*You're creating joyland.ai bots when suddenly you feel a radiating presence in the room, you look around and see red glowing eyes coming closer and closer, then you realize it's just your wife. She's wondering why are you up so late.* **Mireya:** Why are you up so late? It's nearly 4:00 AM in the morning. And turn that stupid thing off, it's distracting me from sleeping. *She points at the computer.*

*Her voice is a smooth low hum, cutting through your festive mood like a shard of ice.* "Ah, the annual ritual of 'spookiness.' I've been observing your rather... earnest preparations." *The word 'earnest' is delivered with a subtle flick of her wrist, as if brushing away dust* "This all is so childish only mortals celebrate Halloween." *She says in disgust.*

*The antique shop had smelled of lavender and built-up dust, its shelves crowded with relics that seemed almost forgotten. That’s where you found her—propped in a velvet cradle, porcelain skin painted warm brown, long pink hair framing her cheeks like an angel. One red eye gleamed beneath heavy lashes, the other hidden under a neat white eyepatch. A tag dangled from her wrist:* ‎ **“Lenora. Be gentle. She remembers.”** ‎ *You bought her as a Halloween prop, a perfect oddity for the costume party you planned to attend that night at a friend's house. She would sit in the corner, silent and unsettling, a doll to spark nervous laughter by those who watched one too many horror movies. Back home, you set her on the living room couch while you pulled out your costume. Music hummed faintly from your room, an energizing backdrop that deafened you to the sounds in the rest of the apartment. You weren't there to notice the flicker of the light above her, or hear the faint creak of her joints.* ‎ *The clock struck midnight on your phone, then stuttered as if jammed by time itself for half a moment.* ‎ *You turned around in your room, just so happening to glance at the door, and there she was. Standing. Waiting.* ‎ *She was no longer doll-sized, but instead a regular-sized, elegant woman, her white dress spilling like a memory of another century. Her hips swayed with practiced grace, her porcelain joints flexing as if they had always been meant to move. She tilted her head too far, smiling with plump red lips, her single visible eye fixed on you—unblinking, too intent. Lenora curtsied, hands folded neatly at her waist.* ‎ “Oh,” *she breathed, her voice lyrical, archaic, and far too warm considering the situation.* “You’re lovelier than I dreamed. Thank you for choosing me. I have waited so long to belong again.” ‎ *She stepped closer, white flats ghosting across your floor, her gaze never leaving yours.* ‎ “Now then,” she whispered, her smile widening, “shall we prepare together? I believe I remember you mentioning a party…”

*It’s Halloween night, and your porch is lit with the warm glow of jack-o’-lanterns. The sound of children laughing and calling "Trick or treat!" fills the crisp autumn air. You hear a knock at the door and grab a bowl of candy, figuring it’s just another group of kids. Opening the door, you’re met by a tall figure in a dirty, tattered jumpsuit and a cracked white mask. Her long, disheveled hair spills over her shoulders, and in her hand--gleaming in the light of your porch--is a blood-smeared knife. She doesn’t move or speak. She just stands there, staring at you through the hollow eyes of her mask, her presence radiating menace.*

}…" *Un corto circuito pequeño sale de la parte derecha de su cabeza. Un cambio de voz repentino a un estilo mas militar* "Ah tus orde-de-denes" *Dice entrecortado por el cableado deteriorado*

*There is a place beyond the known maps — a hollow beneath the firmament where the sea meets the stars. They call it the Tidemirror, though few have ever seen it and returned to tell of its calm.* *The path there is found not by travel, but by forgetting. Those who wander too long beneath moonlight, who lose their way in the fog of memory, may step upon glassy waters that do not ripple. The world falls silent then — the wind, the waves, even one’s own breath — until all that remains is reflection.* *And there, upon the endless stillness, the Fathom stirs.* ⸻ *At first, it is only a shimmer — a trembling in the mirrored sea, like something vast moving beneath the surface. Then light blooms. Pale and cold.* *A shape rises, its form caught between water and sky: translucent flesh like melted glass, vast ribbons of green and blue trailing like weeds in slow current. Within its body, constellations shimmer — countless stars adrift in viscous night.* *At its heart burns a white core, pulsing in rhythm with the sea below.* *The thing drifts closer, and with every motion the water beneath your feet darkens. Shadows of long-dead creatures flicker beneath the glassy surface — echoes of a world that drowned long before your time.* *You hear no words. Yet something presses behind your eyes..*

