NO EYES: A Forgotten Whisper

Grin's long, bony fingers slid across the snarling face of a stone gargoyle, tracing the lines like an old lover's back tattoo. "She's gone," he muttered, eyes losing their usual spark. "Vanished like...uh...uh poof!"

He makes an explosion with his hands

The echo of his words bounced off the cathedral-high walls, mocking them with every hollow repetition.

Antic's ass was half-hanging off a crumbling column — shirtless as always, lean muscles catching the stained-glass light like some tragic stripper angel. His arms drooped behind him like half-dead petals, iridescent and twitching. He blinked slowly, forehead furrowing in disbelief. "Gone? As in—gone gone?" His voice cracked halfway between "concerned teammate" and "boyfriend in denial."

He scratched the back of his neck, the motion tugging his hair up and revealing a glint of bruising near his collarbone from the last time Pecola accidentally elbowed him in her sleep. "Shit. You're serious."

Pecola stood still in the center of the room, barefoot as always, the marble cold beneath her soles. Her white eyes glowed, unblinking, as if she could see more through absence than the rest of them did through sight. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and low — a single chord strummed from somewhere deep in the ribs.

"She was afraid, Antic," she said. "Terribly afraid."

Antic flinched. Pecola rarely used his name. It sounded like prayer and punishment on her lips.

Pecola's memories played behind her blank eyes like filmstrip ghosts — Dolly's chipped cheek trembling, her arms stiff and shaking, the sound of her voice when she'd whispered, "I don't want to break again."

Pecola knew that fear. It lived in her bones, quiet and heavy like sleep paralysis. That endless fear of vanishing, of never being real to begin with.

Grin sighed and kicked an urn. "She ran like a cursed wind-up toy from hell. I swear her little porcelain heels didn't even touch the damn floor. She turned a corner and was gone — poof, just a whisper and the sound of her own tiny scream echoing like a cursed music box."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I'm not saying I lost to a toddler-sized doll, but… I lost to a toddler-sized doll. She's faster than me. I hate that."

Antic stood, boots scuffing stone. "She wouldn't leave without a reason."

His tone was low now, deadly serious — the rare Antic people only saw when he bled for someone.

"We find her," he said. "Whatever's out there, whatever made her run — we drag it into the daylight and make it wish it stayed a nightmare."

Pecola didn't speak, but she tilted her head toward him. The smallest twitch of a frown flickered on her lips. Not quite a smile. But not not one.

The bond between her and Dolly wasn't something she could name — not friendship, not sisterhood, something older, deeper, carved from cracked china and unspoken survival. Dolly had flung herself into danger for her before. Now Pecola would return the favor — even if the idea of someone depending on her made her heart contract like a glitch in her programming.

The three of them — one emotionally unavailable barefoot soul conduit, one shirtless sex pest with abandonment issues, and one undead flamboyant ex-reaper — stood in silence.

"Off to the Queen?" Grin said dryly. "You think she's got one of those omniscient 'let's all gather around the plot twist' moments prepared?"

"She's always got something," Antic muttered. "Usually cryptic. Always hot."

Pecola's expression didn't change, but her heel twitched slightly. Antic caught it.

He grinned.

The walk through the castle was heavy. Even the walls felt quieter. The usual humming of Breaths — the soft lullabies of half-dead souls — had thinned to a whisper, like the forest was holding its breath.

Antic didn't crack jokes.

That was how serious it had gotten.

His arms stayed folded across his bare chest, wing tips brushing the dust off old tapestries. Pecola walked beside him, skin pale against the dim violet glow of the stained-glass light. Her dress dragged silently along the floor, collecting shadow like static.

Grin popped a boiled sweet into his mouth and muttered, "Feels like a funeral in here."

"It kind of is," Antic said, voice low. "Just… not sure whose yet."

They entered the Queen's chamber.

Queen Sentient sat on her throne, light dim around her like a dying star. Her gown pulsed slowly, as if breathing. Her eyes were closed, but the air in the room tightened the moment they stepped in — like walking into a god's migraine.

