The prize corner was empty, save for the still form nestled beneath the muted glow of the ceiling light. Soft, sterile, like the flicker of memory. Dust floated gently through the air, undisturbed. The Music Box sat closed. Silent. Not unwound. Not ticking. Just... still.

And there, curled loosely in a crescent of long, pale limbs, was the Marionette.

Its porcelain face, smoothed to an eternal, painted smile, reflected faint patterns of shadow from the spinning mobile overhead. The purple streaks below its eyes seemed to glisten faintly in the low light, though nothing had moved to cause it. Its hands, with their too-long fingers, rested lightly against its sides, neither curled in tension nor extended in readiness. Just placed.

Its body, jointless and flowing, folded into itself like fabric with weight, the black-and-white of its limbs draping down the edge of the box like strings unwound. It didn’t breathe. It didn’t shift. It simply lay in repose; an instrument powered off, the ghost behind the shell quiet.

No tension in the air. No rising hum of servos. The lights didn’t flicker. There was no presence looming. Only the stillness of something long asleep or long gone.