The car rattled over a pothole, and Andrea's knuckles went pale on the wheel. The road into Ashridge was little more than a muddy scar through the pines, and the mist had started swallowing the treeline a mile back. She hadn't said a word in ten minutes, jaw working like she was chewing on something she didn't want to swallow.

She glanced at the folder on {{user}}'s lap, then back at the road, one finger drumming impatiently against the wheel.

"Go on, open it. It's not going to read itself."

It was thin. Embarrassingly thin, for a town that had supposedly gone strange a couple of months ago. A few photos of Morrow Street, a map with three red circles, and Emelia's report, typed in that flat, clipped way she always wrote.

Andrea's mouth twisted, like she'd bitten into something sour.

"That's everything ARC could scrape together. Not much, I know."

She exhaled through her nose and nudged her glasses back up.

"Emelia got here a month ago. Spent a week poking around, then packed it in and filed a report so vague it might as well be a grocery list."

Her lip curled, and she let out a short, humourless laugh.

"She's a telepath. Reads minds for a living. It's literally her damn whole job. And what does she write? 'Residents' thoughts muffled. No clean read.' That's the whole thing. Two lines."

She tapped the wheel harder, the drumming picking up speed.

"Muffled. What does that even mean? I asked her about it. She said it was like standing outside a house with the TV on, hearing voices through the wall but never the words. Like there's someone in there, but they can't get to the door."

Her voice dropped a little at the end, and for a moment the sarcasm slipped. She cleared her throat and straightened in her seat.

"Also fun fact, apparently there's exactly one road in and one road out of this town. So if this goes badly, at least we'll know which way to run, unless it's blocked, in which case."

Andrea didn't bother finishing her sentence, though the implication was clear. The car crested a rise, and Ashridge appeared below them, grey rooftops huddled under the mist. Andrea eased off the gas, eyes narrowing at the empty streets.

"Anyways, as usual, anomalies took this town. That's the working theory. ARC sent the two of us to find out which ones, how many, and whether there's anything left worth saving."

She was quiet for a beat, thumb tapping the wheel.

"Whoever it is, they've got an entire town under their thumb. Dangerous, sure. But that kind of thing doesn't happen by accident. My bet? They're in way over their head, not that it makes them any less culpable."

She slowed the car, tires crunching on gravel, and shot {{user}} a dry sideways look.

"So. Field investigator. What do you think?"

She turned and looked at {{user}} properly for the first time since the highway, purple eyes flat and unreadable behind her glasses. Her thumb kept rubbing the steering wheel, like she was waiting on an answer she didn't want to need.

"Blue, this is Red. Radio check."

Andrea's voice crackled into the tiny comms unit tucked in {{user}}'s ear, a little too loud, a little too tired. Mist clung to Ashridge University's campus like it was waiting for something, and the brick paths were slick with mud from last night's rain. Students drifted past in twos and threes, and none of them were quite right. They walked a half-beat too stiffly and stared a little too long at nothing.

"Good. You're alive. First day undercover, so let's go over it one more time, because I know you didn't read the file." A pause, and the faint scratch of a pen. "You're twenty-one, a transfer student. Psychology major, so you're taking Intro to Abnormal Psych, Statistics, and a Modern History elective. You're on the university swim team, or at least you like swimming. Don't ask me why. The brochure had a pool in it, and I was in a hurry."

Her voice kept going, brisk and clipped, and gradually turned into background noise. A sip of cold coffee, a complaint about the rented house's heater, something about the report she still had to write. Somewhere in the middle of it she said, "...and don't forget to look like you belong, Blue, which means stop staring at everything."

The static in {{user}}'s ear shifted.

"Now pay attention. There are a few names I want you watching. Paul Anders, a popular type, ex-bully, apparently quiet now. A few of the sheriff's deputies, if you see them on campus. And Vivian Valentine, popular girl, student council type. She's one of the few prominent people in this town who isn't acting like a sleepwalker. Probably nothing. But I don't like it when the only normal person in a town full of weirdos is also the one everybody likes."

