The moss still hummed beneath us. Low. Faint. Like it hadn't yet decided whether to sing or scream.
I hadn't moved from where I leaned into Antic. Neither had he. His arm stayed wrapped around my shoulders like he forgot it was there—or like he knew if he let go, she might evaporate.
Grin was kneeling nearby, one skeletal hand brushing across the moss like he was checking a pulse he wasn't sure he wanted to feel.
Dolly, strangely grounded, stood like a music box after its last twirl. Her porcelain cheeks reflected the cave light in a way that made her look saintly, which was disturbing.
"I don't like it," Antic said finally, breaking the quiet with his usual subtlety. His voice was low, but jittery, like a flame flickering sideways. "It's like the room's breathin', but it don't want us knowin' it."
"It is breathing," Dolly whispered, eyes fixed on the crystal-veined wall. "You just don't know what it's inhaling."
Grin's fingers twitched once. "Memory. Grief. Something fermented."
I shifted against Antic, sitting upright but not pulling away. My hair was mussed, curls sticking out in angles. I probably looked like someone who'd been dream-punched. Her fingers brushed the moss, gently.
"There's more," I murmured. "I can feel it. Like something's still trying to get through."
Antic looked around sharply, lips parting. "More Breaths?"
"No." I shook my head. "No, this is different. Not voices. Not like before. More like…"
"Like what?" Grin asked. His voice was stone on stone.
"Like something's under the truth. Like the truth grew a tumor."
Antic let out a low whistle. "That's comfortin'. Real poetic. Maybe we should kiss the moss and see if it grows legs."
Dolly tilted her head slowly, eyelids half-lowered. "If it grows legs, I call dibs on riding it."
No one laughed. Even Antic kept still.
The wall behind them vibrated—so subtly it might've been imagined.
My hand went to my chest. My breath hitched.
Then—
A pulse.
Low. Rhythmic. Like someone knocking from the wrong side of the world.
Everyone stilled.
Grin stood slowly, his shoulders tense. "Didn't like that."
Antic slid one foot forward, placing himself ever so slightly in front of Pecola. "Tell me we're not 'bout to have a second act reunion with a cursed corpse. Please."
"It's not a corpse," I said. My voice was far away. "It's… a box."
Antic blinked. "A what now?"
My eyes weren't seeing the room anymore. They were tracking something deeper. "I don't know how I know. But it's here. It's always been here. I think the Breaths were guarding it. Or hiding it."
"Is it trapped?" Grin asked.
I stood slowly. The moss didn't ripple beneath her feet—it parted. Welcoming. Or afraid.
"I think it's been waiting."
Dolly gave a low, amused hum. "That's worse."
She was already moving, heels tapping lightly as she followed my lead. Grin flanked them. Antic lingered a half-step behind, muttering under his breath.
"Every damn time. Forest drama. Secret boxes. No one ever just says, 'Hey, wanna go get lunch and not almost die?'"
The hum was louder now.
They reached a shallow depression in the stone—a cradle of roots and crystal veining. At the center sat a box.
Small. Ornate. Wood dark as night with silver trim, humming like a lullaby you forgot how to sing.
My fingers hovered above it. The air tingled.
Grin nodded toward it. "That it?"
I didn't answer.
Antic exhaled behind her. "No Eyes... I know this look. That's the look you had right before the last time we touched a cursed object and got emotionally gutted."
I still didn't move.
Dolly spoke then, voice quieter than usual. "It's not just truth inside that box, No Eyes. It's the kind that changes shape when you remember it."
I lowered my hand.
The box opened without being touched.
Click.
Inside: Nothing.
Just a pulse of light.
Then a flicker.
Then—a reflection.
Not glass.
Not a mirror.
Something worse.
It was her.
But older. Eyes wide and empty. And behind her—Elara.
Holding the baby.
I gasped, knees giving out.
Antic caught me.
The box sang.
A lullaby.
One I never heard, but always known.
__________
Antics Pov:
She dropped again. Right into my arms like a ghost that hadn't decided whether to haunt or nap.
"No Eyes?" I breathed, already lowering her to the moss like we'd practiced it. We hadn't. But we should've, the way she kept passin' out like the forest had a fainting quota.
