"Remember the sign from earlier?" Rick said again, voice flat.
777's face twitched. Just a little.
"…Yeah."
"Don't react. Even if I die."
Silence swallowed the rest.
Then, 777—only in his thoughts:
"…Yeah, we're so fucked."
Rick's jaw clenched.
"Can't even go all out to test theories…" he thought.
"Let's start checking," Rick muttered.
They approached a house.
Rick placed a hand on the door. Weathered wood. Slightly warm. Wrong.
"Let's go in," he said.
"Yeah, let's go—"
The door creaked open. Rick stepped inside—
—and immediately stepped back out.
From the outside.
Like reality glitched and looped him.
777 didn't blink. Didn't flinch.
But inside?
"He walked in… but got teleported back out? He opened the door from the inside and came back out like nothing happened… What the fuck. I can't react. I can't react. This is a gamble."
Out loud, 777 muttered, "You done checking?"
Rick didn't answer right away.
He couldn't.
"What the hell am I supposed to say to that?" he thought.
Then—deadpan, measured—
"…Yes."
In his head:
"Nothing happened. Or everything did. Either the sign was telling the truth… or I haven't figured out what it really means yet."
The fog thickened. Denser. But now… the sky was visible.
Clear.
Too clear.
No clouds.
No sun.
Just… visible.
And yet, everything around them grew dim.
Not like nightfall.
Like the world itself was being turned down with a dial no one could see.
Rick didn't flinch. Just muttered:
"Hey, Jennifer. Track my movement."
A long pause.
Then her voice came through the earpiece—too calm.
"Sir, GPS and gyros are not working."
Rick's gaze didn't shift.
But something buzzed at the edge of both their minds.
From the corner of their eyes—they noticed it.
The sky, the dimming light, the creeping wrongness.
They didn't react.
Couldn't.
Rick slowly scratched the left side of his chest. Just once.
777 blinked—internally rebooting.
Signal.
Rick was trying to communicate. Silently. Subtly. Without saying what they both already knew.
777's voice followed a second later, calm but clipped:
"…Why aren't GPS, gyro, or trackers working?"
Rick paused—just a beat.
Then answered, too casually:
"GPS's dead 'cause we're boxed in by mountains. And, uh… tracker's busted. Snapped it getting into the van."
Silence.
In both their heads, at the same time:
"That was a fucking lie."
But nothing else changed.
The air stayed still.
Jennifer didn't question it.
She just replied:
"Understood. Still maintaining partial uplink."
The sky above them blinked once. Like a stutter in a video feed.
And somehow?
That lie worked.
The world around them began to normalize. Just a little. Like it… believed them.
And 777?
Didn't say a word.
He just kept walking.
—
They stepped toward a second house—low, slumped, the kind of structure that looked like it'd been forgotten by both time and memory. The wood was damp. The nails, rusted black. But the door opened.
This time, it let them in.
No glitches.
No warping.
Just a creak and cold air.
Inside—it was still. Still enough to make your ears ring from the pressure of silence.
The floor groaned under their boots.
Rick moved first—slow, calculated.
And then he stopped.
Just barely.
Then scratched his left eye with his right hand.
Subtle. Smooth. But deliberate.
777 clocked it instantly.
That wasn't an itch. That was code.
Left eye = "Do you hear that?"
Right hand = "It's constant."
777's blood went cold.
Because he didn't hear anything.
Not a hum. Not a buzz. Not even their own breathing.
He couldn't even hear silence.
So he did the only thing Rick trained him for:
He faked a sneeze.
Loud. Messy. Exaggerated.
The signal: "No. I hear nothing."
Rick didn't move.
But his shoulders twitched just slightly.
Acknowledged.
And yet…
The tension in the air didn't ease.
If anything, it tightened.
Like the house itself didn't like being misunderstood.
The walls creaked behind them—not like wood flexing.
Like something breathing.
A faint pressure built—like a whisper crawling into the skull, refusing to form actual words. Just there. Just wrong.
Then, Rick scratched his left butt cheek. Casually. Deliberately.
777 clocked it.
Instantly.
In his mind:
"Yeah. That's the sign. The final one. The 'fuck this noise, I'm going in' signal."
Aloud, he muttered, "Let's check the kitchen."
"Yes. Let's go," Rick replied.
His voice was low. Measured. Too calm.
777, still thinking:
"He's in full observation mode now. If reality so much as twitches, he'll see it before it moves."
—
Rick's POV as they entered the kitchen:
"This fucking music again."
It was faint. Classical. Echoing from somewhere inside the walls. Like a haunted music box falling down a well.
"Classic ghost bullshit. I should signal 777."
But just before he could—
777 sneezed.
Rick froze.
"You WHAT? You don't hear it?"
He clenched his jaw.
Alright. Fine. If only he's hearing it, that meant one thing.
He scratched his left butt cheek again. With meaning this time.
The code:
"I'm entering full observation mode. If I drop dead, avenge me or leave me—I trust you to pick."
777 saw it.
He did not acknowledge it.
He dared not.
Because something in the kitchen had started humming.
But neither of them were humming.
And the lights?
Started dimming. One by one.
They didn't react.
They couldn't.
The rules were clear.
So they stepped forward.
Into the kitchen.
And at first glance… there was nothing.
Just silence.
Empty countertops.
A stillness that was too still.
But Rick?
Rick saw everything.
Rick POV – While Entering the Kitchen:
"Okay, main question—
What. The. F*** is going on?"
He didn't look directly.
Didn't dare.
He let the edges of his vision do the dirty work.
Peripheral view only.
Like survival demanded it.
"Under the wooden cupboard…
Cut fingers. Small. Still twitching."_
"In the flower pot—Spider Lily.
Soil soaked in something thicker than water.
That's blood.
From my own memory?
Or someone else's?"_
His pulse thumped once. Hard.
But his face stayed still.
"Don't look at anything directly.
It knows when you see it."
He let his gaze drift past the wall.
At a photo frame mounted just slightly askew.
"What's wrong with this frame—"
Peripheral only.
"Faces blurred.
Others blacked out entirely.
One has four hands.
Another—two heads, both smiling.
White eyes staring back like chalk dug into meat."
Rick exhaled slow through his nose.
Didn't speak.
Didn't flinch.
But he knew—
777 was seeing it too.
They had both slipped into peripheral mode.
No direct stares. No questions.
Just walking shadows in a room pretending to be a kitchen.
—
777, across the room, stared too long.
Just one second too long.
And a frame twitched on the wall.
Not fell. Not creaked.
Twitched.
Like it was breathing.
Rick didn't move.
Just scratched his collarbone with one knuckle—quick, deliberate.
The signal:
"You looked too long. Stop."
—
In Rick's mind:
"Everything in this room is pretending to be familiar.
But the longer we stand here…
the more it learns what 'familiar' even means."_
"I swear to god if one of these cupboards opens by itself, I'm burning the entire village down."
—
And then—
From the corner of his eye—
A child's handprint appeared on the foggy window.
Inside the glass.
Not on it.
Inside.
777 didn't say anything.
Didn't even blink.
They just moved to the next room.
Like the kitchen never happened.
Because if you acknowledge it—
It never lets you leave.
Hey there! If you're reading this, it means you've made it through the entire piece—thank you so much for that. I'd really appreciate it if you could drop some feedback. I'll be a bit busy for the next few days, so updates might be delayed, but don't worry—I'll be back soon with surprises