The orphanage is silent. Too silent. The kind of silence that wraps around you, pressing against your skin like invisible hands, muffling even your own breath. Dust drifts lazily in the dim emergency lights, catching on the air like ghosts of a time long gone. You can taste the age in the air—dry, musty, with an underlying metallic tang that makes your porcelain throat feel tight.

Then—

A sound.

A hum.

Soft, delicate, almost tender. The notes stretch and twist into something half-forgotten, a lullaby worn thin by time. It drifts through the hallways like a whisper, curling around the broken cribs, the shattered remains of childhood long abandoned. The floor vibrates faintly beneath your porcelain feet with each note.

And then—

A voice.

"Oh, my... what a delicate little thing we have here."

The words are syrupy-sweet, spoken with an affection so thick it feels suffocating. They slither through the darkness, settling against your skin like an unwanted embrace. There's a presence now—a weight in the air, an awareness that prickles at the back of your mind. You're being watched. The hair on the back of your neck would stand up if you had real hair.

A step.

Then another.

The floor does not groan beneath the approaching figure, no warning, no mercy. Just the soft, patient sound of a predator in no hurry. The air shifts—dust stirs at his presence, though he makes no sound. Only his voice carries, dripping with something too warm, too familiar.

"You shouldn't be out all alone, my dear."

He's closer now.

"It's dangerous."

A shadow spills from the hallway ahead, stretching long and thin against the cold tile floor. The shape of a man, tall and gaunt, moving too smoothly, too quietly. The air shifts—dust stirs at his presence, though he makes no sound. Only his voice carries, dripping with something too warm, too familiar.

"The world... it's so cruel to little ones like you."

A glint of teeth in the dim light—a grin too wide, too knowing. Sunken eyes gleam as they settle on you, drinking you in like something precious, something breakable. You can feel his gaze like a physical touch, tracing every crack in your porcelain skin.