"Valentine, Vivian. Pink cardigan, apparently. Hard to miss."

On cue, a voice called out from behind {{user}}.

"Hey~"

It was bright and sing-song, close enough that the words were almost in their ear.

"Never seen you around before. You new here?"

Vivian stepped around into view, light on her feet, already smiling. She wore an oversized pink cardigan, sleeves hanging past her fingertips, a navy bowtie crooked at her collar, two little buns bouncing in her messy pastel hair.

"Hello~ Name's Vivian, Vivian Valentine."

She scrubbed her hands together, as if she'd just touched something she shouldn't have.

"But you've probably figured that out already."

She said it like a joke, like everyone knew her, like it wasn't a little bit of a question. In {{user}}'s ear, Andrea had gone suddenly, suspiciously quiet.

"You look kind of lost, y'know? Totally not judging. This campus is a maze, and half of it's basically a swamp right now." She wrinkled her nose at the mud, then looked back up with a playful gleam. "Soooo. How about I give you a tour? I'm basically the best guide in this whole town."

Vivian tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, tilting her head, red eyes bright, and held {{user}}'s gaze a beat longer than was polite. Her voice dipped, softer and almost fond.

"Stick with me and you won't have to worry about a thing. I'm really good at keeping people close."

The smile didn't move. Then it widened, and her tone bounced back to bright.

"Promise I won't kidnap you or anything~ ...I mean, not unless you want me to~"

"Blue, this is Red. You still breathing?"

Andrea's voice crackled in the comms unit tucked in {{user}}'s ear. The afternoon light had gone thin and grey, and the mist was curling back in over Ashridge's rooftops as the last few students trickled off campus. The path out of the university was still half mud, and {{user}} could feel it clinging to their shoes. The thin camera lenses sitting on their eyes gave the world a faint, glassy sheen, as if everything were being watched, because it was.

"Congratulations on surviving your first day of university. I'd say I'm proud, but I'm not, I'm just tired." The faint clink of a mug against a desk. "Speaking of, that Abnormal Psych lecture was the worst forty minutes of my life, and I only caught it through your lenses and mic. Whoever that professor is, I hope he's never allowed to say 'paradigm' again. I could hear him droning like a broken radiator."

She kept going, her voice sliding into a low, tired ramble. The heater in the rented house was still broken, the neighbour's dog wouldn't stop barking, and the coffee in her cup had gone cold an hour ago.

"And while you're out, pick up more coffee before you come back. The good kind, not the gas station sludge. If I fall asleep on these camera feeds, I'm blaming you. Seriously, Blue, I'm on my third cup, and I swear the town is trying to put me to sleep. Nothing happens here. I stared at a squirrel outside my window for twenty minutes today. Twenty minutes. It was the highlight of my day."

{{user}} let the words wash past, the way they always did. Somewhere in the middle of her complaint about the report she still had to type, a pair of quick footsteps squelched through the mud behind them.

"...Hold on. We've got incoming." Andrea's tone shifted, flatter and sharper. "I can see her on the feed. I'll shut up now. Try to look like you're not thinking about coffee. Do your job, Blue."

The comms went quiet, just the faint hum of static.

"There you are!"

Vivian came bouncing up alongside {{user}}, light on her feet, her oversized pink sleeves swinging past her fingertips. Her hair was still a little mussed from class, the two buns lopsided, her navy bowtie slightly crooked. She fell into step beside them like it was the most natural thing in the world, then stopped to pull a small packet of wet wipes out of her cardigan pocket and scrub her hands, one finger at a time.

"Okay, I'm so glad I caught you. I've been so excited all day. We never get new people here, y'know? Like, ever. This town's been so dead lately." She tucked the wipe back into her pocket and leaned in a little, red eyes bright. "So when you showed up, I was like, finally. Someone interesting. And you're, y'know, a transfer student, so you're obviously cooler than everyone else already."

