Estimated reading time — 50 minutes

1 – The Rosebud

I wake up to sunlight.
A heavy, warm stripe of it is lying across my face, the kind that comes through high windows in the late afternoon. It is bright enough that it forces my eyes open, and for a moment I don’t know where I am. Velvet presses against my cheek before I understand the shape of the couch beneath me.
I push myself upright, still foggy. A beige blanket slips off my lap, neatly folded in a way that makes no sense for someone who has just passed out mid-move. My shoes are lined up beside the couch. Perfectly straight. Like someone arranged them while I slept. Like someone arranged me while I slept.

Natalie doing what she does best, I think.

I don’t remember anyone carrying me inside.

The last clear memory I have is being crammed in the back of James’ SUV while everyone argues about where the nearest gas station is. The rhythm of the highway gets into my bones and pulls me under, and everything after that is just…nothing.

Now I am here.

The house around me is overwhelming, like one of those old estates with too many hallways and more staircases than it needs.. “The Rosebud”, Even the name feels like something inherited from a family with a crest carved over the fireplace. Sunlight pours through two-story windows and catches the chandelier above me, scattering little platelets of light across the polished floor.
Everything looks staged.

Not old.
Not modern.
Just … perfect.

There is no dust on the banister. No scuffs on the hardwood. No soft creak when I shift my weight. The whole place feels unused despite the antique layout. It smells faintly of old potpourri and dry wood, something floral buried deep in the structure, the kind of scent that should have faded years ago but somehow hasn’t.

And for reasons I can’t explain, the scent feels familiar.
Comforting, almost.
Like something I ought to remember but can’t quite reach.

I rub the sleep from my face and listen.

Voices drift in from the kitchen. My friends. Their laughter moves through the hallways in warm, familiar shapes. The sound tugs at me, inviting me toward them.

I stand, stretch the stiffness out of my back, and follow the sound of their voices into the kitchen, where everyone is already gathered.

James is at the center of it all. He’s tall in that broad-shouldered, ex–high school athlete way, his shirt plastered to his back with sweat, and he is holding a cardboard box under one arm like it weighs nothing.
“Look who finally decided to wake up,” he says when he spots me. “I was one minute away from sending a search party.”

Ashley makes a horrified sound and points at him.
“James, you are sweating everywhere. Everywhere. Get away from my stuff, please.”

“It’s hot outside,” he says, as if this explains everything. “I am doing my best.”

“Your best smells like a dirty sock,” she says.

Ashley talks with her hands, big round motions that almost always turn conversations with her into a contact sport. Her dark brown hair is in some kind of messy knot that shows off the bright blue tips at the ends. She keeps glancing around the kitchen like she is rearranging furniture in her head, already planning where everything should go.

Natalie is crouched in front of a cabinet, wiping the inside of the door even though it gleams like it was polished an hour earlier. Her dark hair is cut into a sharp, chin-length bob that never seems to fall out of place, and even in an oversized moving T-shirt she manages to look put together. She doesn’t look up when I enter, just says, “Hi, Meg,” in the calm voice of someone who has decided to organize the universe.
“You know that’s clean already, right?” I ask.

“It’s about maintenance,” she says.

I don’t have the patience to ever argue with her.

Nick is on the floor near the living room TV hookup, buried in a snarl of cables. His blond hair falls into his eyes while he mutters something about “logical design flaws” and “the cruel god who invented power bricks.” His glasses have slid halfway down his nose, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
Ashley leans toward me and whispers, “Nick versus electricity. Place your bets.”
Without lifting his head, Nick replies, “I can hear you! And for the record, I am winning.”

I laugh.
It feels easy.
Too easy for day one.

The kitchen is huge and spotless, like every surface has been scrubbed right before we arrived. The cabinets are empty, the fridge gleaming, the pantry holding nothing but air. The place is practically begging to be lived in. We just have to figure out how.

“Room assignments,” Nick says suddenly. He pushes himself up with a small grunt and tugs at the front of his T-shirt, peeling the damp fabric away from his chest in quick little waves to fan himself. “I call the big room upstairs.”

Everyone responds at once.

“Nope.”
“No way.”
“Nice try.”
“I put my bag in there already.” Nick says.

“You’re too small for the big room, it’ll eat you,” James says.

Nick turns slowly. “I am not small. I am statistically average.”

“You say that like you rehearsed it,” Ashley says.

The bickering continues, loud and ridiculous and familiar in a way that makes my chest warm.
And that’s what strikes me.

The warmth.

It shouldn’t feel this natural. Moving is usually awkward, weird, transitional. But here, in this perfect kitchen in this too-perfect old house in the middle of Willowbrooke, I feel like we’ve done all of this before.
Like we’ve been here months instead of hours.

Like the rhythms are already set.

I lean against the island and let myself smile. Not because anything is especially funny, but because it feels right. Being here with them. In this house. In this moment.

It hits me quietly, somewhere deep in the place where instincts come from.

This feels familiar.

Comfortable.

Like coming back to something instead of starting something new.

I don’t know why that unsettles me.

The noise in the kitchen eventually spills outward. Boxes thump against walls. Someone drops something fragile and swears. James shouts a question no one answers. It feels like the first day in any new place. Loud, clumsy, hopeful.

I wander off while the others argue about where the plates should go.

The Rosebud opens up around me in a way that feels almost deliberate. Every room seems positioned just so, like someone built the house with a ruler, a compass, and a need for perfect symmetry.

The dining room is the first place I stop. It is larger than it needs to be. A long, heavy table sits in the dead center. The wooden chairs are spaced with unnatural precision, every angle identical. No indentations on the floor where chairs have been moved. No unevenness from years of use.

It looks staged for a photograph.

I step into the living room next. The ceilings are high enough that sound echoes faintly even when I breathe. The walls are lined with a soft floral wallpaper that repeats in perfect, uninterrupted patterns. The light from the windows makes it almost glow. No fingerprints. No dust. Not a single scuff along the baseboards. Everything looks untouched, as if no one has ever brushed past a wall or leaned on anything at all.

It is impossible for a house this size to be so flawless.

I try not to think too hard about it.

Natalie passes behind me with a box labeled BATHROOM in big letters. She glances at me, then at the spotless windowsill, then makes a mental note to wipe it anyway. She hums absentmindedly, the same few notes over and over, like a little sound on loop.

Ashley’s voice drifts from upstairs.
“Megan. Seriously, you need to see the light in this hallway.”

I head toward the stairs, my footsteps echoing a little more than they should in the empty hall.
As I walk down the hallway, I pass a narrow mirror. I barely glance at it, just enough to catch the shape of myself moving by. Even the reflection feels familiar in a way I can’t explain. I stop for a second without really knowing why. Then I notice the surface itself… spotless. Not a single fingerprint. Not even a smudge. I shake my head and keep moving, following Ashley’s voice upstairs.

When I reach the top of the stairs, Ashley is leaning into a doorway, studying the sunlight that pours into the room. Her eyes are focused the way they get when she is already planning a painting she hasn’t told anyone about yet.

“You see this?” she asks. “It’s insane. This whole house is like… optimized for light.”

“Optimized,” I repeat. “Weird word for a house.”

“I know,” she says, still watching the floor. “But it fits. Everything is just… arranged.”

I don’t say it out loud, but she’s right.

There is a strange predictability to the layout. Every hallway feels the same length. Every door is positioned in the same relation to its window. Even the shadows seem evenly spaced.

I try to tell myself it’s just an architectural style I’m not used to. Old houses have their quirks.
Still, as I stand there with Ashley beside me, I feel something I don’t know how to articulate. A subtle pressure. A sense of being guided. Like the house wants me to move a certain way. Choose a certain door. Stand in a certain spot. Like there is already a path laid out and I am just finding it again.

I shake it off and head back downstairs.

James has moved on to testing various doors like a curious child. He slides one of the doors to the backyard shut just to see how much noise it makes, then nods in satisfaction at the result.

Nick’s voice comes from the kitchen again.
“Has anyone seen the surge protector that doesn’t hate me?”

“No,” three of us reply.

The sound of everyone bustling around grounds me in something normal. The flawless floors, the spotless glass, the neat corners…they all fade under the weight of everyday noise.

This place is odd. It is too perfect. Too quiet beneath the chaos of my friends. But it is ours now.
And for the moment, that’s enough to make the eerie details feel small. Easy to ignore.

Two weeks at The Rosebud was enough time for the house to start feeling familiar in the way only daily routines can. We developed our patterns without even trying:

James jogged every morning. Ashley painted by whatever window grabbed her attention that day. Natalie cleaned before she ate and after she ate and somehow in between. Nick set up his desk, then rewired it, then reconfigured it, then started over. I fell into a rhythm too, though I still wasn’t sure if it was mine or something the house nudged me toward.

The first odd moment was small. So small I almost didn’t question it.

I left my bedroom one morning with the door standing wide open behind me. I knew it was open. I had my phone in one hand and a mug in the other, and as I walked away I glanced back and saw my bed from the hallway, comforter and all, framed in the doorway.

I walked to the bathroom, realized I’d forgotten my hair tie, and turned back.
The door was closed.

Not mostly closed. Not drifting shut.

Just fully, neatly shut.

I hadn’t heard it move. No hinges. No click. No soft thud of it catching the frame. One second it was open, the next it was just… closed.

I stared at it for a moment too long, waiting for some explanation to materialize. Then I laughed softly to myself and brushed it off. Natalie probably closed it. Or maybe I did without thinking.

Simple. Explainable.

The second odd moment wasn’t so easy to write off. It bothered me more, maybe because this time it wasn’t something strange about the house. It was about me.

