I Loved Her. Then I Killed Her Dreams

The brothel didn't look like it used to.

It looked worse.

Not in the broken beams or the ash-black wallpaper, no.

It was in the way the air breathed.

Like lungs.

Like something inside it was alive and waiting.

Like a beast that had starved itself for centuries just to taste familiar souls.

Soren stood just behind Aurela. Her translucent figure glowed like a dying candle, the flame shivering in invisible wind.

She was barely light and barely there, but somehow, she still felt braver than him.

Her eyes were locked on a hallway — a place where velvet once dripped from the walls but now sagged like torn flesh.

The wallpaper had texture now. Like it pulsed beneath its peeling surface, breathing in memories too old to forget.

Shadows painted every surface with whispers of the past. Not voices. Not quite. But the kind of silence that sounds like someone just finished screaming.

The deeper they walked in, the more the house seemed to lean toward them.

Not physically — not in wood or stone — but in sensation.

As though the corridors held breath.

As though the memories etched in its bones had opened their eyes again.

The floorboards didn't creak.

They sighed.

They hadn't spoken since they stepped in.

Not a word.

But the house had.

"Soren…" it crooned.

Not a voice, but a hum inside the wall.

A slick, wet sound. Like fingers dragging down wet glass.

"Soren…"

He flinched. Looked around.

His breath hitched even though the air was cold — too cold — like the house had been waiting with its lungs frozen just to inhale him again.

There were no broken windows. No open vents. No breeze.

Just voices that shouldn't exist.

He felt it crawling down his spine — the recognition.

Not just fear. Not just discomfort.

But a memory waking up like a rotting animal rising from a grave.

Something inside him itched. Twitched. Remembered.

Aurela tilted her head slowly, like she was listening to the walls themselves.

"They know you," she said.

Her voice was soft. Matter-of-fact. A whisper with a blade behind it.

He turned toward her. "What do you mean?"

She didn't look at him. Didn't even blink.

"You've been here before."

Her voice didn't carry accusation.

But the silence that followed screamed louder than any blame.

And just like that—

The floor cracked beneath his memory.

PART II — The Dollhouse Boy

The walls pulsed.

The hallway changed.

Reality shifted like a trick mirror — wobbling on the edge of two versions of itself.

The rotted air faded into sweet perfume, the kind that sits heavy on skin.

Not pleasant. Not floral. But invasive — overpowering, like it wanted to be inhaled and never forgotten.

The scent crept up his nose like a lie he once believed.

Curtains no longer tattered — they swayed, silk and crimson, brushing against each other like gossiping women.

Everything shimmered with the illusion of elegance.

Laughter rang from upstairs.

But it didn't sound right.

Not happy.

Not innocent.

It sounded… staged.

Like dolls mimicking girls.

Forced giggles. Hollow joy.

He looked down.

His hands weren't his.

They were smaller. Softer.

A child's.

Pale. Fragile. Trembling.

The kind of trembling that knew what it was walking into.

No.

No, no, no.

He staggered back, but his body was no longer his own.

The floor beneath him had shifted — carpeted in plush red, hiding the screams underneath.

Even the walls seemed closer. Like they were listening.

From behind came footsteps.

Sharp. Heels. Familiar.

Yena.

Not bruised. Not captive.

But powerful. Alive.

Wearing velvet, deep wine-red, lined in gold embroidery. A gold pendant bounced on her chest with each step, catching light like it caught secrets.

She knelt before him.

Smiling with her eyes, not her mouth.

"You're going to be okay," she whispered. "They'll feed you. Give you a warm bed. Just... be good. Do what they say."

The voice. So calm.

Like it was mercy.

Like she wasn't delivering him into hell, but saving him from something worse.

Soren's child-body trembled. "I wanna go home."

Yena's smile cracked at the edges.

"You don't have one."

That's when his knees gave out.

He fell — but not to the ground.

Into remembrance.

She stood. Knocked on a door.

A woman opened it.

Her hair was neat. Her smile was painted on. Her eyes were coal.

"Here's your new boy," Yena said.

"A little skinny," the woman replied. "But the pretty ones sell fast."

Then the door closed.

And everything inside Soren shattered.

The nights. The screams.

The smell of perfume and blood.

The weight of silken sheets soaked in fear.

The hands.

But also—

One hand. One different hand.

The one that held his.

Aurela's.

In the vision-memory-hallucination, she appeared again.

Not glowing. Not ghostly.

Just a girl.

