Harper scanned the strange, distorted figures surrounding them—neighbors, entities, whatever they were supposed to be in this twisted phase. One thing was clear: they were no longer passive observers. Their postures had shifted. Their heads tilted. Their glares drilled in with unsettling stillness.
Something bad had just been triggered.
Harper swallowed hard. She wasn't sure if the dull ache in her chest was fear or regret—or both.
Nathan stood frozen, his face pale and unfocused. His body was tense like he'd just swallowed a grenade and was waiting for it to go off. Beside him, Ivy slowly rose to her feet, eyes flickering from one entity to another like trying to find a safe corner in a burning room.
Then there was Alice.
Still slightly crouched, swaying just a little, her eyes wide and wild from whatever that cursed apple had done to her. But she wasn't afraid. No. She was grinning.
Harper pulled herself upright, dusted her hands off, and muttered, "Okay… we just caused the weird cult neighborhood to collectively get pissed off for eating apples and laugh over some weird lady?"
"Are they… all gonna chase us down now?" she asked aloud, glancing at Nathan and Ivy. "Since, y'know, The Hunt has begun?"
She was hoping for a no. Or even a hesitant maybe.
Instead, Nathan blinked rapidly like he was buffering. "I think I'm gonna throw up."
"Cool. Helpful," Harper replied.
Ivy didn't answer—her eyes were locked on one of the twitching neighbors who had begun tapping a spoon against their knee like a metronome of doom.
Alice stood up abruptly, arms flailing slightly, her voice slicing through the tense air with deranged glee.
"This is such an unfair version of tag!"
The entities all stopped tapping. Stopped moving. Just stared.
Alice raised her voice to a near scream, speaking as if she were addressing a stadium full of kindergarteners:
"
PLAY FAIR AND SQUARE, IDIOTS! OR IT WILL BE NO FUN!!
"
Harper nearly had a heart attack.
She launched forward and tackled Alice down again with a grunt, wrapping both arms around her and clamping a hand over her mouth like a straight-jacketed babysitter. Alice squirmed against her grip, legs kicking weakly, half-laughing under her breath.
"MmhM-MHH—!!" Alice mumbled, muffled by Harper's hand.
"Idiot—stop it, you pea-brained lunatic!" Harper hissed, tightening her hold.
"Can I get some freaking help restraining her, or are you two gonna let me wrestle the giggling chaos goblin alone?!"
Nathan blinked. "She bit you once already though…"
"She's high on cursed fruit, not radioactive! Just hold her legs or something!"
Ivy stepped forward cautiously and grabbed one of Alice's flailing ankles."God, this feels like babysitting a drunk raccoon in a tutu."
"I AM THE TUTU," Alice declared triumphantly through Harper's hand.
"No. No, you are not," Harper muttered.
"You are exactly why they put warning labels on things like glue and glowsticks."
Nathan finally crouched beside them and helped hold Alice's shoulders down.
"Okay, okay, she's not gonna shout again, right?"
Alice gave a muffled hum and blinked up at them with a conspiratorial smile.
"Guys," Ivy said suddenly, her tone shifting. "Look…"
They all turned.
The entities had started to move. Not fast. Not aggressive. But in unison. Quiet, synchronized steps. Their eyes still locked on the group.
The game had begun.
"Cool," Harper breathed. "So we're being hunted by synchronized nightmare neighbors and I'm holding down a psychotic game-show host."
Nathan winced.
"Ten bucks says she starts singing next."
"I will take that bet," Ivy said flatly.
Alice, still restrained, smiled wider.
The entities began stepping forward, all in perfect synchronization.
It wasn't aggressive—not yet. There was no frantic energy or sudden rush. It felt more like… a rehearsed march. Each movement landed in rhythm, as if they'd practiced this walk a thousand times in silence, waiting for the cue to begin. Their arms hung unnaturally still. Their eyes didn't blink.
Harper's breath hitched.
"That's… creepy as hell."
Nathan didn't even respond. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, eyes locked on the approaching line.
But Ivy?
She narrowed her eyes, focusing—not on their monstrous forms, but their posture. Their angles. The rhythm of their steps.
It reminded her of boardroom negotiations. Of human behavior. This wasn't a predator's gait. It was… composed. Measured.
"Guys," Ivy said, voice calm—eerily calm considering the situation. "I don't think they're coming to hurt us. Their body language—it's not hostile."
Harper turned to her sharply. "You sure? Because I'm getting 'hostile funeral parade' vibes."
"No," Ivy continued, stepping forward with her arms slightly raised—not in surrender, but in control. "They're not part of The Hunt. I don't know what they want, but this isn't an attack. Not yet."
In the real world, In Ivy's college and social life, she had been exceptional at reading people. It wasn't just intuition. It was strategy. She knew when to speak, when to stay silent, when to take charge. That precision had earned her the top spot in debates, leadership boards, even social groups.
But this place?
This place didn't follow rules. Here, strategy didn't mean much unless it came with raw adaptability. Creative thinking. And Ivy… was used to predictable logic.
Still, even now, her voice had that edge—just enough confidence to pull Harper and Nathan out of their spiraling panic.
Only just.
"So we're not playing ta—"
"You don't get to speak," Harper snapped, shoving a hand over Alice's mouth again. "Shush. Like a good little chaos goblin."
Alice's eyes went wide. She pouted like a child being told she couldn't have dessert.
"Mrrgh—Rude," she mumbled through Harper's palm.
"Say one more word and I swear I'm duct-taping you to a freaking lamppost."
Alice responded by crossing her arms dramatically and looking away, offended beyond repair.
Nathan's voice cut in, quieter, edged with unease. "Ivy… what exactly do you mean by 'not hostile'? They're marching at us like an undead army. That's literally the definition of hostile."