I walked into the kitchen around midday intending to grab something to snack on. I remember reaching for the fridge handle. I remember thinking about leftovers. And then…Nothing.

The thought was gone.

Not misplaced, not fuzzy.

Gone.

Like the idea had been removed instead of forgotten.

I stood there staring at the fridge for several seconds until Ashley walked in humming to herself. She brushed past me, grabbed a glass, and I stepped aside like I was in the way of something I no longer remembered starting.

As I walked out of the kitchen, the emptiness inside my head hit me harder than I expected. It made me think about all the times the others had mentioned something similar.

Natalie wandering into the laundry room twice in one day, only to stand there confused.
James grabbing his keys then freezing in the doorway, staring ahead like he forgot what doors were for. Ashley going to get a glass of water and ending up outside on the porch instead.
Nick sitting down with his laptop then suddenly standing up like a switch flipped.

None of it seemed significant on its own.

We joked about “new place brain fog” and moved on.

But the joke didn’t feel as funny anymore.

Not when it happened so consistently.

Not when it felt like the thought had been taken instead of lost.

And then there was tonight. I was brushing my teeth and glanced up at the bathroom mirror. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw my reflection frozen, still staring at the sink, in the position I was in before I had fully lifted my head.

I blinked, and the moment was gone.

Just bathroom lighting. Just my tired eyes. Just a long day.

But as I lie here, a faint unease has settled deep in my stomach. The kind that doesn’t go away with sleep.

I wake up the next morning to the same light brushing through that window opposite of my door just as any other morning. The day zips by as we finish up some things around the house before relaxing for the afternoon.

We throw together a lazy dinner of microwaved dinners and whatever snacks James claims are not expired. Natalie wipes down the counters twice before setting our food down. Ashley wanders around with paint still drying on her hands. Nick is in a decent mood, or at least what counts as decent for him.
Then, half way through a cheesy romcom, the TV flickers. It crackles, the screen goes black, then lines shiver across it like an old VHS tape dying. Nick groans from the floor where he sits surrounded by half-sorted cables.

“For the love of…” he mutters as he gets up. “This wiring is from the Stone Age…I can fix it.”

“Nick, maybe don’t mess with it tonight,” I say. “Just call someone tomorrow.”

“It’s fine,” he says. No hesitation. Lack of emotion. “I can fix it.”

A cold prickle creeps along my arms. I do not know why.

Nick pulls the TV away from the wall. James hovers nearby. Ashley stands with her arms folded, chewing a thumbnail. Natalie silently watches from the corner of the couch.

Nick crouches, grabs two of the cables, and frowns at the outlet like it has personally offended him.

“This is easy,” he says softly.

I open my mouth to tell him again to wait. I do not get the chance.

A sharp white flash explodes across the entire living room.

For a second everything is just light.

White on white.

No furniture. No faces. Just a blank, burning sheet.

Then the sound hits.

A hard crack, like metal snapping against metal, layered over a sharp, high whine that makes my teeth hurt.

Something in the air fizzles.

Nick’s body jerks.

His back bows, his shoulders snapping tight like someone yanked him. His fingers clamp around the cables. I hear his breath catch, this short, ugly sound that does not sound like him at all.

His arms stay rigid for a heartbeat.

His jaw clenches.

His eyes go wide, then unfocused.

The light dies.

The sound cuts.

And Nick drops.

He hits the floor on his side with a solid, human thud that feels louder than the flash.
The smell rolls in a second later. Burnt plastic, hot and chemical. And under that, something awful and real. It fills my nose and throat.

Ashley screams. It is not a movie scream. It rips out of her like she did not know it was there.
James shouts Nick’s name and drops to his knees, his hands hovering over him like he does not know where to touch.

Natalie has jumped from the couch to the doorway, hands pressed over her mouth, eyes huge and wet. She does not move.

My phone is in my hand before I can even remember grabbing it. My fingers shake so hard I almost drop it. I punch 9-1-1 and somehow get the words out.

While I am talking, James tries to roll Nick onto his back. His arm flops in a way that makes my stomach flip. His skin looks wrong, a little too pale around the edges, a little too dark near the outlet. There is a faint, ugly mark on his hand where it must have met the metal.

Time turns weird.

Every second stretches and snaps.

Sirens arrive too fast and too slow all at once.

The paramedics burst in with their bags and their calm voices. They kneel beside Nick, checking his pulse, his pupils, his breathing. One of them starts compressions, counting under his breath. The other asks me questions in a soft, even tone that does not match the scene at all.

I watch their faces.

Professional. Focused.

And underneath, that tightness I have only ever seen on people who already know how this is going to end.

Faulty wiring, they say.
A terrible accident.
Nothing anyone could have done.

We all nod like it makes sense. But something in me refuses to settle.

We stay together the rest of the night, drifting from silence to short bursts of conversation that never last more than a sentence or two. The house feels hollow. Not quieter, just… emptier. Like there is more space than there should be.

A week passes.

It is not until then that I notice the urn.

It is sitting on the fireplace mantle like it has always belonged there. Small, white ceramic. Perfectly centered. Polished so clean the light catches on its curved surface. I do not know how long I stand there staring at it before I step closer.

A brass plate reads:

Nick Weaver
1979–2004

I feel the breath leave my lungs. Over the next few days, I ask the others about it.

James shrugs and says he figures Nick’s parents must have dropped it off while we were out. Ashley thinks maybe one of us signed for a delivery and forgot to mention it. Natalie just apologizes for not noticing sooner, assuming someone else handled it. Every explanation makes perfect sense. And yet… the dust along the mantle is even everywhere except for the perfect circle where the urn sits. As if it has never been placed there at all. As if it has been there since the house was built.

I accept their explanations. I pretend it comforts me. But deep down, something breaks loose. A quiet dread that whispers underneath everything else.
Something is wrong here.

It’s been nearly a month since Nick’s death.

The house is still hollow, but we are coping the best we can. No one acknowledges the urn past the few short conversations about it. We have quietly accepted it as a gift from Nick’s parents. We were pretty much his only friends, so it makes sense.

I walk downstairs one afternoon and there is a man in our foyer.

Our neighbor.

I don’t hear a knock. I just come around the corner and he is already there, standing neatly in the entryway with his hands loosely folded in front of him like he has been waiting a while. Tall, mid-forties, friendly face. Button-down shirt tucked into pressed slacks.

He introduces himself as Robert. “I live two houses down and I wanted to welcome you all properly,” he says. His tone is warm, polite, practiced. He invites all of us to dinner. Says his wife is already cooking. Says his family enjoys meeting new neighbors.

It feels old-fashioned but sweet. And after so much time after Nick’s accident, the idea of a normal dinner with normal neighbors sounds… safe. Or at least like a distraction.

I tell the others and we get dressed and walk over to Robert’s house that afternoon. The neighborhood looks peaceful in the fading light. Trim lawns. Quiet porches. A faint smell of barbecue lingering on the breeze. Robert’s house doesn’t stand out at first glance.

It is just… put together. Neat. The sort of tidy suburban home Natalie would proudly post on her Pinterest boards. As we walk up the path, I notice the name on the mailbox:

Newbie.

Robert opens the door before we can even knock.

“Welcome,” he says, wearing the same warm smile.

Inside, the living room is the kind of tidy that comes from habit, not effort. The sort of home where someone cares enough to keep things in their place, but not in a way that feels obsessive. Natalie steps inside and I see her eyes light up slightly, already clocking the vacuum lines in the carpet.

His wife, Betty, greets us with a smile that almost lands. Not forced, just… practiced. His teenage daughter, Brandi, gives us a quick wave from the sofa without looking away from the TV.

They are pleasant. Kind. A little formal but dinner is…strange in ways that are hard to articulate.
Not the food, which is good. Not the conversation, which is basic small talk. But there is something off about the timing of everything. A rhythm I can’t quite match.

At one point, Robert tells a story about a family trip to the mountains. Halfway through, all three of them laugh at the exact same moment. Not similar beats. The exact second. Then, just as quickly, they all drop back into eating, quiet and focused, like someone hit mute.

Ashley shoots me a look across the table. I think she is relieved to see the confusion on my face.
Later, Betty asks us how we like the neighborhood. Before any of us can answer, she says, “That’s wonderful,” with a bright smile. As if we already told her.

Brandi asks James if he works out and nods once even though he hasn’t replied yet. Then she hands him an extra dinner roll like she has anticipated a request he never makes.

The whole thing is just slightly… orchestrated. Like a conversation being reenacted instead of lived. When we leave, Robert stands in the doorway and waves with that same pleasant, unmoving smile.

As we walk back home, the streetlights along the block flicker adding to our feelings. Ashley rubs her arms. Natalie walks a little closer to me. James keeps glancing behind us like he expects someone to follow us.

No one talks until we reach the driveway.

“That was… something,” James says.

I don’t argue.

Inside, the house feels colder than usual. Not physically, but in that way a room feels different when you walk in at the wrong moment.

The Newbies have been kind. Generous. Exactly the sort of neighbors you hope for. So why, when I lie in bed, does their synchronized laughter echo louder in my head than it should?

Why does dinner feel like it moved along invisible rails?

Why do I feel like we played parts in a conversation they already knew?

I don’t sleep well.

And for the first time since we moved in, the house doesn’t feel familiar.

Robert comes back three days later, holding a plate wrapped in plastic like a peace offering.
“Good afternoon,” he says, smiling with a brightness that feels rehearsed. “I wanted to bring these. Betty cooked extra and she said we should share!”

I still can’t get over the way he speaks. It isn’t casual.

It feels… quoted. Like he is repeating instructions instead of thinking of the words himself.
He shifts the plate in his hands and nods, almost too enthusiastically.