Hair tangled like vines. Dress torn at the shoulder. Knees scraped.

Eyes bright with fear and fury — a kind of fury only the powerless carry. The kind that makes them dangerous.

She crept into the room like a shadow with teeth.

In her hand, a broken mirror shard glinted.

"Shhh. Don't scream," she'd whispered. "You wanna go home?"

He nodded, even as tears spilled.

She took his hand.

Tight. Urgent.

They ran.

Down hallways lined with masked paintings.

Past rooms that pulsed with moans and silence.

Through blood-soaked corridors where red carpet and reality blurred.

Every hallway felt endless.

Every corner like a trap.

They passed a girl sobbing in a cage.

A boy with duct tape over his mouth.

A mirror that reflected no one.

Through the kitchen —

Past a woman whose jaw was missing, her smile torn into permanence.

Every sound seemed like a knife being drawn.

Every footstep an invitation for death.

They nearly got caught.

But she'd thrown herself at a guard.

Screamed.

Pulled attention.

She became the distraction.

He kept running.

He never looked back.

But now—

He saw what happened next.

The guards didn't take her back gently.

They dragged her.

Kicked her.

Beat her with the rage of being tricked by a girl.

She cried. She bled. She bit one of them.

No one screamed for her.

No one came for her.

Not until now.

Back in the present, Soren collapsed to his knees.

The room shifted back — to rotting.

The perfume was gone. The blood remained.

And silence — the kind that remembers.

Aurela stood over him, hands clenched so tightly her fingernails phased through her palm.

"You blocked it," she said. "But I never could."

He looked up, eyes wide with guilt.

"I left you."

Aurela shook her head slowly.

"You survived."

Her voice didn't shake.

It had broken long ago.

He stood slowly, rage pulsing in his veins like old wine turned poison. The kind of rage that grows in silence.

Yena was nearby — still trapped.

Her mouth moved, but no sound came.

She was like a mute puppet on strings of smoke.

He stormed toward her, each step heavier with truth.

But the moment he got too close—

The house reacted.

Chains lashed out from the walls, slamming into the floor like warnings.

Ghosts screamed from the ceiling, their voices layered and disharmonic.

One of them — a girl with one eye missing — stepped forward.

Her skin glitched, like she was caught between worlds.

"SHE SOLD US," she howled.

"SHE SOLD YOU. YOU FORGOT."

Her voice echoed off the walls like a curse.

Behind her, more spirits began appearing.

All girls.

All victims.

Each staring at Soren.

One of them — Eliza, maybe — whispered:

"You left her to die. And she still saved you."

Another:

"She ran into the fire for you."

"We weren't worth saving, but she tried."

Their eyes weren't accusing.

They were mournful.

They weren't asking for vengeance.

They were asking why he got to forget.

The walls cracked.

The roof shuddered.

The mirror at the end of the hall twisted inward, swallowing its own reflection.

The spirits began to chant.

Low at first.

"The Feeder must stay."

"The debt isn't paid."

Soren stared at Yena, then at Aurela.

His hands trembled.

The room wasn't asking him for justice.

It was demanding a sacrifice.

They were giving him a choice.

Yena stays. You go.

Or Yena leaves — and you stay.

The rules were simple.

The punishment wasn't.

He turned to Aurela. Her face had gone cold.

"If we free her," she said, "something else has to take her place."

"Me?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

But the silence wrapped around him like a noose.

The mirror on the wall behind them cracked slowly, like it was laughing.

A sharp, deliberate sound.

And then—

Yena's body twitched.

Her lips opened.

And the house spoke through her.

"If you take me out… I'll take her with me."

"Aurela. Back to the dark. Back to the screams."

Aurela didn't flinch.

But Soren did.

Because the house didn't want Yena anymore.

It wanted him. Or her.

Or both.

It fed on memory.

On guilt.

On the scent of unfinished suffering.

He stepped backward. But chains clicked.

Already, the house was choosing.

Already, the spirits had formed a circle.

A girl reached out — her fingers brushing Soren's shoulder. Cold. Familiar.

He remembered her.

Mila. She died in the cellar.

"She's lied to you your whole life," Mila said.

"But you still hesitate?"

Aurela was watching him. But this time, there was something different in her expression.

Not sadness.

Not fear.

Resignation.

"You owe them nothing," she said. "But you owe yourself the truth."

He shook his head.

"I wasn't strong enough to save you."

"You were a child," she said softly. "But now you're not."

And the mirror whispered:

"Then decide."