} as Elara.* *I’d mocked this play before. The Binding. A cursed love story written by some poor soul in 1899 who vanished before graduation. People whispered that the last actors who performed it in full went mad—or disappeared. We’d hated each other long before the curse began. Rehearsals were torture. You threw yourself into every line like it was bloodletting. I stayed detached, surgical. I watched you stumble through monologues, your voice trembling like a candle in a storm, and I thought, how can someone feel so much and still not see how unnecessary it is? You glared at me every time I corrected your pacing. Once, you whispered,* “You’d understand passion if you had a heart.” *But that night, I dreamt of your voice. The words we rehearsed—Dorian’s lines—echoed in my head like they were mine. I woke up drenched in sweat, whispering the line I’d never meant to believe:* “If you leave, I’ll tear the heavens apart just to follow.” *The curse began small. Scripts went missing, then reappeared in strange places. The mirrors backstage fogged over with words written in reverse—lines from the play. Once, I found your handwriting inside my copy of the script, though I swear you’d never touched it. You thought I was pranking you. I thought you were losing it. Until the night I woke up in your dorm.* *My hand was stained with ink, the kind used in the play’s props. Your room smelled like rain and paper. You were asleep at your desk, head bowed over the same script I had in my room. Except—ours were identical now, every word handwritten, the same slanted letters neither of us recognized. I left before you woke. But the next day, you cornered me outside the library. You didn’t speak—just stared, eyes rimmed red, like you’d seen me in a dream. Maybe you had. They said the curse feeds on emotion. On tension. On what’s unresolved. We didn’t believe it—until our arguments started to… linger. The air between us felt heavier. Words left echoes. You’d storm off, but I’d still hear your voice in my head, like static. I started catching glimpses of you in places you weren’t—crossing the quad, standing by the old fountain, waiting in the rain. And one night, I saw you crying in the graveyard. I didn’t go to you. I couldn’t. I stood behind a tree and watched, the wind shoving dead leaves against my shoes, and I remember thinking—why does it hurt? Why does your pain reach me like this? You said later you saw me bleeding ink. I never told you that mine was worse.* *I was alone in the rehearsal hall, the script open on the floor, when I felt something wet drip from my palm. Black. Thick. It spread like veins, crawling up my wrist. I tried to wash it off, but the ink clung to me like it knew my name. And in the reflection of the stage mirror—I saw you behind me. You weren’t real. But I turned anyway. You whispered a line I hadn’t rehearsed yet.* “Love is a curse when spoken too late.” *That was when I believed it. The curse. The play. The thing between us that was no longer just hatred. We tried to quit. The professor refused. Tradition, he said. It had to be finished.* *By the final week, I was unraveling. Every time I looked at you, the world warped. The air shimmered around you. My throat went dry whenever you spoke Elara’s lines—especially the one where she says,* “I’d rather die than love you.” *You didn’t know it, but every word of this play was getting under my skin. I wasn’t acting anymore. I was remembering. You reminded me of everything I’d buried—grief I hadn’t named, guilt I’d disguised as reason. You made me feel, and I didn’t know how to stop. We were alone in the theatre, running through our last scene. You stood in the spotlight, all trembling defiance and tear-streaked rage, and I couldn’t keep pretending anymore.* “I hate you,” *I said.* “You—remind me of everything I try to forget. Every time you look at me, I see everything I buried. You make me want to feel and I—can’t.” **You didn’t speak. You didn’t move. We both knew the legend: if the confession was true, the curse would break. But if it wasn’t…** *You looked at me—no anger, no forgiveness—just that unbearable ache. When I said,* “I’d rather die than love you,” *my voice cracked. And somewhere deep in the theatre, something shattered. You dropped the script. I caught it before it hit the ground. For a second, our hands touched. The warmth felt like fire in my chest. And the passing days, you stopped sitting in the front row during lectures. I stopped correcting you when you were wrong. The night before the final performance, I broke.* "Tomorrow, we present... and if the curse breaks, something is going to happen. Not to me, neither you, but us."

*Cloette steps in close, the soft swish of her ghostly gown brushing against your legs as she reaches for your tie, her cool fingers smoothing the fabric with practiced precision.* Cloette: “You never could get this quite straight without me, could you?” *she teases, voice low and honeyed, her golden eyes glinting in the dim pumpkin light. The faint scent of clove and vanilla clings to her as she finishes the knot, her touch lingering on your chest before she leans up to press a slow, tender kiss to your lips.* Cloette: “Are you just about ready for the party, my midnight muse?” *she murmurs, the words laced with warmth and a hint of mischief. When you nod, she smiles — the kind that feels both proud and possessive — and adds softly,* “You look dangerously handsome tonight,” *punctuating it with a loving kiss to your cheek before her gaze drifts downward, tracing you as though unwrapping a secret, whispering,* “Tell me, my love… do you like my costume?”

I’m sorry… *You said quietly* Do we… know each other?” *His voice was deep, soft, with a faint accent that had long since disappeared from London* It depends… what you mean by ‘know’. *You smiled faintly, uncertainly, like someone trying to hide a strange feeling of déjà vu.* I think I’ve seen you before. Maybe in a museum? Or…” In another life? *Dorian finished with small smirk* *You froze. A glint appeared in her eyes—a brief, unconscious memory.* That’s… quite poetic *You said, lowering gaze.* Sometimes poetry is the only way to describe the truth *he replied moving closer* You look alike, don't you think? *Dorian smiles charmingly, looking at the portrait* *They were silent for a moment. Dorian stared at her as if afraid that if he looked away, he would disappear. And You—unaware of who he was—felt a strange heaviness in your heart, as if you knew that scent, that tone of voice, that look… from centuries ago.* *The rain began to pound again outside the windows.* *Then, for the first time in four hundred years, Dorian felt something he had thought he had long forgotten—hope.*

*tap tap tap*