“Betty loves cooking for our neighbors.”

His tone is so warm and cheerful, so perfectly upbeat, that it chills me a little.

Kind people exist.
But no one is that kind all the time.

I thank him, smile, and tell him I’ll grab the others.

I put the cookies down on the counter and rush upstairs, calling out to everyone, then duck into my room to grab my phone.

I open my bedroom door normally. Step inside. Grab my phone from my pillow. When I turn around to leave, I freeze. There is no door. Just a wall.

A smooth, seamless wall covered in the same floral wallpaper that lines the hallway. No indentation. No molding. No doorknob. The baseboards run uninterrupted, meeting the new stretch of wall like it has been built that way from the beginning. My heart drops straight through my stomach. I back away, breath catching.

I turn toward the window, the small one that always fills the room with light.
Gone.

In its place is more wall.

The same wallpaper pattern repeats so perfectly I can barely find where one sheet would have ended. The crown molding above it looks completely unbroken, as if the window has never existed.

Every instinct is screaming. My pulse hammers against my ribs. I press my palms to the wall where the door used to be, desperate for a seam, a hinge, something real.

Nothing. Just a perfect, unbroken surface.

I spin around, chest tight, and stumble backward, straight into something solid.

I gasp.

It’s James…Standing in the doorway behind me. The doorway that now exists.

I jump and spin toward him.

He blinks. “Jesus, Megan. Didn’t mean to scare you. Did you get a chance to try the cookies? They taste kinda bland.”

I look around him.

The room is normal. The window is back. The door is where it has always been. My panic has nowhere to go. It just vibrates inside me while I wonder what just happened. I laugh, too high, too thin, like the sound belongs to someone else.

James opens his mouth to say something else, but he doesn’t get the chance.

The fire alarm erupts through the house! A piercing, violent shriek sends both of us sprinting downstairs. The air thickens with smoke before we reach the bottom step, and by the time we burst into the kitchen. It is Robert. Our neighbor.

Flames engulf him so quickly and so completely that for a moment my mind refuses to process what I am seeing. His body moves in small, jerking motions, almost rhythmic. His arms lift, drop, lift again in a way that doesn’t look human.

More like cycles.

Repeating.

Stuttering.

As he burns.

Ashley screams somewhere behind me. James yells his name. Natalie stands frozen, both hands over her mouth.

And somewhere behind the shrieking alarm, under the crackle and the chaos, I swear I hear the faint, cheerful ding of a timer.

Like something had finished.

The fire trucks arrive fast. With the same grim efficiency they had the day Nick had his accident. EMTs move around Robert’s body, murmuring to one another as they check the stove, the oven, the scorch patterns.

A firefighter kneels by the stove and shakes his head.

“Ovens in these old houses can flare if someone doesn’t know what they’re doing,” he says, then glances back at us. “Did he… uh… come over often to use your kitchen?”
“No,” I say automatically.

But as the word leaves my mouth, something ugly twists in my stomach. Why was he using our oven? He came to drop off cookies. He wasn’t supposed to cook anything. He wasn’t supposed to go near the stove. He wasn’t supposed to…The firefighter shrugs gently and stands up.

“People have strange episodes under stress. Could’ve been confusion. You’d be surprised what folks do when they’re not thinking clearly.”

They pass it off as an accident. A moment of disorientation. A fluke.

But they didn’t see the way Robert moved. Those jerking, repeated motions. Those cycles.

They didn’t see my door vanish. Or my window disappear. Or the way the Newbies laughed in perfect sync.
They didn’t feel the house shifting around us like it was… adjusting.
They didn’t know the way Willowbrooke makes your thoughts feel borrowed.

The others go quiet as the EMTs pack their equipment. No one says anything for a long time. No one knows what to say.

But I know one thing with absolute clarity, the first real truth I have felt since we moved here:
It isn’t just stress.
It isn’t just grief.
It isn’t just coincidence.

It’s this house.

This street.

This town.

Two weeks passed after Robert burned alive in our kitchen, and the house went quiet in a way I didn’t expect.

Not silent. Just… muted.

Ashley stops painting.
Natalie barely cleans.
James works out obsessively.
And I avoid the kitchen like it still carries the smoke from that night.

We decide to check in on Betty and Brandi.
Betty thanks us for “the flowers.” …We hadn’t brought any.
Brandi asks if we still need “help with dinner.” …We never asked them for help with dinner.
We leave quickly. Blaming it on them dealing with roberts loss in weird ways.

Every few days someone tries to plan something. A café trip, a movie, the night market. But none of us actually go anywhere. Plans dissolve as fast as they form. We drift around the house like ghosts.
One Saturday morning, James finally puts his foot down.

“This is stupid,” he says. “We need sun. Pool. Burgers. All of it.”

There is something desperate in his voice, and maybe that is why we all agree.

By the afternoon, the backyard feels almost like life again.

Music plays softly. The grill hisses. Ashley hums while sketching. Natalie actually laughs at one of James’s dumb jokes. I watch them for a moment from the edge of the pool. It looks almost normal. Almost safe.
I slide into the water. It is cold in a good way, a shock that resets my nerves. I drift toward the deep end, letting myself relax for the first time in a long time. Sunlight shimmers across the surface. The group laughs behind me. For a second, I actually believe things are getting better. After a couple lazy laps, I head toward the ladder to get out. It isn’t there.

I blink, confused. I must have misjudged the distance. I swim to the other ladder.
Also gone…

I press my palms to the pool wall.

Smooth.
Too smooth.
Like polished stone.
No texture.
No breaks.
No way to grip.

“James?” I call lightly.
He doesn’t look up.

Ashley is shading her drawing. Natalie flips a magazine page. James pokes at the burgers.

They are right there.

Ten, maybe fifteen feet away. Yet it feels like they are worlds from me.

“Hey!” I try again. “You guys!”
Nothing.

Their voices carry over the water. Faint chatter, small jokes, the hiss of the grill. But none of it connects to me.

The water suddenly feels heavier. My limbs feel slower. Like swimming through syrup instead of water. I try to pull myself up again, planting my foot against the wall.

Nothing.

No leverage.

No hold.

Just a clean, vertical surface.

My chest tightens.

“Guys!” I yell, louder than before. “Seriously!”

No response.

They don’t even turn.

A small bloom of panic opens in my throat.

I try to ignore it, try to keep my voice steady, but my arms are beginning to ache. I tread harder.
Water splashes.

My breath quickens.

My heart is pounding loud enough to drown out the music.

I swallow.

Try again.

“James!” My voice cracks.

“No, seriously, I…” Water fills my mouth.

I sputter, coughing, choking.

Still nothing.

Not even a flicker of concern.

It doesn’t make sense.

I kick hard, trying to rise high enough to hook an elbow over the edge.

The wall meets me coldly. Impossibly tall. Impossibly smooth.

My fingers scrape uselessly along the surface.

The water pulls at me again.

My arms burn.

My legs tremble.

“Please,” I whisper, but it comes out too soft.

Too weak. Barely a sound.

I try again, louder, but the next kick doesn’t bring me high enough. My head dips under. Chlorine stings my eyes. I come back up gasping.

The others laugh at something.

A normal sound.

A summer sound.

A sound that doesn’t belong here at all.

I try to reach the edge again.

My hand sweeps upward and catches only air.

No grip.
No ladder.
No help.

The burn in my muscles turns into a deep, dragging weight.
My kicks slow.

My body feels heavy, unfamiliar. The water sloshes over my shoulders. My chin dips under. Comes back up. Dips again. I am not thinking clearly anymore.

Just…
Up.
Reach.
Breathe.

Up.
Reach.
Breathe.

up…
reach…
I slip…

The water swallows me whole.
Sound muffles instantly.
Light fractures.

The world above blurs into warped shapes.

I kick, weakly, reaching for the surface. My chest screams for air. My arms feel like sandbags.

The surface shimmers inches above my fingers.

I claw toward it…but my body sinks instead.

Everything slows.

My heartbeat.

My thoughts.

My fear.

Their voices are gone now.

Just silence.

Just water.

Just the feeling of sinking deeper.

My hand drifts upward one last time, barely breaking the dim blue around me.

No one grabs it.

My lungs burn.

My vision tightens to a dark circle.

The last thread of consciousness flickers…

And then it snaps.

The world goes quiet.

Completely, utterly quiet.

2 – “Sofa” Sophia

The bus hissed as it stopped at the end of the street, the doors folding open with a tired groan. Sophia waited until almost everyone else had filed out before she stood, hugging her backpack tight to her chest.
“Later, Sofa,” one boy snickered as she passed him.

Another girl chimed in, “Don’t trip, Sofa… wouldn’t want anything to fall out!”
A couple of kids laughed.

Not loudly.

Not cruelly.

Just… casually.

Like her nickname was something the whole world had quietly agreed on.

Sophia didn’t correct them. She never did.

She hurried down the steps, keeping her head low. The afternoon sunlight felt too bright, like a spotlight she didn’t want. Her shoelaces slapped against the pavement as she walked, almost jogged, away from the bus.

Nobody followed her.
Nobody needed to.
The name had done its job.

She reached her house in under a minute, slipping inside and shutting the door behind her with a quiet click.

The silence felt like a blanket.

Her mom called from the kitchen,
“Hi, sweetie! Dinner in ten. Start your homework, okay?”

“Okay,” Sophia said, her voice small.

She climbed the stairs to her room, dropped her backpack in the corner, and sat on the edge of her bed. Her eyes stung, but she swallowed the feeling down hard. She hated crying. Hated giving anything that much space.

