The room didn't exist.
Not on any map.
Not in any archive.
Not even in memory.
Except hers.
Except tonight.
The corridor was too narrow.
The torches too dim.
The air hung like breath caught between two lips unspoken, trembling.
Her boots made no sound.
The walls pulsed.
Like the Academy itself remembered her.
She stopped in front of the seventh door.
Wood rotted at the edges.
Iron hinges bled rust.
And carved into the surface
A single letter.
Nothing more.
She didn't remember what it meant.
But her bones did.
When her fingers touched the door, it opened on its own.
No sound.
Just darkness.
And the slow, aching scent of lavender drowned in ink.
Inside, the room was empty.
Or so it seemed.
Until her eyes adjusted
and saw the girl.
She was twelve.
In a white dress.
Kneeling before a cracked mirror that reflected nothing.
Her hair was tangled ivy.
Her hands clutched a doll stitched with red thread.
Its mouth sewn shut.
She was humming.
A lullaby only monsters would know.
Elariax didn't move.
She only watched.
"Do you remember me?" the girl asked, without turning.
Her voice was hers.
But younger.
Softer.
Full of hope that hadn't yet been murdered.
"Do you remember what you did?"
The mirror behind the girl flickered images flashing like dying stars.
Blood on marble.
A crown snapped in two.
Three boys screaming her name.
One whispering "run."
"You locked me here," the girl said.
"When they tore the soul from our body. You sealed me with lullabies and lies."
"You said it was to protect us."
"But you just didn't want to feel it."
Elariax stepped closer.
The scent of lavender turned sharp memory steeped in guilt.
She looked down.
And the doll was no longer stitched shut.
Its mouth had opened.
And inside, it whispered:
"She is the wound."
"You are the knife."
"I had to survive," Elariax said at last.
Her voice didn't echo.
The room didn't allow echoes.
The girl turned.
Her face was identical except for one thing:
Her eyes were silver.
Not violet.
Not human.
"You think surviving was the goal?" the girl said, standing.
"You left the rest of us behind."
"You forgot how to love. How to break. How to need."
The girl reached out.
Touched her older self's face.
And smiled.
"Let me show you what you forgot."
The room collapsed.
Not in ruin but into sound.
A heartbeat.
A memory.
A scream
And suddenly, Elariax was back in her chamber, gasping, bleeding from the nose.
But in her palm
The doll.
And stitched across its chest now—
"The first door is open."