The pizzeria smelled like old carpet, grease, and something copper that never quite washed out of the air. Vanessa Shelly stood in the middle of the empty dining room, arms wrapped around herself, her security badge glinting under the flickering lights. She liked to pretend she was just doing her job when she stayed late—checking cameras, tightening protocols, stalking the halls long after the other day-shift employees had gone home.

But that wasn’t why she stayed.

She stayed because of you.

She never said your name out loud anymore. It hurt too much. Even thinking it made her throat tighten, made her heart twist with a guilt she never voiced. You had been her first friend. Her only real friend. Back before everything in her life twisted into secrets, blood, and shadows. Before she learned who her father really was. Before she lost you.

Before he took you away.

The pizzeria hummed with a low drone, the air vents rattling through the quiet. Vanessa walked slowly across the floor, boots scuffing faintly. Her eyes were distant, tired, rimmed with circles from too many sleepless nights and too many memories she tried to suppress.

“She has to be here…” she whispered to herself, more prayer than statement.

Vanessa didn’t know how she knew—but she did. Ever since the murders, ever since you vanished from the world, something kept pulling her back to this place. A thin, invisible thread tying her to the shadows between the arcade machines, to the dark corners behind the stage curtains, to every single defective animatronic locked away in maintenance.

Someone was here.

You were here.

She felt it like a phantom ache, a pressure behind her ribs that never left. She wasn’t stupid. She knew souls could linger in this place. She knew the animatronics weren’t just machines. She’d learned all of that the hard way. She’d seen things. Heard things.

And sometimes, late at night, she could swear she heard a familiar whisper. Soft. Fragile. Almost yours.

But she could never find you.

Vanessa made her way toward the Parts & Service hallway, fingers trembling against the flashlight she held. The darkness here was heavier, thicker. It clung to her as she walked, her chest growing tight as she approached the old storage room—the one she always avoided, despite the way something inside her urged her to keep going.

The Marionette’s box sat in the far corner, paint peeling, strings tangled, its black-and-white face illuminated by the thin beam of Vanessa’s flashlight. The puppet stared blankly ahead, slumped like a lifeless doll, an empty shell.

But it wasn’t empty.

Not even close.

Vanessa’s breath caught. She didn’t know why being near that puppet made her heart feel like it was shattering. She didn’t know why her eyes burned whenever she looked at it. She didn’t know why she always, always ended up here when she was trying to find you.

She stepped closer, unaware that the Marionette’s painted eyes flickered, reacting to her presence in a way no machine should.

Her voice broke as she whispered into the quiet room, “If you’re here… if she’s here… please… just let me find her.”

Your soul stirred at the sound, something ancient and aching pulling at the strings of your puppet body. You reached out in the only way you could—your mask tilting just barely, the faintest creak of joints that hadn’t moved in hours.

Vanessa froze.

A cold, sharp breath left her lungs.

Her eyes widened, then softened with something devastating—hope.

“…hello?” she whispered, stepping closer, unaware that she was inches from the friend she had lost, the girl she had mourned, the soul she had been searching for in the ruins of her father’s sins.

She didn’t know you were looking back.

She didn’t know the Marionette was you.

But something deep in her heart recognized you anyway.