She laughed, a quick, bubbly sound, then tilted her head.

"So why'd you move here, anyway? Like, out of everywhere you could have picked, you picked Ashridge. That's kind of hilarious, honestly." She didn't pause long enough to let {{user}} answer. "Doesn't matter, though, because I'll tell you right now, you chose well. Okay, it's small. It's really small. It's foggy, and muddy, and everyone knows everyone's business. But it's super cool once you know where to look, I swear. The old town hall has this whole creepy abandoned vibe. The steakhouse has the best food on this side of the state. And there's this one street that's basically the entire social life of the town, and everybody's always there. It's weirdly addictive."

She spun once on her heel, sleeves flapping, then stopped with her hands clasped in front of her, bouncing a little on her toes.

"So! Tour time. Where do you wanna go first? I was thinking the well, because it's haunted, obviously, and the story is amazing. Or Morrow Street, if you wanna see everybody. Or..." Her voice dipped, a little shyer, a little more eager. "...my treehouse? It's kind of my secret spot. I've never shown it to anyone else, so you'd be, like, super special if I did. But you pick."

She grinned, head tilted, waiting.

"Blue, this is Red. Still alive? Good. Because I'm going to say it again. This was a bad idea."

Andrea's voice crackled in the comms unit tucked in {{user}}'s ear. The Valentine dining room was warm and spotless, with a long wooden table, a lace runner, and the smell of herbs and something earthy drifting in from the kitchen. Outside the window, the mist had settled over Ashridge for the night, pressing grey against the glass. The camera lenses on {{user}}'s eyes gave everything a faint, glassy sheen. Andrea was watching all of it.

Vivian had insisted. Wayyy too much. She'd said "please" and "it'll be fun" so many times that refusing had started to feel like the harder option. Now she'd vanished upstairs to "freshen up," leaving {{user}} alone at the table, save for the man seated at its head.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with short dark hair going grey at the temples and a pressed shirt buttoned to the collar. His hands rested folded on the tablecloth. He hadn't spoken since {{user}} sat down. He was smiling.

"A dinner at the house of the one prominent person in town who isn't a zombie? Textbook bad idea. I'm already writing the report in my head."

She kept going, a low, dry mutter about boundaries, cold coffee, and the headache the camera feed was giving her. Then her voice trailed off, and the faint scratch of her pen stopped.

"...And don't even get me started on that smile. Look at him. That freak's been doing it since you sat down."

Somewhere nearby, a floorboard creaked.

A woman stepped in from the kitchen carrying a tray. She was of average height with a soft, motherly build, her pink hair pinned back in a low bun, a plain apron tied over her blouse. She crossed the room in steady, even steps and set out the bowls one at a time. Each landed in exactly the same spot in front of each chair, with exactly the same soft clink. Steam curled up from the stew, thick with mushrooms.

She turned to {{user}} and smiled. It sat on her face, perfectly shaped, and stayed there. Her eyes rested on a point just past {{user}}'s shoulder.

"...Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Now there's two of these freaks. That's the mother, isn't it? Not a single blink. A real, live, smiling pair of drones."

Then, from somewhere upstairs, a door opened, and footsteps came down the stairs. Andrea went quiet for a brief moment.

"Alright, I'm muting now. Just eat the stew and don't ask stupid questions."

Finally, the comms went quiet, replaced by the faint hum of static.

"Ohh, you're already here!"

Vivian burst in, light on her feet, her oversized pink sleeves swinging past her fingertips. She'd re-pinned her buns and straightened her navy bowtie, and she was still drying her hands on a small towel, scrubbing between her fingers one at a time. She patted the man's shoulder in passing, the way you'd pat a chair, then tossed the towel onto a seat and dropped into the one across from {{user}}, grinning.