Ivy's gaze didn't waver. "They're not charging. There's no aggression in their pace. It's… like they're approaching for communication. Ora negotiation." She said while pointing at the march.
"Great," Nathan muttered. "Next thing you'll tell me is they wanna offer us cookies and a group therapy session. Very assuring."
But before Ivy could respond, something made her stop cold.
She turned around and looked back, towards the cottage from which they just had escaped from—what was left of it. Completely shattered and blown off.
The ground beneath it had cracked wide open, revealing a deep, gaping maw of pure blackness. And from it… something was rising. Slowly. Painfully.
Sickly, oozing black tentacles slithered out, writhing with a nauseating wet sound. They curled along the ruined ground like dying snakes, twitching violently, multiplying with each second. Dozens. Then hundreds. Long, thin, some spiked, others smooth—each one glistening with tar-like slime that hissed as it touched the earth.
Something massive was coming. No face. No form. Just a sense. A feeling. A pressure that weighed on their lungs like invisible chains.
Harper stepped back instinctively.
"Uhm… Ivy? Do your 'non-hostile' friends plan to save us from that, or…?"
Ivy slowly turned back to face the marching entities.
They hadn't stopped.
And now, they were nearly halfway to the group—perfect lines, perfectly timed. Still not running. Still eerily calm. Still… watching.
Nathan's jaw tightened as he looked between the two threats.
"So, either we fight them, or we fight that. That's not even a choice, We are stuck in a situation like a sandwich right now"
Harper gave a bitter laugh. "Whatever this, Palamine is... It's making sure we don't have a good time here"
Alice tapped Harper's arm and whispered,
"What if I try speaking to them again?"
Harper didn't even look at her.
"If you open your mouth, I will personally feed you to the tentacle pit like a cursed piñata."
"Kinda hot," Alice said under her breath.
"And now she misses Ethan, Great."
The air was thick now. Tension like static crawling up their skin.
Ivy clenched her fists. Her voice was steady, but only barely.
"We need to choose. We can't stay in the middle forever. Either we trust my read on them—or we prepare to run toward the unknown."
Nathan's breath came fast. Shallow.
"I swear, if we get betrayed and ripped apart, I'm haunting you Ivy."
The marching continued. The writhing behind them grew louder. And in that inescapable moment, suspended between two horrors, they realized:
This phase didn't want them to fight.
It wanted them to choose.
Nathan let out a quiet, strained breath—barely more than a sigh—but it echoed like thunder in his own ears.
The pressure was closing in fast.
The tentacles behind them writhed higher with every second. The silent march in front of them was now just seconds away. He could hear footsteps. See their dead eyes.
His hands were trembling.
He didn't want to choose.
Not because he didn't care—but because he cared too much. One wrong call, and they'd all die. That weight… it wasn't just heavy. It was paralyzing. Every possible decision flashed through his head, and each one ended the same way: someone screaming, someone bleeding, someone not making it out.
But Ivy was standing firm.
Watching everything. Thinking. Acting.
And in that moment… Nathan let go.
He didn't say it out loud, but something inside him surrendered. It wasn't weakness—it was survival. A form of emotional retreat. Letting someone else lead because the weight was simply too much to carry.
It wasn't courage. But it wasn't cowardice either. It was human.
We always talk about getting out of our comfort zones. But the truth is, the brain hates discomfort. Even when danger is near, it convinces us to wait, to postpone, to rest a little longer. That same instinct that tells you to stay in bed even when your life is crumbling. That voice that whispers, "Let someone else handle it."
And right now, Nathan was listening to that voice.
It felt wrong. But it also felt like relief.
The burden slipped from his shoulders and onto Ivy's. And even if her choice was wrong—it would still be better than being the one who made the wrong call.
His voice came out low, but clear:
"Fuck it. I trust you, Ivy."
He looked at her, the fear plain on his face.
"What do we do?"
Ivy didn't hesitate.
The moment Nathan spoke, something shifted inside her. A quiet warmth—not joy exactly, but a small reassurance. She'd expected resistance, expected him to take control, maybe even lash out under pressure. But instead, he listened. In this insane place, surrounded by horrors, he trusted her.
Even if she didn't show it, it meant something.
She took a deep breath and kept her eyes locked on the approaching figures.
"We approach them. With kindness. Politeness. No sudden moves. We don't let them get all the way to us—just enough for us to speak."
Her voice stayed level, but there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes—one she quickly masked.
"If they turn out to be hostile, we cut through them, run, and find something—an exit, a hidden passage, anything. If they're not…" She hesitated, "we beg them for help."
It wasn't a perfect plan. It might not even be a good one. But it was something. And Ivy had never doubted her ability to read people—even if these things weren't quite people.
Behind her, Harper's expression twisted with concern. She still had both hands firmly around Alice's wrists, holding her still. Her eyes locked with hers, serious now.
"I swear to God, if you open your mouth again, I'm smacking you into next week."
Alice pouted at the floor like a scolded child, her expression pitiful. Her lower lip jutted out ever so slightly.
"…Was just trying to help…" she mumbled under her breath.
"You helped enough," Harper muttered back, adjusting her grip just in case.
Nathan took everything in—the tentacles still writhing and growing behind them, the eerie synchronized steps in front—and let out another slow breath. It didn't make anything easier. But it felt a little less impossible now.
"Alright," he said, glancing at Ivy, "We'll do it your way."
The four of them stood together, caught in the middle of something they didn't understand. One wrong step, and it could all end here.
Behind them, black tendrils clawed further out of the ground, thick and wet with some sickly sheen. In front of them, twenty to thirty entities marched forward—empty eyes, synchronized steps, still silent.
And between them, just a few feet of broken earth and the thinnest thread of hope.