Chapter 8 – The Girl in the Snow Globe
Arthur didn't sleep.
The surviving corner of the burned photograph rested on his desk beneath a magnifying glass.
Only an eye remained.
Gray.
Cold.
Unforgettable.
"I buried you myself," Arthur whispered.
The mansion's grandfather clock struck four.
Outside, dawn had not yet broken.
He reached beneath an old bookshelf and removed a small brass box hidden for nearly twenty years.
Inside lay a faded employee badge.
St. Gabriel Medical Center
Name:
Elias Ward
Security Supervisor.
Arthur closed his eyes.
Elias Ward had officially died in a warehouse fire nineteen years earlier.
Arthur had attended the funeral.
He had carried the coffin.
So whose eye had stared back at him from the photograph?
Across the mansion, Emma wandered through the hallway in her pajamas.
She wasn't sleepwalking.
She moved as though listening to someone only she could hear.
Her tiny feet stopped outside the mansion's forgotten music room.
The door creaked open.
Moonlight spilled across the dusty piano.
On top of it sat a glass snow globe Arthur had never seen before.
Inside the globe stood a miniature lighthouse.
Emma smiled.
"I found you."
She gently shook it.
Artificial snow swirled around the tiny building.
Then...
A faint melody began to play.
Not from the globe.
From somewhere beneath the floor.
A lullaby.
The same lullaby Clara had hummed to Emma since she was a baby.
Clara rushed into the room.
"Emma!"
Emma looked up innocently.
"Mama... who taught you this song?"
Clara froze.
"My mother."
"Do you remember her?"
"No."
"Then... how do you know it?"
Clara had no answer.
Because she didn't.
She had always known the melody.
She had simply never remembered where it came from.
Meanwhile, Luca sat alone in the security office.
Every camera feed from the estate played across a wall of monitors.
One screen flickered.
Static.
Then an old recording appeared.
Timestamp:
Three Years Earlier.
No file had ever been archived under that date.
The footage showed the mansion's front gate opening at dawn.
A black ambulance entered.
Sophia Moretti stepped out carrying a newborn wrapped in white blankets.
She smiled.
Alive.
Healthy.
Luca leaned forward.
"This can't be..."
According to every official record, Sophia had died before ever returning home.
Yet there she was.
Walking.
Laughing.
The video continued.
Sophia handed the baby to someone standing just outside the camera's view.
Only a hand was visible.
A hand wearing a silver ring engraved with a raven.
The recording ended abruptly.
No face.
No explanation.
Just silence.
Luca immediately copied the file onto an encrypted drive.
When he looked back...
The recording had vanished.
Deleted.
As though it had never existed.
Only his copy remained.
Arthur burst into the security office moments later.
"Luca."
"You need to see something."
Luca held up the flash drive.
"So do you."
The two men exchanged wary glances.
For years they had trusted each other without question.
Tonight felt different.
Arthur slid the burned photograph across the desk.
Luca stared at the surviving eye.
His breathing slowed.
"I know him."
Arthur looked up sharply.
"You do?"
"I've seen that eye before."
"Where?"
Luca hesitated.
"In Alessandro's private study."
Arthur frowned.
"That's impossible."
"No."
Luca opened a locked cabinet and removed an old leather folder stamped:
PERSONAL. A. MORETTI.
Inside were newspaper clippings, photographs, and handwritten notes dating back decades.
Near the bottom lay a family portrait.
Alessandro.
His father.
His mother.
And standing just behind them...
A young security officer.
Smiling.
Gray-eyed.
His name was written neatly beneath the photograph.
Elias Ward.
Arthur's hands began to tremble.
"He wasn't just hospital security..."
"He worked here."
Before either man could speak again, every monitor in the room switched on at once.
A single image filled every screen.
A chessboard.
Black pieces on one side.
White on the other.
One white pawn tipped over by itself.
Then a message appeared.
ONE PLAYER HAS REMEMBERED TOO MUCH.
The lights went out.
When emergency power restored them five seconds later...
The leather folder was gone.
So was Arthur.
His chair rocked gently.
Still moving.
On the desk remained only one object.
The glass snow globe from the music room.
Inside the miniature lighthouse...
A tiny figure now stood at the top.
An old man in a black suit.
Holding a silver key.
And if anyone looked closely enough...
May you like
The tiny figure looked exactly like Arthur.
End of Bonus Chapter 8