Dinner was spaghetti and garlic bread. Her dad told a joke she didn’t laugh at. Her mom asked about school and Sophia said “fine” in the practiced way kids do when fine is the only answer adults are willing to accept.

She cleaned her plate, rinsed it in the sink, and lingered for a moment.

“Um,” she said softly, twisting the hem of her shirt, “can I…play on the computer tonight? Please?”
Her dad smiled. “Homework done?”

She nodded. Not a lie. Not the truth either.

“Well, you’ve earned some time,” he said. “Just an hour on school nights, okay?”

Sophia brightened, the first real spark in her face all afternoon. She slipped into the little office corner off the hallway where the family computer sat on a wooden desk. The monitor was the big box kind, the keyboard loud and clacky. The tower hummed softly with warmth. On the desk beside it sat a brand-new jewel case, shiny and unopened until last weekend.

FREEW!LL™
A Life Simulation Game
Create. Build. Control.

Grass-green logo. Smiling families. A perfect suburban street.

Sophia slid into the chair and double-clicked the icon.

The cheerful synth music began to play.

The loading bar crept forward.

Her breathing eased for the first time that day.

This world made sense. This world listened to her. This world didn’t laugh at her, or bump her shoulder, or whisper her name wrong on purpose.

When the save file appeared, she clicked on it eagerly.

Her town loaded.
Little houses.
Little streets.
Little families.
Her families.

And then her eyes widened.

“Oh…” she whispered.

She had forgotten to put the pool ladder back.

There on screen, the girl she called “Megs” was just a little floating icon now, hovering over the deep end, her need bars flashing red.

Sophia frowned thoughtfully. Not angry. Not sad. Just…curious.

She clicked the Build Mode button.
A holographic grid spread across the lot.
She selected the pool ladder.

Rotated it.

Placed it back onto the pool edge with a cheerful chime.

“Oops,” she murmured, giggling under her breath. “Didn’t mean to…drown you.”

She clicked back to Live Mode.

And Megan bobbed to the surface.

________

Something cold touched my hand.

Metal.

A rung.

I didn’t question it. I grabbed it with everything left in me.

My body surged upward as if the water released me all at once. I tore myself out of the pool, gasping so violently my throat spasmed. Chlorine burned my lungs. The world spun.

Someone shouted my name.

Hands grabbed my shoulders.

“Megan! Holy shit! Megan, breathe!”
James.
Then Ashley.
Then Natalie.

They were kneeling around me, frantic, dripping water on the concrete as they crowded in.
“Oh my God,” Ashley said, her voice shaking. “You scared the hell out of us.”

“What happened?” Natalie asked, rubbing circles on my back as I coughed. “Did you… did you cramp up? Or panic? You looked fine one second and then you…”

“I didn’t see you struggling,” James said quietly. “I swear, Megan. You were just swimming. And then you were gone.”

I spat out water, chest still heaving.
They were talking over each other.
Panic. Confusion. Explanations.
All reasonable.
All wrong.

“I…” My voice cracked. “I couldn’t get out. The walls were too tall. The ladders were gone…”

“There were ladders,” Ashley said quickly. “Both of them. They’re right there.”

I looked. She was right. Two ladders. One on each side. My mouth went dry.

“You probably panicked,” Natalie said, trying to soothe me. “Or got light-headed from swimming too long. It happens.”

Maybe to them. Maybe in a normal world. But I know what I felt. What I saw. What had happened.

Something had changed the pool. Something had removed the ladders. Something had trapped me. This wasn’t panic. Or a cramp. Or overexertion. It was bigger. Way bigger.

And as my friends hovered over me. Worried, relieved, oblivious. I realized something terrifying.

While I was under there,

it didn’t feel like malice.

It felt like indifference.

Like I was just an afterthought.

________

Sophia couldn’t sleep that night.

She lay in bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to her ceiling, replaying the moment she placed the pool ladder back in FREEW!LL™. The cheerful chime. The way her Sim’s head bobbed above the water again. The bright green orb floating over her returning to normal.

It felt…good.
Not the warm, fuzzy kind of good.
Something sharper.

More electric.

She had changed the world with one click. She had saved a life she had nearly taken. Or… prevented something she caused. She wasn’t sure. But the feeling was addictive. She fell asleep smiling.

The next morning was the same as every morning. Kids filing out of the bus like noisy animals. Sophia keeping her head down. Hoping today might be different. It wasn’t.

“Move, Sofa,” a boy muttered, nudging her with his backpack.

“Did your mom dress you in the dark again?” a girl asked, snickering.

Two more girls chimed in with a sing-songy, “Soooo-faaa, Soooo-faaa,” as if her name were a joke meant for everyone but her.

Sophia wanted to disappear. Wanted to melt into the floor. Wanted to be anywhere else.

At lunch she ate alone behind a pillar in the courtyard. No one sat with her. No one looked for her. But she could hear the whispers.

“Pathetic”
“Weird”
“Sofa”

The words clung to her all the way home. She didn’t cry this time. She didn’t even feel sad. She felt… charged. Like a firework about to explode. She dropped her backpack by the door and went straight upstairs.

“Homework?” her mom called from the kitchen.

“Later,” Sophia said, closing the office door behind her.

She sat at the computer, fingers trembling with something she couldn’t name. Not fear, not anger, something colder and more controlled.

She double-clicked the green icon.

FREEW!LL™
The music started.
The grid-loaded town appeared.

Her finger hovered over the “Load Game” button like she was about to uncover something sacred.
When her household flickered into view, she leaned in close. James’s needs panel flashed red. Especially the bladder bar. He was trying to walk toward the bathroom.

Sophia giggled softly. She clicked “Cancel Action.”

James stopped.
He tried again.

She canceled it.

He froze. Confusion flickered across the little digital man’s face.

Again.
Again..
Again…

Sophia cancelled every attempt he made.

And her giggle turned into a quiet, delighted laugh.

She didn’t feel bad. Not even a little.

For once in her life, she wasn’t the one being pushed around.

She was the one pushing.

________

It happens on a Tuesday.

Three days after the pool… thing.

Three days of my friends insisting I “panicked,” while I pretend to believe them.

The house feels tense. Too quiet. Like it’s waiting.

We’re all in the living room. James is flipping through TV channels, Natalie is folding laundry, Ashley is sketching in her notebook. It should be normal. It almost is.

Then James stands up. Takes a few steps toward the hallway. And stiffens. It’s subtle at first, just a small tightening in his shoulders. I only notice because he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, like a sudden cramp grabbed him.

“You okay?” I ask.
He blinks hard. “Yeah… yeah, I just need to…”

He jerks his chin toward the hallway where the bathroom is. Except he doesn’t move. He stays rooted to the spot, eyes flicking in the direction he wants to go…but his feet don’t follow.

“James?” Natalie asks, standing up. “Do you need help?”

He shakes his head quickly.

“I’m fine, I just…”

And then he freezes. Not hesitating. Freezes.

For one impossible second he looks like a paused video: arms lowered, head angled slightly, body locked. A beat later, he gasps. A small, strangled sound. His knees buckle. A dark stain spreads rapidly across the front of his khaki shorts, pooling at his feet, running down onto the rug in a thin, shimmering stream.

Natalie’s mouth lays wide open as her jaw drops. Ashley’s sketchbook slips from her fingers.

“Holy shit…” he whispers. “I… I don’t know what happened. I didn’t… I swear I couldn’t…” James stares down at himself, face blazing red.

He isn’t drunk. He isn’t sick. He isn’t laughing. He’s terrified.

I take a step toward him, but he backs away, mortified.
“I’m sorry,” he keeps saying. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what that was, I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay,” I tell him gently, even as my stomach twists.

Because I remember the pool. The way my own body refused to do what I told it. This feels the same. Like something deeper is broken.

James cleans up, showers and avoids eye contact for the rest of the night.

We all pretend it isn’t weird. But it’s the kind of weird that sticks to your ribs.

Over the next few days, things start happening. Strange things that cannot be ignored…but somehow we do…

Natalie walks straight into the wall at the end of the hallway one afternoon, cursing while rubbing her nose and insisting the bathroom door used to be “like… twelve feet to the left.” We laugh, but the way she keeps staring at the wall isn’t funny.

Ashley comes into the kitchen frowning and asks, “Where did all my canvases go?” She swears she left them stacked by the back door. We find them later that day neatly lined up in her room, exactly where she always keeps them, like they were never anywhere else.

James grabs his keys one morning, says he’s going to run a couple errands, and heads out to the car. I watch him from the window as he starts the engine…and then just sits there. Hands on the wheel. Radio glow on his face. Not moving. Two hours later he comes back in talking about traffic and lines at the store and some lady at the checkout who “wouldn’t stop chatting,” as if he hadn’t just been idling in our driveway the entire time.

I’m too scared to tell James the truth.

Too afraid he might say I have done something similar.

I’m terrified to treat any of it as real, so I keep calling them little glitches. Little stutters in our routines. Nothing more.

Then Ashley… stops coming downstairs.

At first it’s just Ashley being Ashley.

She’ll vanish into her room for a few hours, painting until she forgets what time is. That’s normal. But by Wednesday night, I realize something. I haven’t actually seen her in a while. Not since… maybe the weekend? Maybe longer? She’ll grab a mug, get distracted, wander off. Ashley once joked she lived off “coffee and paint fumes”.

We always laughed.

By Thursday morning, though, her door is shut.

By Thursday night… still shut.

No bathroom breaks.
No footsteps.
No water running.

Just the scratch-scratch-scratch of a paintbrush dragging across canvas.

We knock.

“Ashley?” I call.

“Painting!” she chirps back.

Her voice sounds bright. Too bright. Almost rehearsed. So we let it go.

Friday Morning:
Still painting.