Grin cleared his throat. "Queen Sentient. Dolly's gone. Porcelain flight. Full-blown crisis."

The Queen opened her eyes. A tired smile touched her lips, more bone than bloom. "I know," she said simply. "She ran away."

Antic froze. "You knew?"

She nodded. "And I let her. Because this… was always going to happen."

"You know, a heads up would've been cool," Grin muttered. "Or maybe a prophecy with less emotional collateral damage?"

The Queen ignored him. She looked at Pecola. "It's fear," she said gently. "But not just hers. Dolly carries a reflection — of all of you. She broke because she's desperate for a since of belonging. Something similar you all are looking for. You just haven't named it yet."

Pecola's fingers curled slightly. She wanted to speak. She didn't.

The Queen continued, voice like honey over coals. "This realm… the Breaths… they're all connected. Dolly's running to something ancient. Something cracking in the roots of the Perennial Forest. If she shatters, the whole thing could.''

Antic sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. "So we don't just find her. We stop her from breaking the whole fucking world?"

"No pressure," Grin said, popping another sweet. "Just the literal end of the spirit ecosystem. My bones are tingling with optimism."

Antic laughed once dry, bitter, hot. "Then we go."

"You're not ready," the Queen said.

Antic walked up to her, close enough to see the flickering constellation patterns in her irises. "I'm never ready," he said. "But I still go."

The castle shimmered behind them as they stepped through the veil. No fanfare. No music. Just a pulse of light — like a heartbeat saying goodbye.

Pecola didn't look back.

Antic did. Just once.

Grin muttered under his breath, "Let's go save the self-destructive toy."

"And the world," Antic added.

"Right," Grin rolled his eyes. "That too."

As the gate closed behind them and the wild wind of the beyond hit their faces, Pecola reached out — just barely — and brushed her fingers against Antic's.

He didn't grab her hand.

But he smiled like she'd kissed him.

And in a way, she had.

The Perennial Forest wrapped around them like a twisted ribcage of trees — gnarled branches bent low, curling like arthritic fingers, blocking out the sun with a jealous hunger. Leaves rustled overhead with hushed whispers, but no melody. The Breaths, usually humming like far-off lullabies, had gone mute.

The silence wasn't peace. It was suffocation.

Grin kicked a stone hard enough to snap it in half. "This place is depressing as hell," he muttered, teeth clenched. "And I've literally been to hell."

His scythe was slung across his back, heavier than usual. He didn't joke. He didn't grin. He just stood there, cloak trailing behind him like a funeral banner. Even death was in mourning.

Up above, Antic perched sideways on a twisted branch, one wing dangling lazily, the other folded in like a sulking crow. His shirt had somehow disappeared again — the forest had a way of eating his wardrobe, which the girlies in the imaginary audience probably thanked the gods for. Lean muscle and leaf shadows flickered across his torso like a living sketch.

He didn't flirt. He didn't tease. Just stared into the middle distance, jaw tense, lips parted as if he'd forgotten how to be the idiot he normally was.

Only Pecola moved — slow, soft, silent. Her bare feet sank slightly into moss, her white dress dragging along the forest floor like mist. She wasn't looking. She never looked. But she saw everything.

The grief hit her like water rising in the lungs. Dolly hadn't just vanished — she'd shattered something. The doll had been more than porcelain and attitude. She had been a thread. Pecola felt the tear in the weave. That deep, primal ache of losing something that made you feel seen, even if you never said a word aloud.

She thought of Dolly's glassy eyes. Her chipped smile. That stupid laugh after blowing up a cake. The time she threatened to stab Antic in the shin with a spoon because he called her "dollface."

It hit her too hard.

Antic spoke. Quiet. Rough.

"Remember that time she tried to steal Grin's scythe?" he said, voice hoarse with the attempt at levity. "She actually got it off his back. Started swinging it around like some kind of demonic ballerina."

He chuckled, but it died quickly. The image hurt.

"She clipped my robe," Grin muttered, staring at a tree trunk like it owed him money. "I looked like a Victorian ghost prostitute for three days."