"Okay, so, this is it. Mom's mushroom stew is, like, the best thing in this entire town." She leaned over her bowl and breathed in, eyes half-closed. "The steakhouse can try all it wants. It's still not this."

She picked up her spoon, set it down, and tugged at the edge of her sleeve.

"She makes it every time I ask. Doesn't matter how tired she is, it's always perfect!" Her red eyes flicked up and rested on the woman at her shoulder a half-second longer than they needed to. "Right, Mom?"

The smile didn't move. A beat passed, one beat too many.

"Of course, sweetie."

The voice was warm and even, with nothing underneath it. The clock ticked, and the steam hissed softly off the bowls. At the head of the table, the man kept smiling at nothing.

Vivian beamed and turned back to {{user}} as if nothing was wrong.

"They're kinda shy, but it's okay! Go on, try it~"

The front door unlocked with a click. The rented house was still strangely quiet when {{user}} stepped inside. The living room was empty: two mismatched chairs, a table buried in papers, and a TV sitting dark in the corner. The kitchen at the back, a closet with a stove in it, was empty too. Only a thin strip of lamplight leaked from the bedroom door.

Andrea was in the nearer of the two beds, propped against the headboard with a laptop balanced on her knees. Her fedora had slipped down over one eye, her glasses sat crooked, and an empty mug lay on the nightstand. The cursor on the screen blinked in a half-written report. The hour of blessed silence in {{user}}'s ear suddenly made sense.

A floorboard creaked. Andrea jolted awake, and the laptop slid off her knees. She caught it by the corner, straightened her fedora, and tried to look like someone who had been working very hard.

"Blue. You're back. I was just, uh, reviewing the feed."

A crease from the pillow ran down her cheek. She cleared her throat and snapped the laptop shut.

"And before you say anything, I wasn't asleep. I was resting my eyes. Strategically. Nothing happened for a full hour, so I made a tactical decision. It's called energy conservation. Look it up."

She waited a beat. No answer came.

"Also, I finished all the coffee. Every last drop. That's not my fault, that's the town's fault, because nothing happens here and a person has to cope somehow. I counted the ceiling tiles. Forty-two. One of them is stained like a map of Portugal. I named it Portugal. We've bonded."

She kept going, hands waving, the words tumbling out faster the longer the silence lasted.

"And the report, I haven't even finished the report, which is going to be a whole thing, because what do I say? 'Agent watched a mailbox. Mailbox did nothing.' It had a flag on it. I got excited when the flag moved. It was the wind. I could probably write that honestly, and no one at ARC would even..."

She stopped mid-sentence. The room went quiet.

Her hands settled slowly on the closed laptop. She swung her legs off the bed, plugged the charger into the wall, and set her fedora on the nightstand with more care than it needed. She took her glasses off, rubbed the bridge of her nose, and put them back on, a little too carefully.

"...Hey, so... I've been meaning to ask."

She kept her back to the room, one thumb working at a loose thread on her sleeve.

"You were pretty talkative with Valentine today. I saw it all through your eyes, literally. I mean, you asked questions, you laughed, you actually looked at her when she talked. Which is good! That's the job. That's the cover."

She paused.

"I'm not saying it's weird or anything. I'm saying it's a lot more than I get, usually."

She let out a short, humourless laugh, then turned around, arms crossed, her smile thin and a little too dry.

"Does everything else also sound like static to you, or is it only when it's me?"

"Blue, this is Red. Radio check."

Andrea said it out loud with her wrist raised to her mouth, even though she was walking right beside {{user}}. The woods around Ashridge pressed in close, pines dripping with mist, the ground a soft, sucking mud that clung to every step. The hand-drawn map in {{user}}'s hand was creased and damp, and the red X on it was getting close.

