Dark Ballerina

Eleanor didn't sleep.

She sat on the edge of the bed with the journal clutched in her lap, staring at the edges of the room like they might ripple or breathe. They didn't. But the silence pressed in, dense and heavy—like something was holding its breath, waiting.

At dawn, she made the decision.

"This thing needs to go."

She carried the journal into the old kitchen, where the hearth hadn't been used in decades. She tore out a yellowed page and struck a match.

The flame touched the paper.

And went out.

She blinked. The match had been good. She struck another.

The page blackened—but didn't curl or burn away. It simply smoldered, like something alive was resisting the fire.

"This is insane."

She tried again—this time placing the whole journal in the iron sink and lighting a pile of pages beneath it.

The flames rose.

But the journal didn't burn.

Instead, the ink began to bleed. Words melted and slithered down the spine of the book like veins.

She backed away, heart racing. From the pages came a sound. Not music. Not whispering.

Weeping.

Very faint. Like a little girl sobbing through a wall.

Then—a burst of heat. One of the matches exploded in her hand, sending a spark into the wallpaper. She yelped, dropping it, but the fire didn't catch.

The wallpaper just peeled, slowly curling back to reveal something underneath.

A name.

Scrawled into the plaster.

Annabel.

Eleanor stepped away, breath shaking.

"No," she said aloud. "You're just a book. You're paper. You're not real."

She picked it up and hurled the journal at the stone floor. It hit hard—pages flaring open mid-air like wings—then landed face-down.

Silence.

Then the music box began playing.

Even though she had locked it away in the top drawer of her vanity. Even though it was upstairs.

It was louder than ever now. Faster. Like a ballet racing toward the final act.

Eleanor turned slowly.

The journal had opened to a page she hadn't seen before.

The ink was still wet.

You don't destroy the story.

You become it.