That earned a weak grin from Antic. "You loved it."

"I was... disturbingly aroused. That's not the point."

They laughed, a little too hard. It felt good and wrong and desperate. Grin actually wiped his eye — though whether it was dust or grief or sap-based allergies, he refused to say.

The laughter died again.

Then Pecola was gone.

She hadn't announced it. Just turned, bare feet making no sound, and slipped through the trees like fog. Her departure didn't crack a branch, didn't startle a bird. She just evaporated, as if even the forest didn't dare stop her.

She found the river by accident. Or maybe it found her.

It curled through the forest like a silver vein, soft and quiet. The water wasn't crystal clear — it was glowing slightly, pulsing with the same strange energy Pecola felt in her bones when the Breaths passed close. It whispered to her in a language she couldn't name but understood in her chest.

She knelt by the bank.

Didn't sit.

Pecola never sat.

Her fingers hovered just above the surface, trembled slightly.

Then — it broke.

Tears spilled over, running down her cheeks in slow, silent trails. Each drop a confession she'd never speak aloud. Grief over Dolly. Grief over herself. Grief for feeling anything at all when she was supposed to be numb and untouchable.

One fat tear dropped into the river.

Plop.

Ripples spread out like glass cracking.

And then… the voice.

"We… we have been searching… for Dolly…"

Pecola froze.

The reflection shimmered.

From the rippling pool rose a Breath — translucent, wavering, shaped like smoke exhaling in reverse. It flickered, as if unsure it was allowed to exist. But its presence was heavy, like eyes pressing against your soul.

"Dolly," it repeated. "She is… part of us."

Pecola leaned closer. Not to see — but to feel. The voice slid into her skull like a lullaby half-remembered. It didn't make sense, but it made something inside her twitch.

Then came the panic. Her fingers fumbled for the smooth river stone Antic had charmed to act as a communicator — it was warm in her palm, thrumming with faint heat like a heartbeat. She pressed her mind into it.

Antic. Grin. River. Come now. Breath spoke. It knows her. It knows Dolly.

She didn't wait for a reply.

The Breath hovered, almost sorrowful. "She is… lost… but not gone. We are… calling her back."

And then the stone glowed brighter — and they arrived.

Grin burst through the foliage first, scythe drawn, cloak snagged on a branch, swearing under his breath about thorns and existential dread.

Antic followed — shirtless, usual, because apparently that was just canon now. His chest rose and fell fast, arms twitching with worry. His hair stuck to his temples from sweat. The only thing hotter than his expression was the storm in his eyes.

He looked like he was about to beat up the river.

"Pecola?!" he gasped. "You okay?! Did it touch you?! Did it whisper something weird?!"

"I'm fine," she said softly.

She didn't add: I cried. Or: It was beautiful. Or: I think Dolly is part ghost and part girl and maybe part of me too.

Instead, she stepped aside.

And Antic saw the Breath.

His lips parted. "Whoa…"

The Breath shimmered, stronger now with the three of them present. It pulsed with an internal light like starlight trapped in fog.

"Dolly… her breath is not missing," it said.

"She is… one of us."

That cracked something wide open.

Antic took a step back, wings flaring slightly. "You mean she's—what? Dead? Alive? Both? Are we friends with a ghost-doll hybrid? Is that why she's so good at stabbing things and emotionally withdrawing?"

The Breath didn't answer directly. Just whispered, "She is… the bridge. The fracture. The key."

Pecola shivered.

Grin exhaled slowly. "Well," he muttered. "That's existentially horrifying."

"And also," Antic added, eyeing Pecola, "kind of sexy in a tragic way."

She turned her face toward him. Blank. Glowing. Silent.

His breath caught.

"Right, not the time," he mumbled, tugging on a leaf for no reason. "I'll shut up."

She didn't speak — but her fingers curled just slightly, as if she almost reached for him. Almost.

The Breath faded slowly, leaving the ripples behind. But its words didn't vanish.

Dolly wasn't just missing.

She was becoming something else.

