, limbs posed ever so differently slightly, like puppets in the moments before the strings are pulled taut.
One of them was holding a doll. Red velvet robe. Buttery burlap skin. You knew that one, Twinkle. But there was something different about this Twinkle. This Twinkle had a stitched smile. Wide and encompassing, this Twinkle had a strange, eerie expression of glee.
The walls began to hum.
“Let the pattern end,” a dozen voices whispered from nowhere. “Let go of the thread.”
The floor cracked beneath your feet, lines spiraling out like veins in shattered glass. Light began to bleed through the fractures underfoot. The light was not bright, it was not warm. the light was pale and hollow, as if reality itself was trying to force itself upon you.
The floor would shatter and you would fall away.
__________________
You would then awake in the safety of your bed. You would remember nothing of the events this day. You would not remember Twinkle. You would not remember Octavius. In fact, Octavius never existed. as far as you know it, Bessie Barnes is the school nurse.Start here if you came from Stage 74 and continue here if you came from 71 after reviewing the first potion of the post.
The dream was not just a metaphor. The corridor was not a real place, but it was a place you had been before. This corridor was not symbolic, it was a prison of the mind. A hall of silence where people, like you are placed, piece by piece, until nothing remains but the name stitched into their robes. Moments such as this one are diffused into the ether, forgotten.
Canbrey made you forget because you saw something. Something beneath and within the school. Something terrible and dark, infesting the walls and the floors. Something in the dolls. Something Canbrey doesn’t want to be known.
Please re-enter this adventure following the thread of another doll. This is relevant to your story, you have lived this but you have forgotten!
There is something about ambition, how it not only propels you but also defines you.