Into the Rabbit Hole

The clock on Dominique’s bedroom wall had ticked past 2 a.m., but sleep was a stranger she hadn’t invited in months. The air hung thick with anticipation—like the pause before a curtain lifts, or a predator crouched just out of sight. Her desk was bathed in a dim, bluish glow from her monitor, where lines of encrypted code pulsed like a heartbeat.

She adjusted the earbuds and glanced at the second screen. Damien’s face appeared in the corner video feed, bathed in the sterile light of his own workspace. He looked as wired as she felt, hoodie drawn tight over his head, jaw clenched.

“You sure you want to go through with this?” he asked, voice low and rasped through the static.

She didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers hovered over the enter key, frozen in that liminal moment between caution and recklessness.

“I’ve lived in masks for so long I forgot what my real face looks like,” she said. “If this gets us closer to the Fox… I’m in.”

Damien gave a subtle nod. “Then we go in together. No solo stunts. Not this time.”

Dominique smirked faintly. “I’ll try not to run off and poke the beast alone.”

They activated the link—a dark net portal Damien had acquired from a defunct dom network with rumors of dangerous undercurrents. The entrance was hidden behind an innocuous shell site: an online museum for antique dolls. Clicking a cracked porcelain face on the third shelf triggered a cascading page redirect and a black screen that read:

Welcome to Marionette’s Mirror
You’re the puppet now.

Her heart thumped once—hard—before the terminal loaded.

Inside was no chatroom. No stream gallery. No usernames.

Instead, it was a gallery of masks.

Each mask hovered in a shifting carousel, stylized avatars that represented users. Some were grotesque—stitched leather mouths, eyeless mannequins. Others elegant—gilded Venetian designs with cruel smiles. The more elaborate the mask, the more power its user seemed to wield. At the center of the display was a mask outlined in red.

A silver fox.

No name. No profile.

Just a single message under it:

“Control is an illusion. But obsession is immortal.”

Dominique’s mouse hovered over the mask, heart pounding in her ears. Damien’s voice cut in.

“Don’t click it yet. That one’s watched. Monitored by bots, maybe humans. We need to start lower—build credibility.”

He guided her to a simpler mask: a black velvet half-mask labeled Lamb_Lure13. “Use this one. It has history in the forums. Nothing flashy, but known. Safe enough.”

She clicked in. Her profile was automatically populated: submissive, newly returned, seeking pain and punishment.

Dominique let out a breath. “Guess I’m in character.”

“No,” Damien said, eyes glinting. “That’s the danger. You already are the character.”

Messages poured in within seconds. Text-only entries, no profiles, no traceable IPs. Just hungry questions.

How obedient are you, Lamb?
Would you bleed for your handler?
Do you remember what the dark smells like?

Dominique’s breath hitched as she scrolled.

You disappeared for years. Why come back now?
What’s your safe word, little marionette?

Then one stood out.

I’ve missed the way you twitch.

She froze.

Damien saw her expression shift. “What is it?”

She highlighted the message and pinged it to him. “He’s here.”

Damien began typing furiously. “Checking his pattern. This user bounced from Zurich to Korea to Quebec in twenty-three seconds. That’s Fox behavior.”

Dominique stared at the message.

I’ve missed the way you twitch.

Her lips parted, dry.

“I need to respond.”

“No,” Damien said quickly. “Not yet. He’s baiting you.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. But let me look around.”

She entered one of the rooms—digital spaces designed like dungeon galleries. Scripts ran simulated interactions: voice-acted scenarios, animated reenactments, even logs of real encounters reposted anonymously.

One room had no title. Just a number: Room 13.

She entered.

Inside was a looping video: A girl in a collar, bound and silent, a cracked mirror behind her. But it wasn’t just any girl.

It was her.

Or… someone dressed like her Domica persona—identical hair, lips, makeup, even her signature choker.

Dominique’s fingers trembled.

“Damien… he’s replicating me.”