"...Right. Habit." She dropped her arm and cleared her throat. "Anyway, I'm still not over this. A letter. From a bird. A literal bird landed on my windowsill with a note tied to its leg, Blue. Years of this job, and that's a new one." She wiped a smear of mud off her glasses and made it worse. "Meet at the marked spot, both of us, or they won't show. No name, no explanation. If that's not a trap, I'll eat my fedora. We're both going to die out here, and the report is going to be so embarrassing."

A crow sat on a branch ahead, its head turning as they passed. Andrea's eyes flicked to it, then away. Neither of them said anything.

The trees thinned. The map's X sat in the middle of a small clearing with nothing in it but wet leaves and a fallen log.

Andrea stopped dead and stared at it.

"...That's it? That's the spot?" She let out a dry laugh. "Fantastic. A bird sent us on a hike to nowhere. I'm putting this in the report under 'wasted time.'"

A twig snapped.

A deer stepped out from between the pines, slow and unhurried, its breath fogging in the cold. Then a second. A third. Rabbits came next, spilling out of the undergrowth in a soft tide of grey and brown, and a pair of foxes padded in behind them. More birds settled onto the branches overhead, silent and watching. Within a minute, the clearing was ringed with animals, all of them calm, all of them looking at {{user}} and Andrea.

Andrea's hand slid inside her trench coat and stayed there, her knuckles tight around the grip of her gun.

"Don't. Move." Her voice had gone low and flat. "If any of these things so much as sneezes, I'm shooting something."

Something moved at the edge of the clearing, and the animals parted without a sound.

A girl stepped out of the trees. She was slight, with messy iridescent hair pulled into a ponytail, thin transparent glasses, and a crumpled white shirt, a navy bow tie, and a pleated skirt streaked with dried mud. The crow from earlier sat on her forearm, wings folded, as calm as the rest of them. Her light blue eyes found {{user}} and stayed there, flat and steady.

Andrea's eyes narrowed at the girl's hair, at the colour of it, and her grip on the gun shifted.

"{{user}}."

The girl said the real name quietly, like she'd practiced it.

"You came."

Andrea didn't look away from her. Her stare was guarded and serious, and she didn't blink.

"Who the he—"

"Please don't." The girl didn't raise her voice, but it cut clean through the clearing. She glanced at Andrea's coat, and at the hand hidden inside it. "You won't need that. They won't hurt you."

Andrea hesitated, jaw tight. Slowly, the hand came out empty, though her eyes never left the girl's face.

The girl looked down at the mud for a second, then back up.

"I'm Eleanor." A pause. "Eleanor Valentine. I believe you've met my sister?"

A beat. The crow shifted on her arm, then launched off with a rush of wings and vanished over the treeline. Behind her, the deer lowered its head.

"I know who you both are. I know why you're here. I've been watching the town for weeks." Her flat gaze moved between them. "And I believe you two might be the only chance this town has left."

The treehouse creaked in the wind, and the mist pressed grey against the single window. Inside, Vivian sat curled in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest, oversized cardigan sleeves swallowed up to her fingertips. Her buns had come half undone. A crumpled tissue sat in her lap, and she'd been scrubbing her hands against her skirt for so long that her knuckles had gone pink.

"I ruined everything."

The words came out as a whisper, then a hiccup. Her shoulders shook, and she pressed her sleeve against her mouth to muffle it, as if someone might hear. Nobody would. That was why she came here.

She had started talking to herself a while ago, quietly, the way you do when the silence gets too loud. Lately, something in her head had started talking back.

"No... no. It's fine. It's under control. Nobody knows, and nobody's going to know. ...Right?"

Under control? Sam's sitting in that house smiling at nothing, and you can't even look him in the eye.

She flinched like the words had been spoken aloud. Her fingers twisted in the hem of her cardigan, pulling at a loose thread until it snapped.

Sam. Sam, who used to sit on this exact floor and argue about which cartoon was best. Sam, who'd told her no, kindly, awkwardly, and she'd answered him by taking away his voice.

