The hallway still stinks of lacquered sugar and burnt plastic.
No one speaks.
The wallpaper peels inward like it's trying to retreat from the air itself. Lampshades swing gently with no breeze. Somewhere behind the walls, something soft is dragging something softer.
The meal is over. The taste remains.
Ethan swallows, but it's not food he's choking on. It's the memory of texture—wrong texture. The bite that kept folding. The chewing that didn't finish.
Jo sits stiff on the stair landing, hugging her knees. Her boots drip something clear.
Nick paces slow figure-eights near the window, eyes on nothing. His shirt is spotless.
Nika wipes her lips with the back of her hand. Not to clean them. Just to remind herself they're still there.
The house exhales again.
Behind them, a grandfather clock that hadn't been there before strikes a tone that isn't a number. Just a long, bending note like someone humming through brass.
"Is this what being inside out feels like?"Jo's voice is small. She isn't talking to anyone in particular.
No one answers.
Something passes by the window outside. Not a shadow—too slow. Too curious. It brushes the glass and leaves behind a sentence none of them understand.
Then it's gone.
The lights dim again.
In the kitchen, the plates are empty. Not cleaned. Just empty in the sense that they never held anything in the first place.
Ethan breathes through his nose and tastes tinfoil.
Jo whispers, "I want to go home."
Nick finally speaks. "You are."
The walls echo with a sudden creak. Every head turns. Eyes follow.No one speaks.
"What now?" Aiden says.
They glance around, searching for a cause. Then all eyes lock on the hallway.The one that leads to the attic.
A foot steps into view.Then another.
A full body follows—plastic, stiff, familiar. The mannequin from the attic.
It steps into full view, then stops.
Motionless. Watching nothing. Being seen.
Nick speaks first.
"…what?…"
The mannequin doesn't move. But something else begins.
From outside, the sound starts. Heavy, steady, far off.Footsteps. Dozens. Hundreds. No. More.
A stampede. But too even. Too perfectly spaced.
Whatever it is, it's coming closer.
The sound grows.
Steady. Unbroken.
Not a sprint—just endless pacing. Heel. Toe. Repeat.
Someone moves toward the window.
Nika yanks them back. "Don't."
Outside, shapes begin to fill the dark. Not fast. Just walking. Row after row.
Pale. Thin. All the same.
One for every house. And the houses do not end.
Everyone backs away from the glass. No one talks. No one breathes.
A second mannequin steps into view down the street.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
Each one walks until it's noticed.
Then it stops.
Still.
Nick watches. "They're waiting."
Aiden doesn't move. "For what?"
No one answers.
Because behind them, in the hallway, the attic mannequin is gone.
Nick turns sharply. "It was right there."
No one saw it move. But it isn't there now.
Ethan edges forward. He stares down the hall where it had been.
"Don't," Nika snaps. Her voice is low, but sharp. "Don't give it another look."
Aiden checks the front door. Locked. He turns the handle anyway. It doesn't move.
From outside: more movement. More shapes.
Some stand in yards. Others appear on rooftops. One stands right behind the window now, inches from the glass.
None of them move while watched.
Nika pulls the curtain. "We leave. Quiet. Now."
Nick opens the hallway closet. Pulls out a long coat. Tosses it to Ethan. "Put this on. Stay close."
Aiden finds the back door. He opens it slow.
No mannequins in the backyard.
Yet.
Nika grabs a loose pipe from the floor. No words. Just a look.
They go.
The door opens. Cold air presses in.
They file out—Nika first, Aiden last. No one speaks.
Between the houses: narrow space. Wooden fences. Overgrown siding. No movement.
They keep moving.
No one turns around.
The back of Ethan's hand brushes against Nick's. He doesn't let it show.
They reach the RV. Same spot. Nothing touched.
Doors open. They pile in fast. Lock both.
Aiden heads to the front. Slams into the driver's seat.
"We're not staying another night."
He turns the key.
Nothing.
He tries again.
Still nothing.
Silence settles again.
Outside, the street is empty.
For now.