Her limbs were limp. Her head lolled against my chest, curls catching against my chin, and damn it if I didn't feel my ribs squeeze like a vice made of worry.
Across the circle, Dolly floated down slow as sin and twice as smug. She crossed her porcelain legs like she was in some haunted doll fashion show and tilted her head.
"That's two," she chirped, inspecting her nails. "One more and we get a free sandwich. Or is it a seizure punch card? Hard to keep up."
"Doll," I growled.
Grin didn't move from the edge of the moss circle. He just stood there, arms folded, scythe glinting like it had something to say.
"The box did it," I muttered. "Hit her like it knew what to aim for."
Dolly toed the now-closed thing with one glittery heel. "It's humming like a bad boyfriend. Mysterious, full of secrets, shuts down when confronted."
I glanced down at No Eyes. Her breath was shallow but there. Her lips parted like she might be dreaming something awful or important or both.
"She's gettin' pulled," I said softly. "Every time she opens a piece of that box, it yanks her somewhere deeper."
Dolly leaned in, whispering like a creep. "Maybe she's got to go under before she can come back up."
I didn't answer. Just watched the way her lashes didn't flutter. The way her fingers stayed curled against her own ribs like she didn't even trust her heartbeat.
Then—her breath hitched. A twitch. A shiver that ran from her shoulders down to her toes.
My chest unclenched a little. "C'mon, No Eyes. Don't tap out yet."
She stirred. Barely.
I leaned in. "Hey."
Nothing.
I leaned closer. "You wake up now and I'll stop callin' you No Eyes for like… a whole five minutes."
She groaned. "...You're annoying."
Music, that voice. Hoarse and pissed-off. I grinned like a man seeing color for the first time.
"There she is," I murmured. "Was worried you decided to stay in Trauma Town without tellin' us."
Her hand smacked weakly at my chest. "Stop talkin'."
"Rude. I just saved your unconscious life."
"I fainted. Not died."
"Potato, coma-to."
Dolly crouched near her now, lace skirts billowing slightly as she landed without sound. "Do we count this one as a vision, or just emotional bankruptcy?"
No Eyes sat up with my help. She blinked at the closed box, lips twitching like she wasn't sure if she should cry or punch something.
"More pieces," she murmured. "It's showing me more."
"Of what?" I asked, brushing a bit of moss from her sleeve. "Sad mom? Creepy castle? Magic trauma scrapbook?"
She nodded, eyes glazed like they were still half in another place. "Elara. She was there again. Older. Sadder. She kept saying I had to forget. That if I remembered, I'd be found."
Dolly crossed her arms. "Sounds like a mother worth sending a thank-you bomb."
Grin's voice was quiet, almost distant. "The box isn't done."
No Eyes stared at it. "It's waiting."
"For what?" I asked.
She met my eyes, finally. And I swear the air went still.
"For me to open it again."
The box was still humming.
Soft, rhythmic. Like a lullaby composed by something that had never once loved a child.
I sat upright, legs folded beneath me on the mossy stone, Antic hovering too close to be subtle, Dolly hovering too close to be sane, and Grin… being Grin. Staring like the box owed him money.
My hands tingled.
The latch was staring at me again.
Third one.
There'd been two before. Each one like a memory being peeled from under my skin. Each one making the air taste less like air and more like prophecy and regret.
"You don't have to," Antic muttered beside me, thumb flicking across the back of my hand like he wasn't even aware it was doing that. "We could toss it. Bury it. Feed it to a passing fungus."
"Or," Dolly offered, "we melt it down and turn it into cursed jewelry. I call dibs on the brooch."
"I need to," I said, voice quiet. "It's like a splinter. I can't leave it in."
Antic muttered something under his breath that sounded like "damn poetic martyr syndrome," but he didn't stop me.
I leaned forward.
The third latch glowed faintly violet.
I paused just before touching it, whispering, "Don't pass out. Don't pass out. Don't pass—"
Click.
The box opened with a sigh.
Not mechanical. Not magical.
Emotional.
Like it knew I'd finally hit the wound it didn't want touched.
Inside: a single scrap of paper. Torn on one edge, singed on the other.
