Darkness.

Pitch-black darkness. Not even sunlight from the hall.

It’s so dark, I can’t see my own hands, not even when I bump them into my nose.

I can’t tell if the giggling that echoes around me is from miles away or right at my feet.

Something scurries past my legs. The giggling is for sure coming from at my feet.

I jerk away and press up against the door, the bars to my back.

“What do you want from me?” I yell out. My voice trembles.

The giggling just gets louder. Something rubs against my leg once more. A tiny doll hand.

Many tiny doll hands.

I scream as they claw at my ankles, as the laughter gets louder.

There’s nowhere to run. No way to escape.

“Help me, somebody, please!” I yell. Maybe James and Alicia are out there. Maybe someone is close enough to hear me, to help me …

“No one is going to come for you,” chides a girl’s voice. “No matter how loud you scream, they’ll never hear you. They never hear.”

Instantly, the clambering and giggling stops. Instead, I hear a girl softly crying.

“Who … who are you?” I ask.

The voice is familiar, but I can’t figure out why. It’s not Alicia. It’s not any girl from school. Wait, can it be … ?

“You know who I am, Kimberly Rice,” the girl says. “Just as I know who you are.”

Light flickers, pale blue and ethereal. And there, before me, hovers a young girl with curly hair, wearing a beautiful ball gown. The same gown I was wearing in my dreams. The same gown as the doll that led me here.

“Elizabeth,” I gasp. “Are you … dead?”

The girl nods. Her eyes are darkened with sadness, and when she looks at me, my chest goes cold with despair.

“Indeed,” she says. “And it is nice to finally meet you … cousin.”