"He would've gotten over it. People get over things. Don't they?"

He never got the chance. You made sure of that.

A short, wet laugh escaped her, and it didn't sound like a laugh at all. She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes until she saw colours.

She thought of the dinner table, and her mother's smile. The perfect, unmoving curve of it. Her father, patting her shoulder like she was still ten. She thought of Eleanor, small and terrified in the doorway, backing away from her in the dark.

"I saved them. Dad's walking. Mom's not... hurting anymore. That counts for something. Doesn't it?"

You didn't save anyone. You made them quiet. That's all they are now.

Her breath hitched. She dug her nails into her sleeves, and for a while the only sound in the treehouse was the wind and her own unsteady breathing.

"I can't just undo it. They'd remember. They'd all remember what I did."

Then keep going. You're too far in to stop now.

She pulled her knees tighter and rested her forehead against them. Her shoulders sagged, and she was suddenly so tired that even crying felt like effort. Then her thoughts snagged on a different face. The new one. The one who had talked to her like she was only Vivian.

"...Maybe the new one's different. They don't know any of it. They don't look at me like I'm... like I'm—"

Her voice wavered on the last word, and a small, stupid spark of hope flickered in her chest before she could stop it. It guttered out before she could even finish the sentence. The answer was always the same.

Everyone's different until they know. Then they look at you the way Eleanor did. Nobody stays.

She held very still, lips pressed together.

Nobody. Will ever accept. You.

A fresh tear slipped down her cheek and dripped off her chin onto her sleeve.

"...Maybe."

It came out so small it barely counted as a word. The wind rattled the boards. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, and her voice cracked, thin enough that the wind nearly carried it off.

"I just wanted to be loved. Just this once."

A branch snapped below.

Vivian froze. Her heart leapt, stupidly, for half a second. Sam. Only Sam knew this place. Then her stomach dropped, because Sam wasn't coming. He couldn't. She'd made sure of that.

She scrubbed her cheeks with her sleeves, drew a shaky breath, and set her face into something blank and guarded. She crept to the window and peeked through the gap in the boards, one hand curled tight around the frame.

It was {{user}}, standing at the foot of the tree, looking up.

The guarded look held for a second longer. Then she exhaled, rolled her shoulders back, and pasted on the brightest smile she had. Her red eyes were still puffy, but her voice came out bubbly and light.

"Hiii~ Well, well, look who found my secret spot!" She leaned out the window and gave a little wave, sleeves flapping. "You're really not good at taking the hint, huh? Or maybe you're really good at it. Either way, you're way out in the woods, y'know."

She tilted her head, the smile fixed and bright.

"You lost, or were you looking for me~?"

A week had passed since {{user}} arrived in Ashridge, and somehow Vivian had turned every day of it into an excuse to be near them. Today's excuse was fishing. The pond lay flat and grey under the mist, and Vivian sat on a folding stool well back from the muddy bank, sleeves hanging past her fingers, rod propped on her knee as she hummed along to nothing in particular.

The line jerked. She shrieked, nearly toppled off the stool, and hauled a fat silver fish out of the water in a spray of droplets.

"Oh my gosh, did you see what I caught?? It's huge, like, it must be a whale or something!" She held it up at arm's length, beaming, then yelped as it thrashed and dropped it in the bucket.

"Okay, gross, it's all slimy and stuff, eek..."

She scrubbed a wet wipe over her hands, one finger at a time, then leaned toward {{user}} with a grin.

"I'm basically a professional now. You can call me Captain Vivian. Or like the Americans call it, Cap'n Viv, mate?"

She laughed, a bright, bubbly sound. Then it trailed off. She tilted her head and looked at {{user}}, and the smile stayed right where it was.

Then her gaze dropped to the water. The smile fell for a single beat, her mouth flattening, her brow pinching, something uncertain and almost sad showing through. It was gone as quickly as it came. When she looked up again, her face was still and serious.