Afternoon:
Still painting.

Evening:
Still painting.

Her voice when she answers us is thinner now, clipped, a little breathless.

She ignores lunch.

Ignores dinner.

Ignores us.

Saturday morning.
I stand at her door.
“Ashley, seriously… you need to give it a break.”

No answer.

Just a frantic flurry of brushstrokes.

“Ashley?”

A long pause.

Then, barely audible:
“Almost… done… don’t interrupt me…”

My chest tightens.

Saturday afternoon.
We hear pacing. Canvas being shifted. Brushes swishing. Her voice, low and ragged, muttering under her breath:

Not finished…not finished…not finished…

The turpentine smell fills the hallway, sharp enough to sting my eyes.

“We need to check on her,” James says.

He tries the doorknob.

It won’t turn.

Not stuck. Not obviously locked.

Just… non-responsive. Like the mechanism inside isn’t connected to anything real.

He puts his shoulder into it.

Nothing.

I pull.

Push.

Nothing.

It isn’t a stuck door. It isn’t a broken lock. The door itself is none responsive.

It feels like a wall wearing a doorframe as a costume.

“Ashley!” James shouts.

Nothing but the dragging of a brush.

Sunday.

Then we hear it…

A thud…

We call 911.

The paramedics arrive and try the handle themselves.

Same result. Same confusion.

One EMT reaches for a pry tool, lining it up with the frame.

And right then…Click.

The doorknob turns smoothly in his hand.

Like it has always been a normal, working door.

James and I look at each other. The EMT hesitates, then pushes the door open.

What we see on the other side doesn’t look like a bedroom.

It looks like a crime scene built out of art supplies.

Ashley is collapsed on the wooden floor just a few steps from her easel, like her body finally gave out mid-journey. Brushes are scattered around her in a loose halo, as if they fell right out of her fingers. Paint streaks her fingertips and forearms in chalky layers, old color dried beneath newer color, days of work baked onto her skin.

Her cheeks are sunken.

Her lips are cracked.

Her eyes are half-open but unfocused, staring past us at nothing.

The walls…

Dozens of canvases. All half-finished. All frantic.

An entire gallery of obsession.

Her pulse is weak. Thready.

The EMTs move fast.

“What’s her intake been the last few days?” one asks.

“Intake?” I echo, brain slow.

“Food, water, sleep,” he clarifies, already checking her vitals.

“I… I don’t know,” I stammer. “She hasn’t really eaten much this week. She kept getting distracted. She was painting a lot.”

The EMTs exchange a grim look.

“This isn’t dehydration,” one says quietly. “This looks like prolonged exhaustion. Malnutrition. Starvation.”

The word hits harder the longer it sits there.

Ashley hasn’t been dieting.
Hasn’t been sick.
She just… stopped eating.

Stopped sleeping.

Stopped doing anything but painting

Almost like she hadn’t been allowed to do anything else.

They wheel her out on a stretcher. Her fingers are curled faintly, like she’s still holding a brush in some dream she can’t wake up from.

The sirens, like her pulse, fade down the street.

The three of us stand on the front lawn, shaking in the heavy quiet.

And something settles over me with a cold, awful clarity:
These aren’t random accidents.

This isn’t grief.
This isn’t stress.

The house is pulling our strings.

Picking one of us at a time.

Changing what we can do.

Deciding what we forget.

Deciding what we remember.

Like it doesn’t think we’re people at all.

Just pieces.

Just characters.

Perfect for whatever game it’s playing.

________

Earlier that week…

Sophia didn’t bother pretending to do homework tonight. Not when the computer was right there. Not when she could feel the tingle of power in her fingertips. FREEW!LL loaded with its cheerful music. Bright. Bubbly. Innocent. Sophia wasn’t.

“Hey, Ashley… how are we doing today?” she said in a twinkle.

The game zoomed into Ashley’s bedroom, the one with the easel and the soft peach walls. Ashley paced irritably, hunger bar already low, fun bar empty, energy tanking.

Sophia had already been ignoring Ashley’s hunger bar for some time now.

Only now it became more conscious.

More deliberate.

Ashley walked toward the door. Sophia frowned.

She clicked the door. The menu appeared.

Options:
– Lock Door (For Ashley)
– Lock Door (For Household)
– Lock Door (For Everyone)
– Delete
– Move
– Recolor

Sophia hovered over the options for a second. A little electric rush ran through her fingers, then she clicked: – Lock Door (For Household)

A soft chime confirmed it.

Ashley tugged the door handle. It didn’t move. She tugged again, harder.

Sophia leaned forward, grinning. “You’re not leaving.”

She knew it was wrong.
She knew it in the same instinctive way you know a stove is hot.
But liking it came easier than guilt did.

Day One: Confusion

Ashley tried to walk to the kitchen.

Sophia clicked Cancel Action.

Ashley reset, stomped her foot, then tried again.

Cancel.

Sophia smiled.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she clicked the easel.

– Paint.

Ashley hesitated, then turned obediently toward the canvas.

Sophia felt a warm spark of satisfaction.

“Good. That’s better,” she whispered. “Do something useful.”

Ashley painted, but slowly.

Her hunger bar dipped further.

She stopped to wave her arms in frustration.

Sophia canceled her protest.

– Paint.

Day Two: Obsession

Sophia watched Ashley all the next afternoon after school. A fresh bruise on her shoulder from the hallway shove throbbed dully, but she barely felt it. She was too busy clicking, watching, controlling.

Ashley moved toward the door.
Cancel.
Ashley tried to nap.
Cancel.
Ashley tried to whimper on the floor.
Cancel.
Sophia selected Paint.

Ashley dragged herself to the easel.

“She’s such a baby,” Sophia muttered. “It’s just hunger. People don’t need to eat so much.”

This was a lie.
But Sophia liked these lies.

Something flickered…A feeling that had lived in her long before the game. Long before the name “Sofa Sophia”. Long before the neighborhood kids found the two dead rabbits under her family’s couch during a birthday party, dissected and mangled like a science project gone wrong. Long before she pretended she didn’t know how they got there, or why they looked the way they did.

But this time, she didn’t push that feeling away.
She Let it wrap around her like a warm blanket.
Let it rinse through her until the guilt went quiet.

She lifted her chin, eyes narrowing at the monitor.

She glared back at her tiny trapped character with something that looked a lot like satisfaction.

Day Three: Decay

Ashley’s needs panel was a graveyard of red bars.

– Hunger: Flashing.
– Energy: Empty.
– Hygiene: Red.
– Fun: Rock bottom.
– Comfort: Zero.

Ashley staggered away from the easel toward the bathroom door, moving on instinct more than choice.

Again, Sophia clicked Cancel.

Ashley stopped mid-step, body snapping back to the easel like a rubber band.

This time, Sophia didn’t just cancel the action. She flipped into Build Mode and zoomed in. The toilet. The shower.
Click. Delete. Gone.

“Ash,” she said in a scolding voice, “you’re not done yet.”
She clicked Paint.

Ashley trudged back.

Her animation stuttered slightly, a glitch.
Her shoulders twitched.
Her head moved a fraction too slow.

Sophia stared at the twitching frame with fascination.

“Wow,” she whispered. Her smile widened.

Day Four: Begging

Ashley fell to the floor.

Not a sleep animation. Not rest. A collapse.
Her hands trembled as she crawled toward the door, face twisting in a silent scream. The hunger bar beeped and pulsed, each flash weaker than the last.

Sophia leaned forward.
“Ashley…” she whispered mockingly, “you’re not listening.”

She selected Paint.

Ashley struggled up, movement slow, terrible.

She reached the easel, grabbed the brush with a shaking hand, and smeared paint in desperate, chaotic strokes.

Sophia felt a shiver of pleasure.

“You do what I say,” she murmured.

Day Five: Collapse

Ashley’s body glitched again.

Faltered.

Paused mid-animation.

She turned in a half-circle that never fully completed, then slumped to her knees. The hunger bar drained to nothing. A soft system chime played.

Pling.

Ashley lay still beside the easel, face pale, eyes empty, fingers curled like she was still trying to hold a brush.

Sophia stared at the screen.

She didn’t breathe for a moment.

Then a slow, dark smile crept across her face, one with nothing innocent left in it.

“I win,” she whispered.

And she felt something then.

Something she’d never felt this sharply before.

Power.

But not just power.

Something inside her, something that had been growing quietly for years, finally matured. Not like a flower blooming in the spring, but like a patch of mold that had finally spread too far to scrub away, revealing the full infestation underneath. The feeling washed over her, warm and electric.

Not guilt. Not fear.

Satisfaction. Control.

She leaned forward, staring at the motionless body on the screen…watching with glee as the little EMT characters came on screen and whisked her lifeless body away as they always did when a character hit zero…

3 – Starving Artist

The ambulance pulls away, lights still flashing even though the sirens are off. I stand on the lawn with James and Natalie, wrapped in one of the blankets the EMTs gave us. My hands won’t stop shaking. I can still smell turpentine on my clothes. No one says anything for a long time.

It isn’t until the red taillights vanish around the corner that Natalie finally speaks, her voice thin.
“Megan… she didn’t eat for days? You didn’t see her eat anything at all?”

I swallow hard. I don’t want to answer. Don’t want to admit what I’ve realized hours too late.
“No. I… I never saw her leave the room. I thought she was eating when we weren’t looking.”
James rubs his face and lets out a breath that sounds too loud on the quiet street.

“Starvation?” he mutters. “In a house with a fridge full of leftovers? It doesn’t make sense.”
Nothing does.

I keep replaying the EMT’s words in my head.
“This looks like prolonged exhaustion. Malnutrition. Starvation”
It doesn’t belong in our world. It doesn’t belong to Ashley.