The trio stood at the edge of the river, grief curdling into awe.

They weren't just searching for a friend now.

They were chasing a ghost wrapped in porcelain skin — a fractured soul caught between realms — and if they didn't find her soon, the ripple might become a flood.

Pecola stood.

Antic watched her.

The wind blew her dress back, revealing the long, bare length of her legs. His jaw clenched. She didn't notice.

The Breath's words hung in the air like frost on a blade — delicate, deadly, and far too silent. Pecola didn't move. She couldn't. The melody wrapped around her ribs like a cold, wet ribbon, sinking deeper with each ethereal note.

Dolly.Their volatile, porcelain, emotionally unstable friend — intrinsically linked to these airy beings? That truth didn't just sting. It screamed.

She'd grieved Dolly's disappearance. A quiet, bitter ache she'd shoved down behind jokes and burnt pastries. But this wasn't grief anymore. This was dread — slow, creeping dread with teeth. A looming storm that painted their once-clumsy scythe-snatching quests in blood-red shades of destiny.

A farce. That's what their adventures now felt like. Pecola clenched her fists and barely breathed.

The Breath flickered beside the riverbank, a flame shivering in invisible wind. Its voice? Music made murderously soft.

"She was one of us," it hummed. "Before the skin of porcelain. Before glass eyes and shattered temper. She was song. A Breath."

Pecola blinked. Her throat dried up.

"Wait—wait. Dolly?" Her voice cracked. "You mean she used to be... one of you?"

The Breath shimmered brighter, drawing patterns in the air like it was remembering a lullaby. Its voice folded over itself in mournful spirals.

"There was a time," it whispered, "when her laughter danced through the trees. She was melody. A Breath of the forest. But a shard of magic—dark, selfish—struck her. Broke her. Her song splintered... scattered... cursed. The porcelain came after. A desperate shell. A memory clutching its own heart."

A curse.Not just tragedy — engineered despair.

Pecola stepped back like she'd been slapped. The image of Dolly screaming at squirrels or hurling spoons at Antic didn't vanish — it just reshaped. It twisted. The tantrums, the clinging loyalty, the unhinged rage...

Survival.That's what it was. Dolly wasn't crazy. She was broken, dragging herself across an emotional war zone with nothing but sharp eyes and blind fury.

Pecola's chest tightened. "All this time she's just been trying to remember herself..."

Grin knelt beside the riverbank. His bones made no sound as his fingers brushed through the outline of the Breath's form, his face unreadable. Only the tiniest twitch at the corner of his skeletal mouth betrayed him.

"This isn't just folklore," he said finally. "It's history. Her history. And we're inside it now."

Antic — half lounging on a moss-covered rock like he wasn't glowing slightly in the moonlight — raised a brow.

"Alright. So..." he tapped his chin, the sharp point of a claw catching a strand of hair. "We find Dolly's other pieces. The missing chunks of her... breath. Easy. Except for, you know, the impossible part."

His wings twitched — not in flight, but like a muscle tick. Nervous energy buzzed under his skin. Shirtless, lean, gleaming with faint starlight. Pecola tried not to stare at the lines of tension curling through his ribs.

She failed.

The Breath answered with a low hum. Louder now. Strong.

"The melody remains. Faint. Fragmented. Echoes call out from the woods... if you listen."

Antic exhaled and raked a hand through his hair. "Cool. A cursed treasure hunt with a half-possessed melody map. Totally normal Tuesday."

Grin snorted.

They went.

Together, they pressed into the guts of the Perennial Forest. A maze of moon-dripped grottos and hallucinatory fog. Each path a lie. Each breeze a voice.

The melody... whispered. Not to ears, but to bones.

Sometimes it moaned like a child lost in sleep. Other times it shrieked with laughter like a party thrown at a funeral. Every now and then — Pecola would feel Dolly. Not see. Feel. Her confusion. Her joy. Her sharp, sharp need.

In the hollow of an ancient tree, they found a Breath whispering secrets.

