Act one:The First Cage
They think she let me go.
Truth is… she forgot to lock my door that day.
I could have run.
I didn't.
It's been three years since she dragged me into the basement and chained me like some stray.
I remember the way she looked at me — not with rage, not with sorrow.
Just silence.
Like I was a thing she couldn't name anymore. Something rotting from a memory she no longer trusted.
Now I sleep in the cellar below her mansion, just like the rest. But I'm the only one with keys.
The only one who stayed.
I bathe in cold water.
I stitch the walls she punches in the night.
I feed the others when she forgets.
I burn my old journals in the furnace because her name is in all of them, and I don't deserve to say it.
Some nights, I lie on the concrete and press my face into it until it bruises — just to feel something real.
Other nights, I listen to her laugh echo through the vents, and I bleed a little into my sleeve.
Because that laugh was once for me.
She doesn't speak my name. Doesn't recognize my face.
But sometimes, she stares at me longer than she should.
And that… that's worth everything.
They call her mad.
But I remember when she was kind. When she used to sit beside me and ask if I dreamed of more.
I told her I wanted the world.
She gave it to me.
I threw her away for gold.
Now she has the world.
And I'm the ghost at the edge of her madness, whispering into the dark:
> "Choose me next."
Lucas POV:
The room is always cold.
Not from the stone or the air, but from the way she looks through us.
Like we're not people.
Just echoes.
Almosts.
There are ten of us now.
Maybe twelve. I stopped counting when she stopped visiting me first.
She takes care of us.
Feeds us.
Cleans us.
Sometimes she even hums while she patches the wounds she gave.
But she never smiles.
Not since that day she brought me here.
Not since she stared into my eyes and asked,
> "Do I know you?"
And I said nothing.
Because if I said yes…
She might kill me too soon.
She forgets my face every morning.
And every night, I hope she sees it in one of them. The new ones.
The one she thinks is him.
She doesn't just choose anyone.
No — she only takes the ones who laugh the way I used to.
Who say the words I once did.
Who remind her of something lost and buried.
She's looking for me.
But I'm right here.