As Marisol slept her dreams quickly twisted into nightmares.
It wasn't the still, empty kind that cradled sleep. No, this darkness moved, shifting like ink in water, thick and suffocating. Marisol felt it pressing against her skin, seeping into her bones, whispering in voices that sounded too much like her own.
She stood in the ruins of something half-forgotten. A house? No, it had the shape of one, but its walls twisted, curling like burnt paper. The furniture was overturned, broken, covered in mud.
The air smelled of rotting wood, damp earth… and blood.
And then, she saw her.
A girl—.
Dark circles ringed her hollow eyes. Her clothes were stained with grime and dried blood, her hair tangled and wild. Bare feet, toes caked in dirt. A stuffed bunny—her old companion eri—hung limply from her hand, its once-white fur darkened with something that looked like old ink.
Marisol took a step forward, heart hammering. "Who…?"
The other her snapped her head up.
A grin split her face, wide and wrong.
"Oh. It's you."
Her voice was light. Too light. Too detached. As if she'd been expecting this.
Marisol swallowed hard, fists tightening. "Why do you look like me."
"That's because I am you." The girl tilted her head, studying Marisol with something close to amusement. "Or maybe you're me? Hard to tell. I think I had a name once. A real one. But Eri will always be Eri."
Eri?
Why are we talking about her old stuffed bunny?
Marisol's gaze dropped to the stuffed rabbit. Its stitched-up eyes glowed, shadows leaking from its seams.
The other Marisol hugged it close. "You look confused."
Marisol forced her breathing to steady. "Where am I?"
The girl laughed. It wasn't a good sound.
"You're home," Bunny whispered.
And then the screaming began.
A door slammed open behind her. A voice—her mother's voice—twisted with terror.
Marisol whirled just in time to see the scene unfold in front of her, as if the past were peeling open, raw and exposed.
The kitchen.
A woman lay on the floor—her mother?—eyes wide in shock, her breath cut off in wet gasps.
A knife was buried deep in her chest.
And standing over her, the other Marisol, breathing hard, hands covered in red.
Marisol stumbled back, bile rising in her throat. "No. That's not—"
"It was an accident," eri said, too quickly, too eagerly. "She found them. The bodies. Her step-siblings. She was going to call someone. We couldn't let that happen."
Her mother gurgled, trying to speak.
The other marisol tilted her head. "It wasn't my fault," she whispered. "Eri told me what to do."
"This isn't real," Marisol whispered. "This isn't me. This never happened."
The stuffed rabbit twitched.
Shadows slithered from it, curling around marisol's fingers, coiling around the knife. The Doom Tree's whispers filled the air, low and sickly sweet.
Run, marisol. Before they find out. Before they make you leave me.
Marisol's pulse pounded in her ears. "You—you're lying. That's not me."
The other Marisol's s grin widened. "Are you sure?"
The world lurched.
The kitchen collapsed, melting into ash and embers.
Now, Marisol stood in the ruins of a burned-down restaurant.
Mimi's Café.
The other her sat curled in the corner, huddled in the wreckage, clutching the rabbit like a lifeline.
"I did what I had to," she murmured, voice trembling. "It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault."
The words scratched at Marisol's brain, a mantra she didn't recognize but felt deep inside.
She lifted her head, her wide, fevered eyes locking onto Marisol's.
"Why don't you hear the call?" Her voice cracked. "How did you escape? Why—why cant you hear the doom trees voices?"
The world shuddered.
The shadows reached for her.
And then—
The bunny moved.
It lifted its head.
And spoke.
"You were supposed to come back to me."
A jagged whisper. Wrong. Hungry.
Marisol froze.
The other her gripped the stuffed animal too tightly, fingers twitching against its fur.
"It won't let me go," she whispered.
The shadows lunged.
Marisol screamed.
She didn't wake up.
The dream didn't end.
Instead, it deepened.
Marisol felt herself falling, the ground swallowed by shadows, the world spiraling into something else, something older.
And the other her's voice—Marisol's voice—echoed after her.
"You were supposed to come back to me."
A whisper. Not from the other Marisol.
Not from the stuffed bunny.
Something deeper. Something older.
Marisol's breath hitched.
And then—arms wrapped around her.
Warm. Familiar.
A presence like velvet dusk and silver whispers.
A voice—smooth, unshaken. Soothing in a way that felt practiced.
"Hush now."
The nightmare shuddered around them.
The shadows hesitated.
Marisol knew this voice.
She turned—or maybe the dream turned for her—and there, standing among the dying echoes of the ruined café, was Eri.
Older. Taller. A presence that was both gentle and unyielding, draped in twilight and memory. Her eyes held something distant, something knowing, as if she had seen this unfold a thousand times before.
She brushed a hand through Marisol's hair, fingers cool like the first touch of night.
"That's enough of that," Eri murmured.
The dream softened.
The scorched wood knitted itself back together. The blood faded, leaving only the scent of warm sugar and something faintly floral. The other Marisol dissolved, her whispers stretching into the dark like echoes lost in a canyon.
Marisol swayed, suddenly exhausted.
Her body felt light, her thoughts slipping through her grasp like mist.
Eri held her close.
"Sleep, little one," she whispered against her forehead. "Sweet dreams."
Marisol tried to speak—to ask if this was real, if this was really Eri.
But before the words could form, the last of the nightmare melted away.
And she drifted into something warmer. Softer.
Safer.