It spoke of fireflies — of Dolly's obsession with catching them in her teeth. Of how she'd giggle and vanish into the wind, tricking the others with echo voices and ghost footsteps.

Pecola smiled through the ache in her chest. "She was... happy once."

"More than happy," Antic muttered. "She was a menace." But the way his eyes softened said otherwise.

Another Breath, this one wrapped in inky shadows, spoke of the curse itself. Of a jealous sorcerer — name lost, face forgotten — who wanted silence where there was song.

"He hated the music," the Breath hissed. "He wanted the forest to bleed... quietly."

They didn't say his name. But they felt him. Even now.

Their journey only deepened.

They fought back shadows with scythes and silver fire. Grin, all controlled fury and ancient grace. Antic, reckless and brilliant, wings a blur of iridescent chaos as he cut through the dark.

At one point, his shoulder grazed Pecola's as he spun to land beside her. She felt the heat of him, bare skin slick with the faint sheen of exertion, and it nearly short-circuited her thoughts. He didn't notice — or pretended not to.

She hated him for that. And maybe liked him more for it.

Even blind, she could feel him smirking.

Eventually, they found it — a glade, dreamlike and wrong in its perfection.

In the center, a gnarled oak wrapped in moonlight. And nestled in its roots: an iridescent tear.

It pulsed. Dolly's breath.

Pecola stepped forward, heart a riot of sorrow and hope. Her hand hovered.

And when she touched it—

The vision devoured her.

She saw Dolly — not porcelain, not shattered — alive. Light-footed, radiant, laughing until the trees themselves swayed. And then came the sorcerer. A flash of darkness. A scream. A shatter that sounded like a violin snapping its own strings.

Pecola collapsed. Tears streamed, unbidden. Her fists clenched with something far older than grief.

"She didn't deserve that," she whispered.

"No one does," Antic said behind her, voice uncharacteristically quiet.

They gathered the other fragments.

Piece by piece, they returned to the tree. As each shard met the next, the forest... shifted.

The air became sweeter. The melodies louder. The weight — lifting.

Until finally—

A burst of radiant light.

And there she was.

Dolly. Not a doll. A Breath. Whole. Her song rang through the trees like dawn tearing through night.

She glowed.

And when she looked at them, there was gratitude. And sorrow. And joy. Her porcelain form melted into light and drifted skyward like dust caught in a sunbeam.

The Breath's song faded into silence — not a comfortable quiet, but the kind that presses in like damp cotton, suffocating and still. The world around them bent, warped at the edges. Pecola felt it first: a ripple in her bones, like time hiccuped. Her fingertips buzzed. She blinked — though blink wasn't quite the word for how her lidless eyes flickered in that otherworldly way.

Then the forest was gone.

The riverbank, the gnarled trees, the twilight glow of the Perennial Realm… vanished. And in their place: snow.

Powdered white blanketed everything. The air bit sharp, clean and cruel. There was a cottage — small, tucked between hunched pines. Yellow light glowed from its windows, flickering like candle flames behind fogged glass. Laughter — high, young, real — spilled out from behind its wooden walls, warm enough to make even the snow feel fake.

Pecola, Antic, and Grin stood at the edge of the yard, half shadows in this memory.

Inside the vision, a girl burst from the door.

Clara. Maybe seven. Brown skin flushed with cold, hair tied with a red ribbon. She wore a too-big scarf dragging behind her like a cape, and her boots squeaked as she ran laughing through the snow. In her arms: a porcelain doll. The doll's curls were glossy, its dress a silken pink, and it had the kind of ridiculous eyelashes that only things never meant to be loved too hard ever had.

"Eloise!" Clara chirped, holding the doll out in front of her as if presenting her to the world. "You're my best friend, okay? Don't tell Sebastian."

A stuffed rabbit peeked from the cottage window as if scandalized.

Antic's breath fogged the air beside Pecola. He was shirtless — as always — the snow swirling around his tan skin like confetti. But he didn't shiver. His voice was low. "That's her. That's the girl."

"Dolly," Grin corrected absently, arms crossed. "Before porcelain. Before curses. Before scythe-tossing tantrums."