Aiden turns the key again.
The engine coughs. Clicks. Nothing.
Once more. His knuckles tighten on the wheel.
It coughs again, then roars to life.
"Phew," he mutters, a breath of raw relief. He shifts into gear and pulls the RV away from the curb, wheels crunching over the thin grit of this unreal neighborhood.
No one talks at first. Just heavy breaths and darting eyes.
Outside, the mannequins are no longer in hiding.
Ethan glances out the side window. "They're everywhere."
They line the sidewalks. Packed tight. Standing shoulder to shoulder. Some press against stop signs or mailboxes, tilting at unnatural angles. Their heads follow the RV as it moves. But their bodies do not.
Rows of them crowd the porches. One mannequin has its plastic hand wrapped around a doorknob that doesn't belong to any real door. Another crouches in a lawn of pure dirt, unmoving, as though waiting for roots to take.
Aiden drives slow. He has to. The narrow streets wind like a nervous system. Mannequins litter the road like barricades made of bone-white stillness.
Nika watches the street ahead. "This isn't random."
Nick grips the side of his seat. "I think they want us to leave."
Ethan swallows. "Or they're leading us."
Aiden turns the wheel to avoid another row of figures standing in perfect formation.
They don't move.
But they're always closer.
There's no horizon. No end. The houses stretch forever. Like someone copied a cul-de-sac and forgot to stop pasting.
Then—
"BrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrR"
A new sound breaks through the hum of the RV.
Aiden stiffens.
It comes from outside. A harsh, sputtering imitation of an engine. Loud. Almost playful. Almost.
He turns to look.
And his heart goes still.
To the left, just beyond the fence line—suspended in the air by nothing—is a girl.
Or maybe a short woman. Maybe not even human.
She sits on empty air, legs bent in a mock-driving pose, holding nothing.
But her hands grip an invisible wheel.
Her mouth vibrates with that mechanical buzzing. "BrRrRrRrRrRrRrRr—"
No vehicle.
No chair.
Just her. Moving through the air at the same speed as the RV. Perfectly beside them.
Her head jerks too far when she turns. Her body twitches in stutters. She's animated like a broken loop, each limb on its own timing. Her eyes are wide, bright, and wrong. One flickers between color filters. The other has a pupil that floats instead of staying still.
She wears something almost like a dress—but it warps and loops like a glitch. One arm looks normal, the other rubbery and smeared like a melting brushstroke.
And—
One part of her body is not animated like the rest.
It repeats. A single, abstract GIF loop in real life. An impossible texture that does not belong to this world: a centipede's legs walking sideways in a perfect, endless crawl, replacing her lower half.
Her mouth moves faster than her lips allow.
"BrRrRrR—BRRRR—BrrrrrRRRR—brRr—BRrrrrR."
Her head jerks toward Aiden. Not turns. Jerks.
A slow, stretched smile follows—cutting too wide, flickering between expressions before landing on joy.
She mimics pulling a gearshift that isn't there.
Then, with a sudden jolt, she leans forward. Her hands spin the invisible wheel. She accelerates—hovering beside them, matching speed—then vanishes below the window, only to reappear again higher up, upside down.
Ethan makes a choking sound. "What the hell is that."
Nick whispers, "Don't. Don't acknowledge her. Don't say anything more."
The thing outside stutters in midair. Her mouth opens wide—
—and a chorus of sounds pour out at once, layered in five distinct voices. Different volumes. Different styles. All saying the same thing:
"DRIVE—drive.DrIvE.𝓭𝓻𝓲𝓿𝓮.𝐷𝑅𝐼𝒱𝐸.ＤＲＩＶＥ."
She spins once in place. Limbs tangle. A pair of disembodied lips appear on the side of a passing tree and finish her sentence, still saying "drive."
Aiden presses the gas harder. Not too hard. Just enough.
They don't want to attract her attention.
She doesn't follow immediately.
But she's not gone.
She sinks into the street like mist. Or oil. Or an animation cell being discarded between frames.
The mannequins remain still.
The RV moves forward.
