Guilt isn’t a feeling. It’s a disease. It burrows into your bones, lingers behind your eyes, and hisses in your skull when the world falls silent. It doesn’t fade. It doesn’t forgive. It waits.

  Sarah knew that guilt—the kind that drags you awake at 3 a.m., replaying the sound of someone breaking while you stood frozen.

  Three years. That’s how long she’d been running. Three years since Miranda vanished. Three years since the theater. Three years since Sarah fled and never looked back.

  She’d mastered the art of pretending. Get up, go to work, come home. Repeat. Her life was a loop of empty rituals—instant coffee, cold showers, a TV muttering to no one. No photos on the walls. No visitors. She didn’t need reminders. That night pulsed beneath her skin, a wound that never closed. Every forced smile, every hollow conversation, was a lie stacked on the truth: she’d failed Miranda. Watched her best friend unravel. And ran like a coward.

  Until the letter arrived.

  It landed in her mailbox like a blade—no stamp, no return address. Just folded paper, yellowed and damp, smelling of earth and rust. The handwriting was Miranda’s—lopsided, unmistakable, the kind that filled margins of high school notebooks and secret notes passed in class.

  Five words.

  “I need your help. Come back.”

  Sarah stared, hands numb, breath caught. The paper seemed to hum, warm against her fingers. She turned it over—no signature, no hint—just a smudged postmark.

  Hollow Vale.

  The name clawed at her chest. A town she hadn’t thought of since that night. Not on any map. Not in any search. She tried—Google, archives, nothing. It wasn’t forgotten. It was erased. Memories flickered: summer nights in a glowing theater, Miranda’s laughter echoing down cobblestone streets, the scent of popcorn and polished wood. And something else—a shadow, cold and watchful, always just out of reach.

  She didn’t eat that night. Didn’t sleep. Sat on her kitchen floor, lights off, the letter heavy in her hands. Shadows seemed to shift, curling closer. By dawn, she was packed. Bag slung over her shoulder. Gas tank full. Apartment locked like a vault. No note. No one to care. She’d built a life light enough to vanish without a ripple—just like Miranda had.

  The drive began normally. Highway signs. Sunlight. Distant chatter of other cars. Then the world started to fray.

  Gas stations dwindled, their pumps skeletal and rusted. Trees thickened, branches scraping the sky. Billboards sagged, words half-eaten by time—promises of salvation or sales long dead. Fog seeped in, slow and deliberate, coiling around her tires like it knew her name.

  Her phone lost signal.

  The GPS flickered, spat “ERROR,” and died.

  The radio dissolved into static—a low hiss that carried voices, faint and wrong, like a sermon whispered to something hungry.

  She slammed the radio off. The voices lingered, threading into her thoughts: You left her. You let her break.

  Her last chance to turn back was a sign, half-collapsed in weeds, its letters bleeding rust:

  WELCOME TO HOLLOW VALE

  Population: ???

  The numbers were gouged out, replaced with jagged scratches. Sarah stepped out. The fog thickened, alive, brushing her ankles like a cat. Silence pressed in—no wind, no birds, no hum of life. Her breath sounded too loud, a trespass. The town crouched ahead, buildings slouched and jagged, windows dark and gaping. Not abandoned—trapped, caught in a moment that refused to end.

  Then she heard it. “Sarah...”

  The voice cut through her, sharp and cold. Miranda’s, but twisted—like a recording warped by water. It came from nowhere, everywhere.

  She spun. Nothing. Just fog and silence.

  Then again: “Help me...”

  Her hand clutched the letter, desperate for an anchor. It felt warm, damp, pulsing faintly. The ink looked wet, as if freshly written. She shoved it back in her pocket, heart hammering.

  She walked.

  Main Street was a mausoleum. Shops and houses stood gutted, paint peeling like burned skin. Doors hung ajar, creaking without wind. Curtains twitched behind empty windows. Shadows moved at the edges of her vision—a hand retreating, a figure dissolving around a corner. A child’s laugh cut through the quiet, sharp and gone.

  She passed a playground. A lone swing swayed, chains groaning. No breeze. The slide was streaked with something dark, glistening like oil. Her stomach twisted, but her feet kept moving, crunching gravel that sounded too much like teeth.

  Her body knew the way, even if her mind didn’t. Each step felt like a surrender, pulling her deeper into Hollow Vale’s rotting core. The fog pulsed, guiding her, whispering her name in a voice she couldn’t place.

  She stopped in front of the theater.

  Of course she did.

  The Regal Theater—once the town’s beating heart, now a decaying husk. Its sign was shattered, letters spelling fragments of lost stories: A…DREAM…GONE… The doors sagged, wood swollen with rot. A single light buzzed above the marquee, flickering like a pulse. The building loomed, its silhouette sharp against a sky gone bruise-green. It watched her, waiting.

  She hadn’t seen it since Miranda broke.

