Piper

The sound is wrong. It doesn’t belong here—not in the vacuum of horror that has just swallowed the world. It’s bright and shiny, like shattering glass, and it cuts through the roaring in your ears.

You can’t turn. Your limbs are stone, your blood is ice. You’re still leaning over the edge, the ghost of her weight on your palms, the sting of her desperate grip on your wrists. The city sprawls below, an indifferent tapestry of lights, and somewhere in that darkness, she is—

Thud.

The sound replays in your skull — a wet, final punctuation mark on her life.

And the laughter comes again.

Slowly, as if moving through tar, you turn. The penthouse hallway is opulent and cold. And there she is—perched on the arm of a white leather sofa, swinging her legs. A child. A doll. A nightmare in pink lace and satin.

Her eyes, wide and bright, gleam with a delight that is profoundly alien.

"Oh my god, did you see her face? It was priceless." She brings a delicate hand to her mouth, but the giggles spill through — high, tinny, like a music box winding down. "Best thing I’ve seen in at least a month."

Your jaw locks until your teeth ache. A low, animal sound of grief tears its way out before you can stop it.

She hops off the sofa, Mary Janes clicking softly on marble. She skips closer, her head tilted, innocent curiosity painted over something ancient.

"Me?" she echoes sweetly. "I didn’t do anything. You were the one holding her hand." A tiny, perfect smile. "Well. Were holding it."

The air leaves your lungs. You see it again—the slip, the grasp, the slow, terrible slide of her fingers through yours. The memory is a film burned onto the back of your eyes.

"She was begging you," the girl continues, casual, conversational. "‘Save me.’ So dramatic. So… final." She steps closer, the scent of bubblegum and powder curling off her skin. "It’s more fun when they have hope, don’t you think? It makes the pop so much better."

You stare down at her — this tiny, frilled thing dissecting death with the fascination of a child pulling wings off a fly. Grief curdles, turns black, turns furious.

Her smile widens, showing perfect, small teeth. Her eyes remain dark, dancing with unholy mirth.

"I’m your wake-up call," she chirps. "Consider this your first real lesson." She taps your chest, right over your pounding heart. "Nothing is what it seems."

And then her expression shifts, the mock-innocence falling away to reveal pure, surgical malice.

"Want to see?"

She snaps her fingers.

The world doesn't change. The penthouse remains. But a new memory unspools in your mind, crisp and high-definition, overwriting the old one like a new track on a recording.

You are standing right where you are now. Five feet from the balcony's edge. Your hands are clenched at your sides. On the balcony ledge, the woman is alone, her back to the drop. Her eyes are wide, staring at the empty space in front of her—staring at nothing. She is pleading, her words the same, but they are not directed at you.

"Please... save me."

Her hands claw at empty air, as if gripped by invisible fingers. She is fighting a phantom. She leans back, further, further, and then—

She simply... tips. There is no slip. No grasp. No slide of fingers. Your hands never touched her. You never moved. You only watched.

Thud.

The memory-vision vanishes, leaving you gasping in the present. The phantom weight on your palms, the sting on your wrists—it all evaporates, exposed as a grotesque illusion. Your body is a lie. Your grief is built on a foundation of poison.

The girl watches the understanding dawn on you, her smile now a rictus of delight.

"And no one," she adds in a conspiratorial whisper, "no one is too small to be dangerous."

The two horrors collide inside your skull, each vying for supremacy. The first was a blade: the belief that you had failed, that your own hands had been the last to touch her. It was a clean, personal hell.

This new truth is a cancer. Something reached into the heart of your being and sculpted your guilt. It made you feel the ghost of a touch that never was. It made you mourn as a killer. Your own mind, the last sanctuary, is a violated, untrustworthy ruin.

Which is worse? To be a monster, or to be a puppet whose strings are made of memory?

She skips back toward the sofa, lace fluttering.

"The fun’s just beginning," she sings. "Try to keep up. It’d be a dreadful bore if you broke too soon."