And ahead—fog starts to form.
And from inside it: laughter.
The street will not end.
House after house. Window after window. All the same. All different.Mannequins in every yard. Every porch. Every rooftop. Still. Silent.
Jo leans forward between the front seats, voice low. "We've been driving for twenty minutes. We should've hit something—anything."
"There is no something," Nika murmurs from the back. Arms crossed, eyes fixed on the passing homes. "There's only pattern. And we're inside it."
Nick drums his fingers on the glass. Calm, focused. "Mannequins. Always facing the street. Never moving when we look."
"Do you think they're waiting for us to stop?" Ethan whispers. "Or… for us to look away?"
Aiden's jaw clenches. "I don't care. We just keep moving."
But something flickers in the corner of his vision.
Outside the RV, keeping perfect pace with it, is a girl—or a woman. Or something wearing the idea of one.
She's driving nothing.
Both hands clutch an invisible wheel. She leans back, elbows out, and imitates the sound of an engine with her lips.
"BrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRr."
There's no car beneath her.She rides on air, legs bicycling in place like a flipped animation. One foot loops through a crawling centipede cycle. Her face glitches when she smiles—half static, half sketch.
Jo sees her and gasps. "What the hell—"
The woman turns her head in segments, click-click-click, locking eyes with Jo.
Then, just as suddenly—She's gone.
No sound. No trace.She no-clips straight through the street like a corrupted game file. Disappears through the asphalt. Gone.
They don't speak for a moment.
"Did we all see that?" Nick finally asks.
"Yes," Nika says. Her voice low, unsettled. "I don't know what she is. Maybe… she's stitched into the same system we're stuck in. Like a bad loop."
Jo doesn't answer. She's too busy trying to calm her breathing.
Then—
"HEY LOOK OUT!!!"
The voice explodes from the passenger seat—a voice they've already heard before.
Aiden jerks the wheel violently, the RV tilts, tires screech toward a mailbox. Ethan screams. Jo grabs a cabinet handle. Nika doesn't move. Nick braces casually.
Then:
"A HAH AH AHA."
Laughter. Glitched and echoed. It ripples across the inside of the RV like feedback.
It comes from the passenger seat—
—which was empty.
Aiden turns.
She's there.
Sitting like she always was: arms up, pretending to steer. Still humming "BrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRr" under her breath. A loop of flesh and sound.
One leg is a broken GIF, crawling in fast-forward. Her right arm is shaded in bold neons, her left is watercolor blur. Her mouth smiles, splits, retracts, reforms.
The group freezes.
"...You again," Jo whispers.
"Yep," the woman chirps, without lips moving.The word comes from somewhere under the floorboards.
Ethan's voice cracks. "She got in. How did she get in?!"
"I don't know," Nika admits, frowning. "Maybe she didn't. Maybe she just… flickered into a part of the RV we weren't watching."
Nick's smile tightens. "You think she's part of the world?"
Nika shrugs slightly. "I think she's outside its logic. That's what makes her dangerous."
The girl—leans forward and presses a finger to the windshield. She doesn't blink. Doesn't breathe.
Outside—
Every single mannequin has turned.
Thousands of them. Facing the RV.No movement. No expression. Just awareness.
Jo whispers, "They're all looking at her."
"No," Aiden says, horror in his throat. "They're looking through her. At us."
Loafa suddenly says:
"ʎ—ʎ-ʎmm—ʎmmnp—ʎmmnp.ʎᵐᵐⁿᵖ.𝙮𝙈𝙈𝙣𝙥.ʎʎʎʎʎｍｍｎｐ.ʎ͉̬̜̳m̦͎͈͘m̖̬̝͝ͅn͏̗p̺̰͖̦ͅ"
Everyone jumps.
"...Can we get her out?" Ethan asks, clutching Jo.
"No," Nick says, not taking his eyes off her. "Not without losing something worse."
Loafa flicks her wrist—once.
Every light in the RV blinks off.
When they flicker back on, she's facing the windshield again.
Still smiling.
Still glitching.
Waiting.