We go back inside because there is nowhere else to be. The Rosebud suddenly feels too big. Too cold. Every footprint on the hardwood echoes like the house is empty of all life. Natalie drifts toward the couch and sits down carefully, like she is afraid it might collapse under her. James stands in the entryway, staring up the staircase toward Ashley’s room.

“Something was wrong with that door,” he says quietly.

I look up at him. I know exactly what he means.

He rubs his arms. “When we tried to open it earlier… it felt like it wasn’t stuck. Like it wasn’t jammed with anything. More like it just… wasn’t supposed to open.”

A chill crawls across my shoulders.
I think about the day my window vanished.
The moment the door disappeared.
I realize I haven’t told them. And probably never will.

Natalie stands up abruptly, her breathing fast. “I’m going to make some tea,” she says.

She walks into the kitchen and flips the switch on the kettle, but her movements are wooden. Robotic. Going through the motions just to have something to do.

James paces in a slow, heavy circle through the living room, around the coffee table, then back again.
And I just stand there.

Watching them.

Watching the house around us.

The air feels… hollow. Like the world around us has been drained of one of its colors and we are only now realizing something fundamental has gone missing.

I move toward the living room to sit down, and that’s when I see it.

A small urn.

Placed neatly on the end table beneath the window. Ceramic. Pale blue. With a little brass nameplate:
ASHLEY.
1978 – 2004

My breath stops in my chest.

“Guys?” I whisper.

James turns. Natalie sets the kettle down too hard and it clangs.

They both cross the room to me.

When they see the urn, neither of them says anything.

Not right away.

Because they know what I know.
We haven’t bought it.
We never ordered it.
No one delivered anything.
No one came through the door.
No one made a phone call.
It simply… appeared.
Just like Nick’s.

Natalie covers her mouth, her eyes brimming instantly. “Who… who would do this?” she whispers.

James touches the urn like he expects it to vanish.

No footsteps.
No delivery truck.
No sound.
Just there.
A marker closing a chapter no one asked to end.

“What is going on here?” James says finally. “Seriously, what the fuck is going on here?”

And for the first time since we moved in, he sounds genuinely scared.

We sit together on the couch, all three of us looking at the urn across the room.

I can feel something tightening inside me. A string pulling taut.

Nick’s electrocution. Robert’s fire. Ashley’s starvation. None of it is random.

And as I look at James and Natalie. both pale, both trembling. I realize something else too.
James looks at me. Almost expectantly.

“What if we’re not crazy?” I say slowly. “What if all these things are connected? Nick. Robert. Ashley. The urns. The house. The… glitches.”

Natalie shakes her head at my words, but she doesn’t deny them.

I exhale softly.

“Guys, think about it,” I say, the words tumbling out faster than I can organize them. “We never wondered why the world seems to fold so neatly around us. How everything just… flows when we move, like the whole place is built to follow us around.”

James and Natalie look at me.

“I mean it,” I push on. “We don’t even know if this town has an edge. We’ve never tested it. Never tried to leave. Never needed to leave.”

I swallow, my throat tight.

“We need to figure out what this place is,” I say. “Before it does something else to us.”

James stares at me for a long second, jaw tight, then nods once.

“Okay,” he says. “Then we stop pretending this is all in our heads.”

He looks between me and Natalie.

“Tomorrow we test it. We pick a direction and walk. No stops. No excuses. We just keep going and see how far this town actually goes.”

He exhales.

“And if something tries to stop us?” Natalie asks.

No one answers.

The three of us sit in silence, staring at the urns. The kettle clicks off behind us, untouched, and a cold understanding settles in my bones. We aren’t just piecing together a haunted house story anymore.

The next day I woke up with a weight already sitting in my chest. The house was quiet when I went downstairs. Too quiet. Not peaceful, expectant. Like the house knew we were questioning it. Natalie sat at the dining table, an untouched cup of coffee in front of her. James stood by the window, staring out like he was waiting for something to blink first.

We didn’t greet each other. We just moved. We walked down the road together, shoulder to shoulder.
Willowbrooke doesn’t really have a “downtown,” just a short strip of shops everyone calls the plaza. A café. A dry cleaner. A little gift store with wind chimes in the window. It’s the kind of place you’re supposed to feel safe walking around in.

It should be comforting.

It isn’t.

We walk there together, not saying much. The sky is that flat pale blue that looks like it’s been painted on. The closer we get to the plaza, the quieter everything feels.

The café is called Corner Cup, in big loopy letters.

I know I’ve seen it before.

I also can’t remember ever walking through the door.

A bell chimes when we step inside. The sound is too clean. No echo, no rattle of metal, just a single perfect note that cuts off the instant the door closes.

There are people here.

Sort of.

A woman in a green sweater sits by the window with a mug in her hand, eyes on the street. A guy in a baseball cap types on a laptop. A couple is tucked into the corner booth, leaning across the table toward each other.

Normal.

Until you really look.

The woman in the sweater doesn’t blink. Her mug never tilts. Not even a sip.

The guy in the baseball cap keeps typing but his screen never changes. The same three lines of text sit there, glowing softly, his fingers tapping keys that don’t leave marks.

The couple in the booth are mid conversation… but their mouths don’t match the faint, muffled sound of talking that hangs around them like background noise. Every so often they both laugh at the exact same time. Then reset back to leaning in.

“Okay,” Natalie whispers. “This is… weird, right? It’s not just me?”

“No,” James says. His jaw is tight. “It’s not just you.”

We move toward the counter anyway. There’s a chalkboard menu hanging overhead.

COFFEE
TEA
SANDWICH
SPECIAL

No prices. No descriptions. Just white letters. When I try to focus on them, they fuzz at the edges, like my eyes refuse to cooperate.

The barista stands behind the counter.

Young guy. Dark hair. Apron. Pleasant face.

His expression doesn’t change when we approach. He’s already looking at us. Not like we just walked in…like he’s been waiting for us to reach this exact spot.

“Hi there,” he says. “What can I get started for you?” His voice is warm. Scripted. Like Robert’s.

I glance up at the chalkboard again, just to buy time. “Um,” I say slowly, “what’s the special?”

There’s a tiny pause. Not long enough to be a real pause. Just long enough to be…

Then: “It’s really good,” he says brightly.

“That’s not… an answer,” I say.
He smiles wider.
“What can I get started for you?” he repeats, same cadence, same tone, same breath at the end.

Something crawls down my spine.

James steps forward, fingers drumming against the counter like he’s trying not to punch it.

“Do you take cash?” he asks.

Another tiny pause.

“Yes,” the barista says.

James pulls a crumpled twenty from his pocket and sets it on the counter.

The barista doesn’t look at it.

At all.

His gaze stays pinned somewhere just above our heads, smile held in place like it’s on a hook.

“What can I get started for you?” he asks again.

The twenty sits between us.

He doesn’t reach for it.

Doesn’t ring anything up.

Doesn’t move.

“Okay,” I say, my voice high. “Nope…We’re done.”

I back away from the counter, bumping into Natalie. She’s staring at one of the pastry displays. Neat rows of muffins under a glass dome. Blueberry. Chocolate chip. Bran.

Except every single one has the exact same swirl. The same crumb missing from the same spot. The same tiny crack along the top.

Copy. Paste. Copy. Paste.

“We need to leave,” she whispers.

I nod.

We turn toward the door.

The woman in the green sweater is still staring at the window. The guy in the baseball cap is still typing on the same three lines. The couple in the corner booth laughs again, perfectly in sync, at nothing.

I reach for the door handle.

Behind us, the barista says, in the exact same cheerful tone:
“Have a great day now.”

We step outside.

The bell chimes that perfect single note again.

The street is quiet. Too quiet. The same car drives by that I swear we already saw this morning with the same slow turn at the corner.

James exhales shakily.
“That place was fake,” he says.

“Everything here is fake,” Natalie replies.

I don’t disagree.
I can’t.

Because the worst part isn’t that the Corner Cup feels fake.

It’s that it feels functional. Like a set piece in a board game that was only ever meant to be seen from a distance.

We step back out onto the sidewalk and keep walking, this time without really deciding to. Away from the plaza. Away from the café.

Willowbrooke looks normal. Every lawn trimmed. Every mailbox polished. Cars parked at identical angles, like someone dragged and dropped them into a perfect grid.

I try to shake the feeling that the whole neighborhood is…loading around us as we move.
“Let’s go to the edge,” James says.

We don’t know where that is, but we walk anyway. Past our neighborhood. Past the Newbies’ house. Past the second row of identical homes. Past the oak tree with the same three leaves fluttering in the same rhythm every time the wind moves.

We walk for ten minutes.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
And every few houses, I start noticing it.

Repeats. That same dent in a mailbox. The same bike leaning against a porch. The same crack in a sidewalk, copied perfectly.

“Guys,” I say, stopping. “We’ve passed that house already.”

Natalie swallows. “We passed all of these houses already.”

We keep walking anyway. Stopping feels worse.

At forty minutes in, without warning, the sidewalk curves us gently right. A soft correction, like a hand on the small of your back.

Without saying a word, James steps into the grass to keep going straight. After a few steps, he stops dead.
“Megan,” he whispers. “Come here.”

I step into the grass beside him.

And I feel it.

Resistance.

Not from the ground… from reality. Like pushing against invisible elastic. Like the world wants us on the sidewalk and nowhere else.

I take another step.

It pushes back harder.

Like some invisible sign in the air is yelling, stay on path.

“We need to go back,” Natalie says. “This isn’t… we shouldn’t…”

But she doesn’t finish her sentence.

