The corridor behind them snapped shut like a slammed trapdoor.
Mikael barely had time to brace himself before the space twisted—walls bending, floor stretching, gravity shifting in silent ripples. He wasn't sure if he was still standing or falling. Elise, steady as ever, didn't flinch.
"They're close," she said. "We don't have long."
A whisper slithered through the air. Not words—more like rusted strings being pulled taut, humming through unseen mouths. Mikael turned his head and saw them:
Figures emerging from the darkness, identical in every way—porcelain masks, stitched smiles, theater uniforms soaked in dried crimson. Their eyes were not eyes, but empty sockets that bled faint light, like old candlewax dripping upward.
"The Rehearsed," Elise said coldly. "Memories that forgot they're dead."
The Rehearsed didn't walk. They glided.
One of them pointed at Mikael.
"You broke the script," it rasped.
Another one spoke. "The director will not allow improvisation."
Mikael backed away, heart racing. "What do they want from me?"
"To drag you back into the role you abandoned," Elise answered, drawing a thin blade from beneath her coat. "And make you perform it… again, and again, until you forget you were ever real."
One of the Rehearsed lunged.
Elise moved like a whisper—her blade catching the mask with a sharp crack. The porcelain face shattered, revealing nothing inside. No flesh. No bone. Just black paper, folded tight like origami soaked in blood.
Mikael stumbled back. The others closed in.
"You've done this before," he muttered.
"Yes," Elise replied. "And so have you."
She tossed something to him. A shard of mirror.
It reflected not his face—but his masked self. The one from the void.
As soon as Mikael gripped it, the air shifted. The whispers screamed.
He didn't know how, but he moved. The shard danced in his hand, slashing at one of the Rehearsed before it could strike. Paper and blood scattered.
Memories weren't just coming back—they were fighting through him.
"Why do I feel like I've killed them before?" he gasped.
Elise's eyes shimmered. "Because you were once the one who wrote the script."
And the director?
He was still waiting behind the next curtain.