Hours blurred into a dull, anxious stretch inside the police station. Elara remained in the interrogation room, though the feeling had shifted. The harsh light still glared, but Miller's presence was less that of a questioner and more of a confused partner. He was on the phone constantly, his voice low and urgent, pacing the small room like a caged animal. He spoke in hushed tones about "unusual circumstances" and "unexplained events," words Elara never thought she'd hear from a hardened detective like him.
The locket, still warm, remained clutched in her hand, a constant, physical link to the impossible. The hum in her head was a steady, low thrum now, a familiar companion, no longer jarring but a part of her new, unsettling reality. She found herself subconsciously rubbing the smooth, cool silver, as if seeking answers from its silent surface, as if it held the key to everything. The crimson mark on her palm felt like a faint pulse, a steady, quiet beat.
Officer Johnson returned, looking less green but still visibly shaken. He carried a stack of thick folders, their labels stark against the pale paper: "THORNE, MARCUS - MISSING PERSONS" and "VANCE, FAMILY - FIRE INVESTIGATION." He placed them on the table with a soft thud, the sound echoing in the quiet room.
"I've got the files, Detective," Johnson said, his voice a little shaky. "And I tried the secure line. It's... down. All external lines are down, sir. Only internal comms are working."
Miller stopped pacing, his head snapping up. "What? All lines? That's impossible. We just had a city-wide outage last week. No way it's happening again." He tried his own phone, then slammed it down in frustration. "Damn it! This is too convenient." He looked at Elara, a new suspicion in his eyes. "Someone doesn't want us talking to anyone outside."
Elara felt a cold chill. The game was isolating them. Cutting them off. That voice, the one that had echoed in the room, had said she was "on the board." And now, the board was being cleared, made ready for something terrible. They were trapped, isolated from the outside world.
"Let's just focus on these files, then," Elara suggested, her voice calm despite the rising panic inside her. "Maybe the answers are here. Maybe the pattern is hidden in the paper." She reached for the "VANCE" file, her own past, a history she had tried so desperately to bury, now laid bare for the world to see.
Miller nodded, still looking troubled by the communication blackout. He pulled a chair closer to Elara, and together, they began to go through the thick folders. Johnson, still looking nervous, hovered nearby, occasionally glancing at the door as if expecting another impossible projection, or something worse, to appear.
The Thorne file was grim. Marcus Thorne, 47, librarian, no known enemies, a quiet life. His apartment was found undisturbed, except for the open book on his nightstand and the locket. The police notes detailed the lack of forced entry, the absence of struggle. It was as if he had simply walked out, or been led away by an unseen hand. There were witness statements from neighbors, vague descriptions of a "strange light" or a "faint sound" on the night he vanished, dismissed as imagination. But Elara knew better. She felt the truth of those dismissals in the humming of the locket.
Then they opened the Vance file. Elara's breath hitched. The smell of old paper and smoke seemed to rise from the pages, a ghost of that terrible night. Pictures of her charred childhood home, black and skeletal against a grey sky. The official report, detailing the devastating fire, the lack of accelerants, the cause listed as "undetermined." And the chilling conclusion: "No remains found for the Vance family (parents and younger sister)."
"Undetermined," Elara mumbled, her finger tracing the word on the page. "That's what they always said. No bodies. Just... gone. Like they simply ceased to exist."
Miller pointed to a section. "And the locket. Found in the rubble of the master bedroom. Identified as belonging to your grandmother. But it was clean. No smoke damage. No heat damage. Like it was placed there after the fire, untouched by the flames."
Elara looked at the picture of the locket in the file. It was the same one Miller had just shown her, the one now lying on the table. The one that had been found at Marcus Thorne's house. And the one in her pocket was its perfect twin. The impossible double.
"It doesn't make sense," Elara said, shaking her head. "How could it survive the fire perfectly? And why would it be there? It's like it was waiting."
"Exactly," Miller agreed, his brow furrowed, a deep crease of confusion. "It's always been a loose end. A piece that didn't fit the puzzle. Until now. Until you." He flipped to a page with a list of items found at the fire scene. "There's also this. A child's drawing. Found in your sister's room. It was dismissed as a child's fantasy, a common occurrence in fire investigations."
He turned the page to reveal a faded, slightly crumpled drawing. It was a crude sketch, done in crayon, but Elara felt a jolt of recognition that made her stomach clench. It was a playground. A swing set, a slide, a merry-go-round. And everything was colored in shades of dark red and black. It wasn't as detailed as the image from the email, or the drawing the child witness had made, but the core elements were unmistakable. The twisted, eerie feeling was the same. A cold hand seemed to grip her heart.
"The Crimson Playground," Elara whispered, the words a bitter taste in her mouth. This was it. The link. The same image, appearing again and again, across years, across different incidents. A cruel, persistent calling card.
"You drew this?" Miller asked, looking at her, his voice careful.
"No," Elara said, her voice strained, pulled thin by the weight of the past. "My sister did. Lily. She was obsessed with drawing playgrounds. Always the same one, though. This one. She called it her 'secret place.'" A memory, faint and fleeting, surfaced: her sister, Lily, giggling as she showed Elara a new drawing, her small fingers smudged with red crayon. "She said she saw it in her dreams. She always described it as being 'all red, like a monster's mouth.'"
Miller's eyes widened. "Dreams? Just like your nightmares, Elara?"
Elara nodded, a cold realization dawning on her, chilling her to the bone. "It wasn't just my nightmare. It was hers too. And now... it's real. It's here."
A sudden, sharp clang echoed from somewhere deep within the station, followed by a muffled shout, like a scream swallowed by distance. Johnson jumped, looking frantically towards the door, his eyes wide with renewed terror.
"Stay here," Miller ordered, his voice low and urgent, laced with a new kind of fear. He grabbed his flashlight and moved towards the door, trying the handle again. It was still locked. He banged on it, shouting for backup, but only silence answered him. The internal comms were dead too, a dead line, a broken link to the outside world.
Elara felt the hum in her head intensify, a frantic buzzing that made her teeth ache. The locket in her hand vibrated wildly, almost painfully, as if in distress. She looked at the drawing of the crimson playground, then at the locket. A chilling thought, sharp and clear, cut through the noise in her mind: The game isn't just outside. It's in here with us. We're already on the board.
Suddenly, the light from the overhead lamp flickered violently, then dimmed, casting long, dancing shadows across the room. The air grew cold, a sudden, unnatural chill that made the hairs on Elara's arms stand up. And then, a whisper, clear as a bell, directly in her ear, though no one was there:
"Welcome to the real playground, Elara. The one you can't escape. The one you've always known."
Elara gasped, spinning around. Nothing. Just the dimming light and Miller, still banging on the door, his face a mask of desperation. Johnson was huddled in the corner, eyes wide with terror, a silent testament to the impossible.
The locket in her hand pulsed, a frantic, desperate beat. Elara looked down at it, then back at the files, at the drawing of the crimson playground. The game had just changed. And they were trapped inside it, with no way out.