I reached for it. My fingertips brushed it—
And everything broke.
The moss under me vanished.
The others vanished.
The world melted into ink.
And then rebuilt itself into something colder.
It was a garden.
But not alive.
Everything was stone. Stone roses. Stone grass. A stone fountain that dripped dry tears.
In the center sat a man.
He wasn't old. But his face held the kind of wear that only came from losing people over and over again. His clothes were formal. Outdated. A vest buttoned too high. Gloves too clean.
He held a letter in one hand.
The other hand was trembling.
He didn't speak.
But I felt the words in my bones.
"She's gone."
I stepped closer, unsure if I was ghost or witness or echo.
"She's gone," he said again, louder this time. "Elara took her. Hid her. From me."
He stood. The letter fluttered to the stone roses.
"I told her what would happen. I warned her. I begged her."
He was pacing now. Like a caged thing. Like Antic on the verge of panic, but quieter. Sharper.
"She should've let me take the child. I could've kept her safe. I had the means."
He turned suddenly—eyes meeting mine like I was real.
"You will come back," he said.
I froze.
"You don't know me yet. But I know you. You have her eyes."
He stepped closer.
His shadow stretched long across the broken fountain. "Tell Elara she failed."
His voice became a whisper of dust.
"And I don't forget."
The scene shattered.
I jolted back into the cave, gasping. Antic caught me again. Third time. No jokes this time.
My hands clutched the paper scrap.
It burned cold.
Grin leaned forward. "What'd you see?"
Dolly twirled a lock of my hair between her fingers. "Was it daddy issues? Or legacy trauma? Or some combination horror smoothie?"
I couldn't answer for a moment.
Then I whispered: "He wants me back."
Antic stilled beside me.
Grin's jaw tightened.
Dolly's smile vanished like sugar on the tongue.
I looked down at the paper. It had a single word on it.
My name.
Pecola..
The paper burned itself out in my hand.
Not literally. But I felt it dissolve—like shame turning to steam. The name on it still buzzed in my bones.
Not mine. Never mine.
I sat back, spine against cool stone, breath shallow.
Antic was still there, a silent pressure at my side, knuckles tight like he wanted to punch a ghost.
Dolly broke the tension, arms crossed, leaning against the cave wall like a porcelain gargoyle with gossip. "So, how many more times are you gonna faint, No Eyes? I wanna place bets. Winner gets Grin's bones."
Grin didn't flinch. "Already sold most of 'em."
Antic shot Dolly a look. "She didn't faint. She fell into a vision."
"Yeah, well, next time someone falls into a vision maybe warn us before they look like they're seizing through their trauma catalog."
I coughed. "I'm fine."
"You're not," Antic muttered. "You're pale."
"I'm always pale."
"Well now you're like—extra spectral. Like ghost-pale. Like… Victorian-orphan-pale."
Dolly gave a satisfied nod. "You look like you wandered out of a haunted watercolor."
I sat up straighter. My fingers still tingled.
The box was still open.
But now there was something new beneath the latch—a ring of words burned into the wood, etched so fine I hadn't noticed them before. Letters danced like ink bleeding through skin.
Grin leaned in. "Language isn't human."
"Nope," Dolly said. "Too smooth. Too smug. Definitely cursed."
"Anyone read cursed smug?"
Antic raised his hand. "Fluent."
He bent close. His lips moved slowly.
The words didn't speak back.
They bit.
He jerked back. "Ow—shit—"
A bloom of blood welled on his lower lip. Just one drop.
"Oh great," Dolly said dryly. "Now it's asking for blood sacrifices. All boxes do eventually. It's practically a trope."
Antic wiped his mouth, glaring at the box like it had insulted his fashion sense. "Didn't even say please."
Grin studied him. Then, calm as a corpse, said, "It asked you. Specifically."
The moss under Antic's boots pulsed.
The box shimmered.
I leaned forward, instincts screaming in the back of my skull. "It wants him."
Dolly's head tilted. "Of course it does. Nothing like generational trauma to season a boy just right."
Antic didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Then, softly, "Do I open it?"
"No," I said.
"Yes," said Dolly.
Grin shrugged. "Flip a coin."
