Page 71 of Lost Echoes

My heart hammers. “They were still running it recently.”

Ember’s eyes flick to mine. “Kenzi’s right. The performances never stopped.”

Before I can answer, a faint sound comes from the hallway.

Not footsteps, but a child’s laugh.

We both freeze. Why would any child laugh in this place?

“Did you hear that?” Ember asks.

“Yeah.”

We move toward the door slowly, every instinct screaming to turn back. The sound drifts again. It’s higher this time, echoing off tile. But it’s not joyous laughter. It’s the kind that ends too soon, cut off mid-breath.

Ember lifts her flashlight, jaw tight. “They said the west wing was the rehearsal space.”

I nod, clutching the paper tighter. “Which means this is the audience.”

We follow the corridor to another door, this one unmarked except for a small white sticker near the handle—a spool symbol, inked in black.

My stomach twists. “That mark…”

“I see it,” Ember says.

For a moment, neither of us moves. Then she steadies her voice. “We get what we can. Photos, names, anything. Then we go meet the others.”

I nod, forcing my hand to stop shaking as I lift my phone to snap a photo of the mark. The flash pops, and in that half-second of light, something glints inside the narrow observation window.

An eye. Watching us.

The light fades. The window is dark again.

“Someone’s in there,” I whisper.

Ember’s hand clamps around my wrist. “We can’t open it. Not yet.”

“But…”

“Not yet.” Her voice trembles, but she doesn’t look away from the door.

The laugh echoes again, closer now, like it’s behind us instead of ahead.

And suddenly the quiet feels alive. The kind of quiet that breathes back.

We stand perfectly still, caught between the sound and the door, between the past and whatever waits inside it.

Then Ember whispers so quietly I almost can’t hear her. “We need to move now.”

So we run.

Footsteps echo behind us. But that isn’t what disturbs me the most.

Laughter, faint at first, then breaking into static. It seeps from the vents, crawls along the walls—a recorded sound on loop. Maybe. Or something worse.

I grab Ember’s arm and drag her down another corridor.

She pulls ahead of me, flashlight beam jerking across the hallway as we sprint. My lungs burn, and my pulse is loud in my ears.