I walked up to the door and it was mysteriously shut. I was sure I had left it open. No way did I actually close it all the way. I began to turn the handle and it wouldn’t budge. Just like a few days ago. Now this was starting to freak me out. Why had it been locked again?

It was just open. I was just there. I started to panic. Then all of a sudden the handle began to turn. It kept turning and turning and turning until it did another 4 revolutions similar to last night. Strange I thought as the door handle finally stopped turning and made a click sound.

I opened the door and stepped into the ballroom again. This is where I had begun this journey and hopefully it would give me clues as to what happened. I walked into the room again and stared up at the sky as the sun danced through the glass ceiling. I walked back to the center of the room to inspect it. 

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except that everything seemed out of the ordinary in this strange place. Nothing felt real, it all felt fake. Like someone had recreated all of these people and things out of paper mache and was just puppeteering them. There was an uncanny feeling I got being here but yet I didn’t want to go back home. 

A large part of me just wanted to quit searching and accept this as my new life. But a tiny nagging voice in my head said that I had to figure out what was going on. I walked towards one of the pillars and began to feel woozy again. It was like I was about to pass out. But I could feel it coming this time.

I tried so hard to stop it but I fell hard against a pillar on the left side of the room and was out like a light. When I awoke I was greeted by the dim dark clouds above the ceiling and the sad pitter patter of rain on the glass. I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to come back here. This was a horrible place. I wish I could just stay there forever. I was inconsolable, all of these feelings just burst out of me. I couldn’t control my voice or my emotions. Then I heard a crash in the room. I was not alone.

I froze. The crash echoed like a scream muffled by thick velvet curtains, bouncing off the ballroom walls with a strange, hollow resonance. My breath caught in my throat as I tried to peer through the gloom. A chill wind—despite the closed nature of the room—brushed past me, carrying the scent of old paper and forgotten time.

“Mittens?” I whispered, my voice trembling.

No response. Only silence. That oppressive, heavy kind of silence that presses against your skin like water deep underwater.

Then, softly at first, a low scratching sound. It was coming from behind the farthest pillar. I could make out a shape—a hunched shadow, its edges indistinct, swaying slightly, like a person shifting their weight, waiting. I took a step back.

“Who’s there?” I called out, summoning every bit of strength I could muster.

The figure moved. It stepped into the pale, sickly light that pierced the stained glass ceiling, revealing… a girl. My breath hitched. She looked just like me.

Her nightgown was torn at the sleeves, her hair fell in loose, tangled waves. Her skin was pale, almost too pale, as though light had not touched her in years. But it was her eyes that startled me most. They were not mine. They were hollow, lifeless, a dull gray-blue-like slate left out in the rain. She didn’t speak. She only watched me.

“Are you… are you me?” I asked.

She tilted her head like a curious bird. Then she slowly lifted her hand, pointing to the center of the motif on the floor where I had passed out.

I followed the line of her finger and saw… something. Where once there had been only the elegant swirling patterns of colored glass and tile, now there was a circle etched into the floor. Faint and flickering, like it was made of mist and memory. It pulsed softly.

What was it? A portal? The girl moved without sound, gliding almost, until she stood on the edge of the circle. She stared down into it, then back at me, and mouthed one word:

“Choose.”

I didn’t understand.

“I… I don’t know what that means,” I said, shaking my head.

The other Cynthia didn’t reply. Instead, she stepped forward, placing one foot into the circle—and vanished. No flash. No sound. Just… gone.

Mittens brushed against my ankle, startling me. I looked down. Her bright blue eyes stared up at me as if to say, “Well? What now?”

That same small voice I had heard in the garden echoed faintly in my mind again. Louder this time. Familiar. “Come find me…”

And then I understood. This wasn’t just some dream. This wasn’t my imagination.

The faint mist of the circle where she had stood moments ago evaporated into the stagnant ballroom air. No trace of her remained. No footprint in the dust. No disruption in the air. Nothing to prove she’d ever been there at all.

Mittens let out a low growl, tail puffed, ears pinned back.

“What was that…?” I whispered, backing away from the motif on the floor.

I turned to leave, suddenly desperate for the familiarity of the cold, dusty corridors outside. My fingers wrapped around the brass doorknob. I looked back once, just to be sure.