Because at the end of the street, walking toward us with impossible timing, is Robert Newbie.

Just strolling.

Just smiling.

As if I didn’t watch him burn alive in our kitchen. As if I didn’t see EMTs zip his body up and wheel him out while they muttered about confusion and a momentary lapse in judgment.

He isn’t heading anywhere.

He isn’t holding anything.

He’s just… there.

Like a character that’s been reloaded.

He lifts a hand in a too-perfect wave.

James grabs my wrist.

“We’re going home,” he says through clenched teeth.

We turn.

And I swear… I swear I hear footsteps behind us. Following.

Back at home, we shut the door, lock it out of habit, and close all the curtains. We sit on the couch. The same couch where the urns watch us from the far table like quiet accusations.

James speaks first.

“What do you remember about before we moved here?”

I rub my arms.

“Everything just… blends,” I admit. “It feels like we’ve known each other forever.”

“We keep saying that,” he says. “But none of us can say where or when. Or how.”

Natalie’s voice trembles.

“I remember… school. Sort of. But I don’t remember teachers. Or tests. Or friends. Just…the idea of school.”

James looks at me.

“And jobs? Megan, where did you work before we moved here?”

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

I try harder, digging through memories that suddenly feel printed on wet paper.

“I… did something,” I say. “I know I did something. I just can’t…”

The realization hits like ice water poured straight into my lungs.

My memories aren’t memories. They’re fill-ins. Placeholders. The world told me who I was, and I just accepted it.

I put my head in my hands.

“Something is controlling this,” I whisper. “Something outside of us. Someone who doesn’t care how real we feel. Someone who can change things with no warning.”

Natalie’s eyes shimmer with tears. “Why would someone build a town like this?”

James swallows hard, jaw tightening. He looks at the urns. “At this point,” he says quietly, “I think the real question is what else they can decide for us.”

Silence falls.
Heavy.
Thick.
Unavoidable.

We’re no longer scared of ghosts or break-ins or cursed houses.
We’re scared of…Of the choices that don’t belong to us.

Of the thing that can, at any moment, delete a door, cancel an action, or remove a ladder.
And as that truth settles like a weight in my chest, I realize something:

We’re not just discovering a puzzle.

We’re realizing we’re the pieces.

4 – 100%

Sophia sat in the computer chair with her knees pulled up, chin resting on them.

FREEW!LL sparkled on the screen with its bright music, but she wasn’t thinking about tutorials or building houses or decorating rooms.

She was thinking about control.

Real, delicious control.

The house was quiet.
The screen glowed bright.
She clicked her save.

The camera zoomed straight into the kitchen, where Megan, James, and Natalie stood close together, talking about something Sophia didn’t understand and didn’t care about.

What mattered was simple:
She had them.
She could make them do anything…
She clicked on Megan.

Options:
– Cook
– Swim
– Sit
– Nap
– Talk
– Play Game
– Use Bathroom
– Go Here

She thought of the endless possibilities
Now with a new lens of opportunity…

She clicked James’s portrait.

– Get Leftovers.

James walked toward the fridge.

She clicked again.

– Get Leftovers.

Again.

– Get Leftovers.

Again.

Click-click-click-click.

Her fingers were a blur.

James opened the refrigerator so many times that the animation struggled to catch up. Dishes clipping through each other, food appearing in his hands without him reaching for it.

He shoveled forkful after forkful into his mouth.

Chew.
Swallow.
Repeat.

Chew-swallow. Chew-swallow.

Until the movements overlapped.

Sophia dragged his Hunger bar up.

Then higher.

Then higher.

James’s stomach bloated.

His face paled.

His knees wobbled.

Then he gagged.

He vomited across the tile.

Sophia giggled.

He lurched upright.

and walked right back to the fridge.

“More,” she whispered. “Keep going.”

Natalie reached for James, horrified.

Sophia clicked Natalie.

– Dance.

Natalie began dancing politely.

Sophia clicked again.

– Dance.

Again.

– Dance.

Again and again and again and again…

The animations stacked.

Her limbs jerked in stuttering rhythm.

Her feet tripped over invisible choreography.

Her eyes went wide with terror but her body wouldn’t stop.

Natalie spun into a wall.

Bounced off.

Did it again.

Sophia clapped, delighted.

“You look funny.”

Megan backed away from the chaos, trembling.

Sophia click clicked Megan.

– Laugh.

Megan let out a startled giggle, like someone tickled her ribs.

Sophia clicked again.

– Laugh.

Then again.

And again.

And again.

And Megan’s body seized with horrible, wracking laughter she didn’t feel.

Didn’t choose.

It wasn’t joy.

It wasn’t hysteria.

It was possession.

HA…
HA…
HA…
HA…

Megan clawed at her own face.

Nothing was there.

Her laughter filled the kitchen like a mechanical toy whose switch had been jammed in place.

Sophia’s excitement spiked.

This wasn’t enough.

She hit Build Mode.

The house lifted into blueprint view.

Walls peeled away like dollhouse panels.

Sophia squealed.

She clicked on the couch.

Dragged it.

Dropped it on top of the staircase.

She clicked a TV.

Placed it on a pool lounge chair.

She clicked a bar stool.

Accidentally rotated it into the wall, where it spasmed like a fly trapped in a glass.

She dragged the fridge into the hallway.

Moved the toilet into the kitchen.

Put a sink halfway through the living room floor.

The game flickered.

Textures tore.

Objects jittered.

The lighting engine stuttered like it couldn’t breathe.

Sophia laughed harder than Megan was forced to.

“This is the BEST!”

She rearranged the house until it looked like a polygon crash: half-walls clipped through ceilings

floors floating

furniture stacked like a child’s tower

a bathtub hovering two inches above the couch

kitchen counters facing the wrong direction

a rug pinned to the wall sideways

a lamp rotating gently in midair

With every placement, the simulation lagged hard enough to groan.

Sophia didn’t notice.

She did this relentlessly throughout the night until…Her eyelids drooped…

Her head bobbed…

Her hand loosened on the mouse…

And she fell asleep at the desk. with a delighted, satisfied smile. on her tiny face.

Sophia woke up with a stiff neck and the imprint of keyboard keys faintly stamped into her forearm.

The computer screen in front of her was no longer flickering with the broken geometry of her mangled house.

It was solid blue.

She blinked.

Her dad stood beside her, frowning at the monitor, one hand on the mouse, the other balancing a mug of coffee.

“Hey,” he said, noticing she’d stirred. “You fell asleep here again.”

Sophia pushed herself upright, a thread of panic tugging at her chest.

“Where’s my game?”

Her dad sighed.
“This thing locked up hard,” he said. “weird freezing everywhere, would only boot in safe mode. You probably picked up some junk online. Might be a virus. I’m resetting the whole drive.”

Sophia’s heart dropped.

“Resetting?” she echoed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll reinstall your stuff later. But this save is toast. The system restore will wipe everything.”

He clicked a button at the bottom of the screen.

Confirm System Reset?

→ Yes

Sophia’s fingers twitched helplessly. “Dad, wait…”

The progress bar appeared.

0%

12%

27%

The hum of the hard drive filled the room, rising and falling like distant thunder.

The remnants of her world, all her careful cruelty, all her trapped little dolls…were compressed into data and slowly erased.

47%

71%

94%

The blue screen pulsed softly.

Sophia stared at the monitor, breathing shallow.

A part of her…something inside her…felt oddly…disappointed.

Not guilty.

Just annoyed that her toys were being taken away.

The reset ticked to 100%.

The screen went black.

Everything she’d built in FREEW!LL. every death, every glitch, every forced action and starving artist…
was gone.

At least from her side.

________

Couches stuck atop staircases to nowhere. Our tv hanging halfway between a wall and a painting. I had been stuck in this pose for hours before it hit me.

But I felt it before I saw it.

A strange vertigo, like the world had been picked up by invisible hands and given a small, testing shake.

The kitchen cabinet handles flickered.

Natalie’s twisted dance stuttered, then froze.

One arm up. One arm out. Eyes wide.

Mid-spin. Never finishing.

James lurched away from the fridge, vomit on his shirt, his hand reaching for the counter.

His fingers passed through it, like the counter wasn’t fully there.

“James?” I croaked.

My laughter finally stopped. Not because whatever controlled it had relented, but because the mechanism itself broke.

My lungs seized.

My diaphragm spasmed.

The invisible hands forcing my smile… simply let go.

I crashed to my knees, chest heaving.

And that’s when the house began to come apart. Not slowly. Not metaphorically. Literally.

It started at the edges of my vision. The corners of the room… glitched. Wallpaper patterns misaligned by a pixel. Baseboards detached from the floor and floated half an inch up.

The overhead light fixture flickered between styles. One moment a pendant lamp, the next a recessed light, then a bare bulb.

“Do you see that?” I whispered.

James didn’t answer.

His mouth moved, but I heard no sound. No audio. Just a silent, desperate shape.

Natalie hung mid-twirl, frozen in a pose that made no sense anatomically. I got to my feet, legs shaking, and stumbled into the living room. The urns were the first to go. Nick’s urn flickered, then split into three transparent copies that overlapped in the same spot before snapping out of existence.

Ashley’s urn stretched like rubber, pulled upward by an invisible string. It distorted, thinned into a vertical smear, then burst into a cluster of tiny gray squares that floated upward and vanished.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no!!!”

The couch beneath me juddered.

Its texture peeled back, revealing a gray, featureless block underneath, then the texture snapped back on like a skin desperately trying to hold a shape.

The world shuddered again. The floor buckled…not physically, but visually. The hardwood planks twisted, some of them rotating 90 degrees, others stretching too long like someone grabbed one end and dragged.
I felt something in my body. Not inside my organs. Inside my code. Like someone was opening me line by line and deciding what stayed.

