Part 2! I don't think anything would upset you but if anything does, let me know. That was enough. I took a deep breath and walked toward the door. Each step felt heavier than the last, like the air itself was trying to stop me. I reached for the door and the world blinked. I was no longer in the hallway — I was in a house I didn’t recognize. Too clean. Too quiet. The kind of silence that presses on your ears. I looked around. Everything felt... wrong. Like a dream pretending to be real. I was… home. But not now-home. I was a kid again. Same chipped floorboards. Same yellow couch. The TV was playing some cartoon I hadn’t seen in years. The kind of place you think you remember, even though you’ve never been there. A woman stood in the kitchen, her back to me. She was humming softly, a lullaby I didn’t know but somehow felt familiar. That made me shiver. “Come in,” she said without turning. Her voice was soft but distant — like it came from a recording. “Who are you?” I asked. She didn’t answer. Just placed a teacup on the table, porcelain clinking too loudly in the silence. I stayed near the door. “I don’t know this place,” I said. “And I don’t know you.” She turned. Her face was blurry. Not pixelated — more like smeared paint. Like someone had tried to paint a face and gave up halfway through. “You know me,” she said in that same artificial tone. “I’m your mother.” “No,” I said, stepping back. “That’s not right. I barely remember my mom.” “That’s the point,” she replied. “We gave you this.” Her voice changed then — lower, more synthetic. Glitchy. “This is what you wanted. A mother. A home. A perfect lie.” My heartbeat quickened. “I never asked for this.” “No,” the voice said again, and now the figure’s face was melting — literally dripping off like wax. “But someone did. Someone wanted you compliant. Easier to control. Easier to forget.” The house shuddered, like it was about to collapse. Cracks split through the walls like spiderwebs. Then everything vanished. And a voice — not hers, but something cold and mechanical — echoed all around me: “Unauthorized memory access detected. Purging sequence initiated.” Then I was falling through blackness. Falling— Falling— Until— Ash’s voice. “Wake up! Come on, wake up!” I gasped, eyes flying open. I was back in the hallway. Zion was shaking me, and Ash was holding my hand so tightly his knuckles were white. “You were out for a minute,” Ash said, worry clouding his face. “You stopped moving. You were just... gone.” “I went through the door,” I muttered. “What door?” Wonder asked. “There’s no door here.” I turned around. The hallway was solid again. No sign of anything strange. But something had changed. Not around me — within me. The fear that had clung to my chest since the beginning was still there… but now it had a sharp edge. I wasn’t just scared anymore. I was angry. Angry at my dad. At Liz. At this place. At myself, for letting all of it happen. I looked at my friends — bruised, exhausted, trying so hard to keep going like everything wasn’t falling apart around us. They were waiting for someone to take the lead. I realized I was tired of waiting for someone else to make the decisions. “I’m done playing their game,” I said quietly. Ash looked up, surprised. “What?” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “We’ve been running around like rats in a maze. Trying to escape. But maybe that’s not what we’re supposed to do.” “You’re saying we just... stay?” Wonder asked, frowning. “No. I’m saying we stop running.” I stepped forward. “We find them.” Ash stared at me like he didn’t recognize me for a second. “Are you sure about that?” “No,” I said honestly. “But we’re wasting time hoping someone will save us. No one’s coming. It’s just us.” There was a beat of silence before Xander stepped forward. “Then we end it. Whatever this is.” Eclipse gave a tired look. “You’re getting a little dramatic, but I’m with you.” Ash squeezed my hand again, firmer this time. “Then let’s go.” We turned around — not toward some exit, but back the way we came. Toward the danger. Something had changed. I wasn’t just surviving anymore. Now, I was ready to fight.