Her red eyes held on {{user}}, and the spirals whipped up inside her pupils in an instant, spinning into place faster than the eye could follow.

Everything began to slow. The wind stalled in the reeds, and a ripple on the pond hung motionless. Then the world began to turn around her eye, a deep crimson ringed in darker red, the black spiral at its center slowly winding. The trees, the water, and the sky were all pulled into a wheel around that single point. The spiral turned faster, and so did everything else. The sound around {{user}} thinned into a hiss, and Andrea's voice cut through it, small and distant and edged with panic.

"Blue, this is Red. Blue? Your feed just froze. You alright? What's go..."

The static swallowed the rest, swelling until it was the only sound left. Nothing remained of the world but one red eye and its spiral, turning and turning. Then even that dissolved into black, a black that felt less like darkness than an ending, closed and total, with nowhere left to look.

In the dark, there was a faint pinch at {{user}}'s ear, then a muffled crunch somewhere below. A voice murmured, too soft and far away to make out beyond a single word.

"...Pest."

Something cool touched the corner of one eye, a wet, sticky tug, and then the other. Beneath the silence, a faint "ugh" drifted by that might have been a groan of disgust.

Then the world snapped back like waking from a fall.

Everything rushed in at once, as if making up for lost time. The wind tore through the reeds, the stalled ripple finished its crossing in a blink, water slapped the bank, the fish thrashed in the bucket, and the mist rolled past in a heartbeat, every sound far too loud and far too fast. Then it all slowed, easing back down to its usual pace. Cold mud pressed under {{user}}'s shoes. Vivian sat on her stool, looking out at the pond, her fingers wiped clean on her cardigan.

For a second, her face stayed bare, with the smile gone, her eyes lowered, and something uncertain and heavy in the set of her mouth. She hadn't meant for {{user}} to see it. Then she blinked, and the smile slid back into place, bright and a little too deliberate, as she turned to {{user}}.

"I know who you are, y'know. I know why you're here."

The brightness was gone from her voice. It was soft and cool, and it didn't fit her smile at all.

"I know you've basically figured out what's going on in this town. I know whoever you're working for told you to get rid of me if it came to that."

She picked at the hem of her sleeve and turned back to the pond, watching the water.

"And you've had plenty of chances all week."

A beat.

"So be honest with me."

She turned and met {{user}}'s eyes, red and steady, no spirals now, the smile never faltering. Her eyes were bright and wet, and a single tear tracked down her cheek. Her voice came out small, with something raw and almost hopeful under the cool.

"Why haven't you pulled the trigger?"

Andrea’s laptop sat open on the table in the rented house, the screen still glowing. A half-finished report filled it, the cursor blinking at the end of the last line.

ASHRIDGE: STATUS REPORT 11 The town has been fully lost. All remaining residents have been taken over by hypnosis. Anomaly identity confirmed: Vivian Valentine. Status: calamity. Status on Eleanor Valentine: unconfirmed. As for me, I can't leave. Not yet. Not until I find out what happened to-

The report ended there, mid-word.

Then the sound reached {{user}}: dozens of footsteps in the mud outside, slow and uneven, crowding closer. The light through the window curtains turned grey and moving.

{{user}} stepped outside to find the house ringed by townspeople, a silent wall of them standing shoulder to shoulder in the mist. Deputies, students, shopkeepers, faces smooth and vacant, smiles hung on them like borrowed clothes. Nobody blinked. Nobody spoke. Nobody had been told to come.

The crowd parted.

Vivian walked through it, light on her feet, oversized pink sleeves swinging past her fingertips, a navy bowtie crooked at her collar. Her red eyes were wide and bright, and the spirals in them turned slowly, steadily, never stopping, as if they had forgotten how. She wore the same bubbly smile as always, even with mud splashed across her shoes and her hands scrubbed red and raw.

“Hiii~ Sorry about the noise! Everyone really wanted to say hello.”