Damien’s voice was low and urgent. “Exit the room. Now.”

She backed out. The screen glitched. For a moment, her own reflection flickered—her real webcam—then went black.

A message appeared:

Control is temporary. I own the strings now.

Dominique stood up from her desk, heart hammering. “He has access to my feed.”

Damien cursed. “Disconnect. Full shutdown. I’m coming over. We need to reroute and rewire everything.”

Dominique stood in the dark, screen glowing with that single sentence:

I own the strings now.

She whispered, “Not for long.”

The light of Damien’s headlights cut through the fog as his car pulled into Dominique’s long driveway. It was nearly 3 a.m. The neighborhood was silent—eerily so. She waited for him on the porch, arms wrapped tightly around herself, hoodie zipped to her throat, but her fingers still trembled with the phantom chill from the screen.

“He saw me,” she murmured when he reached the top step. “Not Domica. Me.”

Damien didn’t speak right away. Instead, he handed her a portable signal jammer and took her phone, sliding it into a Faraday pouch. Then he stepped inside.

They moved quickly, efficiently. Dominique had already shut down her computers, but Damien brought his own equipment—an older laptop with no Wi-Fi capability and a clean bootable OS. He checked her cameras, disabled microphones, and covered every lens in the room with electrical tape.

Only then did he speak.

“He has access to the same backdoors I used to find him. Which means either he used to work for one of the networks…” Damien looked up, eyes sharp, “...or he built it.”

Dominique sat on the edge of her bed, jaw tight. “He was there the whole time. That mask. That message.” Her voice dipped lower. “I own the strings now.”

Damien sat beside her, not too close. “He wants you to panic. Wants you to feel powerless. That’s his first move—psychological break-in. He won’t attack all at once.”

Dominique turned to him, eyes glittering in the dim light. “Then let’s make sure he regrets touching my strings.”

A quiet smirk played at Damien’s lips. “That’s the Domica I know.”

They shared a rare moment of charged stillness.

It wasn’t the kind that came before chaos—but the kind that invited it.

---

By dawn, Dominique had changed. Her hair was still braided, but the pristine girl-next-door look was long gone. She wore a black turtleneck, thick eyeliner, and boots that echoed against the marble floors of her house like war drums. Her mother passed her in the hall and said something about posture and appearances. Dominique didn’t hear it. She was still in Room 13.

At school, Dominique barely made it through her classes. Priscilla tried to approach—nails painted sharp as knives and lips too red for a Monday morning—but Dominique brushed past her without a glance.

By third period, Damien found her leaning against the vending machine in the east hall.

“He messaged me again,” he said under his breath.

Dominique arched a brow. “The Fox?”

“Yeah. But this time… it wasn’t bait.”

He showed her the message on his phone:

Still playing detective, little Wolf? You should be more careful sniffing near the glass. You might cut your tongue.

Dominique’s breath hitched.

“He knows your name.”

Damien nodded. “That’s what scares me.”

---

They cut class and drove. No destination. Just the road beneath them and the thrum of adrenaline in the air. Dominique let her hand drift out the window, wind catching her fingers like wings.

Damien pulled off into a side lot just outside an abandoned drive-in theater, a place overgrown with ivy and forgotten vines. He killed the engine and looked at her.

“We’re both targets now. But I think he wants you more than he wants me.”

Dominique smirked without warmth. “Most men do.”

He leaned closer, tone darker. “This isn’t about lust.”

“No,” she agreed. “It’s about control.”

Silence thickened between them.

Then Damien leaned in, brushing a knuckle along her jaw. “You do know that people like us were never meant to be pawns.”

Dominique met his gaze, voice low. “Then let’s burn the board.”

---

Later that night, Dominique stood in her bathroom, steam curling around her face like smoke from a ritual. Her reflection was still her own—but she no longer trusted it.

She wiped the mirror clean and wrote a name on the glass with her fingertip: Fox.

Then, beside it, she wrote one more word: Hunter.

And under that: Me.