I didn't wake up the next morning.
Because I never fell asleep.
The dream stayed with me — open-eyed, cold-skinned, heart-pounding.
The girl in the red dress…
The woman who called me Number Six…
She wasn't a vision.
She was a memory.
---
I stood in the hallway, staring at the covered mirror.
I didn't pull the cloth off.
I didn't need to.
Because now I felt them.
Every version of me.
Each one scarred.
Each one silenced.
But this time, the silence wasn't fear.
It was fury.
---
At breakfast, he smiled at me again.
> "You look different today," he said.
"Did you sleep?"
I didn't answer.
> "No dreams?" he asked.
> "Just one," I whispered. "You died in it."
His smile cracked.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
---
Later, I found the old box again.
This time, I dug deeper.
Under the newspaper. Beneath the flash drive.
And I found a page.
Handwritten. Torn from a journal.
In Amelia's unmistakable script:
> "The first girl didn't scream. The second prayed. The third begged. The fourth laughed. The fifth didn't make a sound. If you're reading this, you are the sixth… and maybe the last."
My hands trembled.
> "But if you want to break him… don't run. Become her."
---
Become her.
What did that mean?
I went to the closet.
The red dress.
Still there.
But this time, I didn't flinch.
I put it on.
---
He found me in the hallway.
He froze.
His lips parted like he was seeing a ghost.
> "You look… just like her."
> "No," I said. "She looked like me."
He stepped forward.
But I didn't back away.
> "What are you doing?" he whispered.
> "Becoming," I replied.
And I smiled.
The way Amelia used to.
---
That night, I lit the candles in the basement myself.
Opened the journal.
Played every video.
Not as a victim.
As a witness.
Then I looked at the mirror again.
This time, they were all there.
Five of them.
Lined up behind me.
Watching.
Smiling.
And the sixth?
She smiled too.
---
> "Let's end this," I whispered.
And the heart in my chest beat louder.
But it didn't sound scared.
It sounded ready.