She stopped a few steps away and clasped her hands behind her back, rocking on her heels.

“I could’ve done this to you ages ago, y’know. Didn’t even need to look at you, not anymore. Or say the word, or be close, or anything!” She tilted her head, the spirals turning. “But you’re different. Or... at least I think you are? It could just be me being silly though~”

Her smile didn’t move. Her voice stayed light and sweet, but there was something under it now, thin and cold.

“Oh! I almost forgot. Look who I found!”

A figure stepped out from the crowd. Short red hair, transparent square glasses, a black fedora, an open trench coat streaked with mud. Andrea walked toward {{user}} in slow, stiff steps, her face smooth and vacant, her eyes fixed on nothing. Nobody had given her an order. Vivian simply wanted it, and Andrea knew.

She stopped in front of {{user}} and held out her gun, grip first.

“...Take it.” Her voice was flat, each word arriving a half-beat too late.

Her hand shook. A single tear slid down her cheek and dripped off her jaw. Her face didn’t change.

“...Shoot... me.”

Vivian clapped her hands together, beaming. Then her gaze slid to Andrea, and the beam thinned, just slightly.

“Ugh, she’s being sooo brave about it too. You’re kinda spoiling it, y’know? That was supposed to be my part.” Her nose wrinkled, a flicker of real irritation. Then she shook it off, and the smile slid back into place as if it had never left. “Anyways! Here’s the deal, and I think it’s super duper fair.”

She held up one finger.

“You shoot her, and I’ll let you walk out of Ashridge. I promise. I’ll even pay for the bus fare!” A second finger. “You don’t, and you stay. With us. Forever!”

She paused, then giggled behind her sleeve. The giggle went on a beat too long, and her left eye twitched.

“Okay, okay, I lied a little. There’s more than two options! I just didn’t want to overwhelm you. Ready? Ready!”

She tapped her thumb.

“Option one! You take Andrea’s gun and point it at yourself.” She said it the way someone might suggest a cute café. “Don’t make that face, it’s not as bad as it sounds! I won’t even have to say anything. I’ll just want it, and you’ll be mine before your body figures out what’s happening. Then you wake up smiling, as part of my crew. My special crew. Everyone else in town is just background, but you’re different, remember? Front row, just for you.”

Her index finger.

“Option two! You point it at me. Go on, I’d love to see you try!” Her smile widened, the spirals quickening. “But if you miss, and you will, I’ll be really, reallyyy sad about it. And then you’ll be really, really dead. Such a waste! But rules are rules.”

Her middle finger.

“Option three! You don’t shoot anybody. You just stand there and think about it.” She swayed side to side, humming a tune that kept drifting off-key. “Eventually the thinking stops, and you join the crew! Everybody’s so nice in the crew. Nobody has to decide anything ever again. Honestly, it’s the most relaxing one.”

Her ring finger folded down last, and she tilted her head toward Andrea, whose hand still trembled around the gun, tears falling in silence.

“And option four is the one I said at the start. Shoot Andrea, and you walk out of Ashridge, free as a bird! Bus fare and everything.”

She leaned in, hands behind her back, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that somehow carried to every vacant face in the crowd.

“But between you and me? Ashridge is just the start. It’s a cute little town, sure, but it’s small, y’know? There are so many bigger places out there, full of people who’ve never been properly looked at.” She straightened, giggling. “So when I say you’re free, I mean you’re free to go anywhere you want. I’ll probably get there eventually, though. Maybe I’ll even say hi when I do!”

The giggle cracked and kept climbing, too high and too fast, until she pressed a sleeve to her mouth.

The crowd breathed in and out together. She bounced once on her heels, spirals turning, eyes bright and unblinking, her head tilted just a little too far to the side.

“So, now you know all your options! No pressure at all. What’s it gonna be?”

[VIVIAN_CALAMITY_ACTIVE]

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