  They’d been inseparable back then—Sarah and Miranda, two girls against the world. Summers in Hollow Vale, sneaking into the theater’s balcony, giggling through rehearsals, dreaming of futures bigger than their small lives. Miranda wanted the stage. She chased it like it was oxygen, her voice bending crowds, her presence electric. Sarah was content to watch, proud, a little awed. That night was supposed to be Miranda’s triumph—her first lead role, the spotlight hers alone.

  Sarah sat front row, beaming as Miranda lit up the stage, her blue dress catching the light, her voice weaving magic. For an hour, she was untouchable.

  Then it changed.

  Midway through Act II, Miranda faltered. Her lines broke. Her eyes widened, fixed on something beyond the footlights. She went pale, hands trembling. Then she screamed—raw, jagged, not human. She pointed—at the crowd, at Sarah, at nothing. Her voice cracked into sobs, then words no one understood, a language of terror. The stage lights burned red, casting her in blood. She collapsed, a marionette with cut strings.

  No one moved. Not the actors. Not the audience. Not Sarah.

  The theater felt alive that night, its walls breathing, its shadows grinning. Sarah’s legs carried her out, away, running until her lungs burned, running because staying meant facing something she couldn’t name.

  Now, she stood before the same doors. Her reflection in the cracked glass looked wrong—eyes too large, mouth too thin. She blinked. The reflection didn’t.

  The door opened on its own.

  Of course it did.

  The lobby reeked—mold, urine, and perfume gone rancid. The carpet squelched under her boots, wet with something long dried. Walls sagged, streaked with stains like claw marks. A chandelier hung above, crystals tangled and dull, swaying in still air.

  The voice came again.

  “Help me, Sarah...”

  She didn’t answer. Just walked, slow, through the double doors into the theater hall. The air grew heavy, cold, her breath clouding in front of her. Her flashlight beam trembled, slicing through darkness.

  Then she saw them.

  The audience.

  Not people. Dolls.

  Hundreds. Porcelain, plastic, cloth. Every size, every shape. All facing the stage, rigid, like they’d bought tickets to a show that never ended. Their heads turned as she entered, a slow, synchronized creak. Empty eyes. Sewn lips. Some had no arms, no legs, their stumps frayed. One clutched a music box, spinning silently, gears grinding. Another held a program—blank, stained with rust.

  On the stage, one doll stood alone.

  Smaller. Dressed like Miranda that night—blue dress, black curls tumbling over porcelain shoulders. Its face was hers, perfect and wrong.

  Sarah’s knees buckled. She hit the carpet, flashlight rolling, its beam spinning across the dolls’ faces, making shadows writhe.

  The doll didn’t move.

  But the voice did.

  “Help me...”

  It came from everywhere—air, walls, her own skull. The temperature plunged. Lights flickered, strobing the room in pulses of dark and light. The air thickened with burnt lavender and copper.

  The doll tilted its head.

  And smiled.

  Sarah scrambled back, knocking over a doll. Its head split on the floor, spilling black stuffing that twitched like insects. The others stayed still, but the Miranda doll’s grin widened, porcelain cracking at the edges, revealing something dark beneath.

  She ran—through the lobby, out into the fog. The town had changed. Streets coiled like snakes. Buildings leaned closer, windows reflecting her face, distorted, screaming. The fog was syrup, slowing her steps, clinging to her skin.

  She passed the playground. The swing was gone. A noose hung in its place, braided from hair, swaying gently. She stumbled past, hands scraping pavement, blood mixing with dirt.

  The voice chased her.

  “You left me.”

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You let me die.”

  She didn’t remember falling. Just the impact—face on asphalt, pain blooming, fog wrapping her like a shroud. The world blurred, then—

  She woke in the theater’s heart, sprawled on the stage. Dolls surrounded her, their eyes like judges, unblinking. Their sewn lips quivered, forming silent words. The air buzzed, stage lights humming, casting shadows that moved without source.

  The Miranda doll stood over her.

  Silent. Smiling.

  Then—

  “You left me.”

  Softer now. Not accusing. Not angry.

  Broken.

  Sarah’s sob tore free, raw and jagged. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice splintering. “I didn’t know how to help you. I didn’t know what to do.” The words were frail, useless against three years of guilt, but they were all she had. She reached out, fingers shaking, wanting to touch, to undo, to fix.

  The doll blinked.

  For a moment—barely a heartbeat—something flickered in its eyes. Recognition. Pain. Miranda.

  Then its face split.

  Stitches ripped. Porcelain shattered. A scream erupted—not human, but the sound of a town collapsing, of memories burning, of guilt made flesh. It poured from the doll’s mouth, a black tide swallowing light, air, reason. The other dolls jerked to life, limbs twitching, mouths tearing open to join the wail. The theater shook—walls cracking, seats splintering, ceiling raining dust.

  Sarah felt herself falling—not through the floor, but deeper, into something endless. The scream filled her, became her, pulling her apart.

  She didn’t know if she was running.

  Didn’t know if she was alive.

  All she knew was the scream—and Miranda’s voice, tethering her to Hollow Vale.

  Forever.