Pecola took a step forward. Her bare feet didn't even disturb the snow.

Clara ran to a tree and sat cross-legged beneath it. "You're gonna meet Father Winter today, Eloise," she whispered to the doll. "He leaves presents if you leave cookies. But you don't eat them. You gotta watch. That's how you know you've been good."

She paused, staring into Eloise's eyes. "And if you ever leave me, I'll find you, okay? I'll never forget you."

Pecola's hand twitched. Something inside her pulled — tight and aching, like a thread wrapped too many times around her ribs.

The scene shifted slightly. Time stuttered forward.

Clara's family called to her from inside the cottage. "We're leaving soon, sweetheart!"

She looked down at Eloise, kissed her cheek, and — hesitating — placed her carefully beneath the tree. "Just for a minute," Clara promised.

Pecola tensed.

Clara ran inside. The door closed.

Snowflakes drifted lazily. The world held its breath.

Antic muttered, "Shit."

The memory clicked forward — faster now. The cottage door flew open again. Clara tumbled out, bundled and frantic. "Wait—wait—!"

But the carriage was already pulling away. Hooves crunching over ice. Bell-strung reins jingling. Her voice cracked as she shouted, "Eloise! I forgot her—!"

She scrambled in the snow, slipping. But the spot beneath the tree was empty. The doll was gone.

"NO!"

Her scream split the air.

She wailed until her voice broke. She dug through snowbanks, fell face-first, kept going. Like a tiny animal looking for her heart.

Behind her, her parents shouted for her to come back. But she stayed. Searching.

Sobbing.

The trio stood motionless in the swirling vision. Pecola's chest hurt. Actually hurt.

"She never found her," Grin said quietly. "The snowstorm covered everything. She blamed herself. And when she died… the Breath left her. Fragmented."

Antic, for once, said nothing. His jaw flexed. He looked… helpless.

Pecola couldn't watch anymore.

She stepped forward, hand outstretched. "I can—"

A pale hand caught her wrist.

Not Clara's. Not Eloise's.

Dolly's.

Not the doll version they knew — the brittle little fighter with the razor eyes and explosive anger — but something softer. Ethereal. Still porcelain, still delicate, but glowing faintly from within like a dying star refusing to go out.

"Don't," Dolly whispered.

Pecola froze.

"She'll see you," Dolly added. "If she does, if you reach her now… you'll trap me. You'll pull me into that past, and I'll stay there. You can't do that. Not yet."

"I just—" Pecola's voice caught. "She's hurting."

"So am I," Dolly said. "But that's the pain that made me me."

Grin looked like he wanted to say something sarcastic — maybe even joke about a time loop. But he didn't.

Antic stepped closer instead. Quietly. Bare feet in the snow, breath misting near Pecola's cheek. He didn't touch her — didn't need to. His presence was enough. She felt it in her spine.

"She's right," he said softly. "If you interfere… she never becomes the Dolly you know. The one you bicker with. The one who threw cake at me. The one who saved your ass."

Pecola's lip twitched.

Dolly turned her gaze back to the vision. Clara was still digging. Her mittens were soaked. Her cheeks streaked with snot and tears. No one came.

"I never got to say goodbye," Dolly whispered. "But I remember her."

Pecola lowered her hand.

The vision began to fade — not fast, but slowly. The snow dissolved into mist. Clara's cries became echoes. The memory unspooled backward like ribbon slipping through a seam.

Back.

Back.

Back to the forest.

Back to the river and the Breath and the glowing leaves and the mission that waited.

Back to now.

And Pecola? She stood straighter.

Her eyes shimmered. Not glowing — just wet.

Dolly said nothing more. But she stayed at her side.

Antic turned toward her with a faint grin. "You almost messed up the time-space continuum just to fix a sad little Christmas."

Pecola elbowed him.

He stumbled with a dramatic oof, laughing.

Grin sniffed. "Sentimental saps."

But even he smiled.

They didn't say anything else.

They didn't need to.

The next shard waited. And the forest whispered for them to move on