The steel door shut with a clunk, and the sound was final. Heavy. Like a vault sealing them in.
Lance leaned against it, chest heaving, the cold metal soaking through his damp shirt. His knees threatened to buckle, so he let himself slide down, sitting with his back to the door, eyes wide, ears straining for any hint of what might've followed them in the dark.
Nothing. Just silence.
Dani moved through the room without saying a word, flicking a switch hidden behind a shelf. Fluorescent lights buzzed to life overhead, stuttering before settling into a dim, sickly hum.
The safe house looked more like a repurposed utility bunker than any kind of tactical outpost. The concrete walls were scrawled with faded chalk diagrams. There were old steel shelves stacked with water bottles, a radio that looked like it hadn't worked since the Cold War, and a cot in the corner that had clearly seen things no pillow ever should.
In the center of the room, a rusted desk sat beneath a bank of dormant monitors. Dust thick as ash coated everything, disturbed now by their arrival, floating lazily through the stale air.
Dario padded in behind them, tail swishing once. Then, as if claiming the whole miserable space, he dropped onto the cot with a grunt and closed his eyes.
Lance blinked at him. "Glad you're adjusting."
The words came out hoarse. He wasn't even trying to be funny—just grounding himself with sound.
His hands still trembled, the memory of the shape in the alley lingering in his skin.
"What was that?" he asked, eyes still fixed on the door.
Dani locked the bolt with a final clack, then leaned against the wall opposite him. Her expression had changed—still guarded, but no longer steel. Something in her had softened. She looked just as exhausted as he felt.
"I don't know," she said. "Not one of theirs. Too quiet. Too fast."
"Then what the hell was it?"
She didn't answer.
Silence again. Not comfortable, not heavy—just raw.
Lance pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars bloomed in the dark. His mind felt like a locked file cabinet with drawers flung open and contents scattered on the floor.
"I wasn't built for this," he said finally, voice quiet. "I live alone. I fix problems people cause when they forget to turn things off and on again. I rewatch the same shows because new ones stress me out. I have a reusable grocery bag I've named."
He looked up at her. "I'm not the guy that gets chased through cities over eldritch milk."
Dani tilted her head, studying him with something like tired amusement. "What's the bag's name?"
"Gary."
She let out a low, tired laugh.
It felt real.
"You don't have to be the guy," she said after a pause. "You just have to survive long enough for us to figure out what the hell we're holding."
She crossed the room, opened a metal cabinet, and pulled out a small, dusty box labeled FIELD REPORTS - RED. She dropped it on the desk, popped it open. Inside were dozens of faded folders and torn photographs paper-clipped together.
"Some of us tried to study it. Years ago. Before it went cold. We thought it was some kind of chemical compound, or maybe advanced nanotech. But then things started... shifting. People started forgetting what they saw. One guy thought it had followed him home, even though we had it sealed."
Lance leaned forward, rubbing his arms like he could shake off the invisible crawl now skittering up his spine.
"So it screws with memory?"
"And identity. And perception. Like it doesn't just want a host—it wants to be seen. Understood. Or maybe... misunderstood." She flipped through a few photos. Black smears on glass. Corrupted silhouettes in reflections.
Lance frowned. "So why the milk?"
"That's new," she muttered. "My best guess? They gave it a delivery system. The last few years, they changed how they stored it—liquid suspension. Safer containment, but unstable if exposed."
He sat back, trying not to stare at the milk jug that now sat on a crate like an unexploded bomb. Something about it made the shadows feel heavier.
"I almost drank it," he whispered, realizing for the first time how close he'd come. "I almost drank it."
"Then you'd be gone," Dani said simply.
Not dead. Not possessed.
Just... gone.
He let the quiet return for a moment, letting it settle into the cracks. Then, softly:
"Why you?"
Dani glanced at him.
"You seem like the kind of person who's been in this fight for a while. So why are you still here? You could've disappeared—changed your name, left it to the people with the real power."
She looked away, eyes fixed on nothing.
"Because one of them survived exposure," she said finally. "Not fully, not for long. But he came back different. Like... rewritten. He kept saying the same thing over and over, like he was stuck in a loop."
Lance waited.
"What'd he say?"
Dani looked up, her voice hollow. "It remembers me."
The silence that followed wasn't empty.
It pressed.
Like the walls were listening.