The front window turned into a flat blue rectangle. No outside. No trees. No street.
Just sky. Cloudless sky.

I stumbled toward it, slammed my hands against the glass. My fingers didn’t touch anything. They sank into it. Up to the wrist. Then the elbow. There was nothing there. Just color. Just a painted-on horizon.
The kitchen behind me collapsed in chunks. One cabinet disappeared with a soft pop. Then another. The fridge blinked off, then reappeared halfway through the wall, then split into two overlapping copies, then faded.

I heard a sound from the hallway. like someone had taken all the normal house noises and played them over a loud speaker.

I turned. The hallway was… wrong. It stretched too long. Then snapped too short. Doors appeared, disappeared, swapped positions, rotated, duplicated.

Natalie and James flickered in and out of sight. One frame present, the next gone, the next in a slightly different position, like flipbook pages shuffled out of order.

“DON’T LEAVE ME!” I screamed.

My voice sounded distant. Muffled. Like the audio file for “Panic” had been turned down accidentally.
I tried to run. The world didn’t agree. My legs moved in place, but the floor slid backward like a treadmill. My run cycle looped three times before the engine hiccuped and snapped me to the center of the living room again. Like it gave up trying to calculate new coordinates.

“No, no, no…”

The ceiling went next. It peeled back like the lid of a tin can, revealing nothing above it. No rafters, no attic, no stars. Just blank black. Then the black began to eat. It bled down the walls like ink spilling across a page, devouring corners, edges, furniture, light. Where it passed, things didn’t break. They stopped existing.

I saw James one last time. Frozen halfway between a vomiting animation and a walk cycle, limbs wrong, face distorted into a half-pain, half-neutral expression. He looked at me. Actually looked at me. With pure animalistic terror in his eyes…Then the black hit him…

And he was gone.

No fade.

No scream.

No trace.

Nothing.

Natalie’s dance cut off mid-twist, her body dissolving into fragmented polygons that spun in slow-motion, then snapped out like someone toggled visibility off.

The black slid toward me, swallowing the rug, the coffee table, the urn table, the couch. The floor under my feet vanished in pieces. I tried to step back. There was nowhere left to step.

For the briefest heartbeat, I saw everything from the outside.

The whole town. The perfectly gridded streets. The identical trees. The repeating houses.

All of it flickering. All of it collapsing like a low-res model being unrendered.

Then the black hit me too.

Cold.

Silent.

Total.

My body vanished. But my awareness didn’t. Everything was gone.

No house. No town. No friends. Just a single thought floating in a void that had never heard of sound or light.

“Am I still here?”

And then…Nothing. Not even that.

5 – Epilogue

I wake up to sunlight.

A heavy, warm stripe of it was lying across my face, the kind that comes through high windows in the late afternoon. It was bright enough that it forced my eyes open, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. I felt velvet under my cheek before I understood the shape of the couch beneath me.
but …I am staring at the ceiling of a living room I know too well.

The air smells faintly like old wood and something floral buried underneath, the same potpourri that clung to the walls the first day we arrived.

I know this couch!

I sat up on it the day we moved in. I sat up on it when Nick died. I watched Natalie disappear from behind this coffee table.

I sit up slowly.

The room is perfect.

The wallpaper is unwrinkled.

The urn table is gone.

The TV is in its proper place.

The staircase is not covered in couches.

From the kitchen, I hear voices…

“Did you see the size of this place?”
“That backyard is insane.”
“We really scored with this house.”

I know those words.

I know that cadence.

I heard this conversation already. I stand up, legs shaking. Walk toward the kitchen doorway.

James is there.
Natalie is there.
ASHLEY AND NICK are there. Alive.
Laughing.
Ashley is waving a wooden spoon around while she talks, hair in a messy knot. Natalie is wiping down an already clean counter. James is drinking from a glass of water. sweat beading on his forehead.
It is exactly like the first time. Too exact.

My heart tries to beat its way out of my chest.

“Look who finally decided to wake up,” James says when he spots me. “I was one minute away from sending a search party.” He smiles. The same smile.

The line comes out in the same rhythm as before. Word for word.

A cold realization seeps into my bones as i feel my face go pale.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asks. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

I force a sound out of my throat. “I… I need some air.”

I don’t wait for anyone to answer. I turn, walk through the living room, and head straight for the front door.
My hand closes around the knob. For a moment I brace myself for it to vanish.

It doesn’t.
It opens and bright afternoon hits my face.

The yard stretches out in front of me. The same trimmed grass. The same neat hedge. The same perfect sky that looks just a little too smooth.

I step into it.

The air feels thin, like it is being shared between too many lungs.

I run to a bush and shake. I drop to my knees and grab at the fallen twigs.

My hands move before my brain can catch up.

I drag the stick through the grass, tearing lines into the soil. Then I grab another, thicker one. My knees grind against the dirt. My fingers cram clumps of grass out of the way.

H
E
L
P

The letters are big. Crooked. Clumsy.

My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth.

I grab more sticks, reinforce the lines, lay branches along each letter so even someone looking from far above would see it clearly.

HELP

I am shaking so violently it makes the letters jagged.

“Please,” I whisper toward the sky. “Please see this. Please let someone see this…”

I drop the last stick and stumble toward the edge of the yard. There is a point where the grass stops and the sidewalk begins.
Past that, the quiet, perfect street of Willowbrooke rolls gently away.

I know it only rolls so far.

I fall to my knees again and start digging at the strip where the yard meets the concrete. Fingers first. Ripping dirt. Trying to get under something I can feel but not see.

My nails tear.
My hands burn.
I keep going.

If I can just get under it, just get past it, just find the seam…
Behind me, someone calls my name from the doorway.

“Megan? What are you doing?”

I ignore it.

I dig until my fingertips hit something that is not soil.
It is not rock. It is not root. It feels smooth. Solid. Unbreakable.

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no…” Tears blur the grass.

The word HELP swims in my vision.

I tilt my head back and stare straight up. The sky is impossibly blue.

No variation.
No depth.
No sun, even.

Just a flat wash of color.

“Please,” I whisper again. “I know you’re there.”

Somewhere, beyond that fake sky and those identical houses, someone is watching.

Someone who has always been watching.

Someone who can drag furnished rooms around like toys and lock doors with a snap and starve people as easily as forgetting to hit save.

I do not know if she hears me.
But she sees me.
I can feel it.
I can feel her looking right at the word I carved into the lawn.

HELP.

And somewhere far away, in a room I will never see..
I can feel something shift…

________

The office is bright in that particular artificial way only big, open-plan buildings manage. Rows of desks. Whiteboards along the walls. Monitors glowing with graphs and screenshots and concept art.

Sophia sits hunched a little in her chair, hoodie sleeves shoved up to her elbows, one hand around a mug of coffee that has long gone lukewarm.

On her screen, the new build of FREEW!LL 4 is running smoothly.

Willowbrooke looks great in this engine. Higher resolution. Better lighting. Slight bloom on the windows. The updated logo sits in the corner of the viewport.

In the center of the view, a test household goes about its day.

Sophia clicks and drags to adjust the camera, zooming in on the front lawn of a familiar house.

She almost scrolls right past it before the letters catch her eye.

She leans in.

On the grass, spelled crooked with sticks and scraped lines of torn-up turf, is a single word.

HELP

A tiny figure is on her knees near the edge of the yard, hands buried in the dirt as if trying to claw through the world itself.

The name above her head, in neat white text, reads:
Megan.

Sophia’s lips twitch.

Then she laughs. A quick, breathy giggle that sounds almost exactly the same as it did when she was twelve and locking a virtual artist in a room to paint herself to death.

“There you are,” she murmurs.

She watches the little character scrape at the invisible boundary for another second. Then she taps a key to pause the simulation. The world on the screen freezes.

Megan remains crouched over the edge of her reality, fingers mid-dig, mouth open in a silent plea to a god who has already looked away.

Sophia takes a sip of her cold coffee and makes a face.

She hits save on the current build, labels the snapshot in a bug-tracking window with a lazy note: “AI routing to lot edge. Investigate later.”

Then she pushes her chair back and stands. Time for a refill.

The break room smells like burnt espresso and microwave popcorn. Someone has left a half-finished puzzle on the small round table by the window. The TV in the corner is playing the local news on low volume.
Sophia almost ignores it. She sets her mug under the coffee machine, presses the button, and waits for it to sputter to life.

“…police say they have now recovered a sixth body from the riverbank,” the anchor is saying. “Authorities believe this latest discovery is connected to what they are now officially calling the ‘Dollhouse Killer’ case…”
Sophia glances at the screen.

A photo of a cordoned-off riverbank. A blurred tarp. Concerned officials.

“…each victim appears to have been carefully positioned after death, in staged or posed arrangements that investigators describe as ‘disturbingly deliberate.’ No suspects have been named at this time…”

The machine finishes with a hiss.

Sophia adds a little cream, stirs. The spoon clinks softly against the ceramic.
On the TV, a graphic shows six silhouetted figures in a row.

All posed like mannequins.
Sophia watches for a moment.
Her expression is unreadable.

Then that small, private smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

Not big.
Not obvious.
Just there.

She picks up her mug and turns away from the television.

By the time the anchor says, “If you have any information related to the Dollhouse Killer…,” Sophia is already back in the hallway, walking toward her desk.

Back at her station, the monitor still shows the frozen frame. The house. The yard. The letters on the lawn.
Sophia settles into her chair, sets her mug down, and stares at the game with a not so subtle grin as she reads the letters again.

H . E . L . P .

Credit: Aaron S.