Antic breathed in slow, like air might be flammable.
Then his fingers closed on the fourth latch.
Click.
The cave twisted.
Stone became shadow. Moss became velvet. Air became perfume and static and old perfume on dead things.
We were in another memory.
But not mine.
Not Grin's.
Antic's.
He stood in the center, unaware of us, younger—so much younger—barefoot in a robe stitched from leaves. Bruised knuckles. Wild eyes.
He was arguing with something too tall to be human. Not a parent. Not a god.
A judge.
A creature draped in mirrored cloth, its voice like dry paper slicing your ear.
"You cannot leave the Wildlife Realm."
"You don't own me!" young Antic shouted.
"You are its mistake."
"I'm not a mistake!"
"You are unclaimed."
"You're wrong!"
A pause.
The thing leaned forward, its face empty.
"Then show us."
And Antic screamed.
A raw, shaking, soul-baring kind of scream.
The vision snapped.
We were back in the cave.
Antic was crouched now, hands in his hair.
He wasn't shaking.
He wasn't crying.
He was burning.
Dolly whispered, softer this time, "How old were you?"
Antic didn't look up. "Thirteen."
Grin let out a low breath. "They told you that? That you were nothing?"
"They made me believe it."
Silence.
Then I reached for his hand. He didn't stop me.
I squeezed once. Firm.
"You're not nothing," I said.
He swallowed. "You saw that?"
"All of it."
His laugh came out strangled. "Cool. So you saw my worst day."
"No," I said. "Just your beginning."
Dolly tilted her head. "That was surprisingly sentimental for you, No Eyes. You dying again or just evolving emotionally?"
I didn't answer.
The box was still open.
One latch left.
It glowed like a heartbeat.
Waiting.
It pulsed.
The last latch. Smallest of them all.
Not flashy. Not loud.
It just… waited.
Like it knew the others had softened us up first.
I stared at it for what felt like years. The others didn't speak.
Antic's hand stayed in mine.
Dolly crouched on a rock like a cat pretending not to care.
Grin stood behind me, silent and grim in the literal sense, shadows curling at the edge of his coat.
I reached forward.
My thumb brushed the silver hinge.
It didn't click.
It sighed.
The lid opened slow—like the box itself was reluctant to show what was inside.
I held my breath.
Inside… wasn't a photo. Or paper. Or blood.
It was a piece of mirror.
No frame. No backing.
Just a shard, shaped like a tear, no larger than my palm.
I reached down.
It didn't reflect my face.
It reflected her.
The woman from before.
Elara.
Her wild hair. Her wild heart.
This time, she wasn't crying.
She was fighting.
Running through a burning forest, eyes glowing, arms full of a baby wrapped in red silk. Creatures chased her—hooded, clawed, shouting words I couldn't understand. Fire licked her heels.
She spun, raised a hand, and the trees listened.
They bent. They swallowed the path. They screamed.
But it wasn't enough.
One of them—one of the hooded things—got close.
She screamed. "STAY BACK!"
The baby cried.
And then she did the impossible.
She opened the forest.
Like a wound.
Like a door.
And shoved the baby through it.
Me.
She turned to face them.
And I never saw what happened next.
The shard went dark.
I sat back slowly, my breath ragged.
The box closed itself.
Grin let out a low hiss. "She gave you to the forest."
Dolly nodded, expression unreadable. "Not left. Not lost. Given. On purpose."
Antic was very quiet beside me. His thumb brushed my knuckle, just once.
"…No Eyes," he said carefully. "You okay?"
I looked at the empty box.
At the cold moss beneath us.
At the darkness still watching from the corners of this cavern.
I didn't answer the question.
Instead, I whispered:
"She knew they were coming."
Grin's voice was a rasp. "They still are."
I swallowed. "Then I need to remember faster."
Dolly stood and dusted off her skirts like she'd just finished brunch.
"Well," she said brightly, "now that we've traumatized everyone equally… what say we go find the next emotional landmine to dance barefoot on?"
Antic muttered, "I vote we sleep first. And then maybe cry."
I looked down at the box again.
It didn't hum anymore.
Didn't glow.
It had told its truth.
Now it just waited.
Like I would.
For the rest to come back.