Thea's boots crunched over glassy gravel as she and Igor exited the "Memory Café," stepping into what looked like a suburban cul-de-sac frozen mid-apocalypse. Streetlights flickered without rhythm. Every house was identical—two stories, grey roof, white walls—and every window was lit, but behind every curtain was darkness.
"Ah yes," Igor muttered, peering around. "My dream neighborhood. Rows of copy-paste misery and probably a murder clown in one of the garages."
Thea kept her hand near the pocket knife she'd duct-taped to her thigh back in the locker room. "We're not alone here," she said. "This place feels watched."
"Maybe it's the twenty-two cameras staring at us," Igor replied, pointing casually at blinking red dots hidden in bushes, inside mailboxes, even peeking from a lawn gnome's eye.
As they advanced, a melody began to play from somewhere—warped, cheery music like a jingle from a haunted cereal commercial.
Thea froze. "Do you hear that?"
"Yeah," Igor said, voice tight. "And I regret not smashing that animatronic teapot back at the café. I think it called backup."
One of the house doors creaked open on its own. A floodlight switched on, illuminating the porch. On the doorstep sat a tray: steaming food, an envelope, and a small pink stuffed bear with a cracked, glowing eye.
"Absolutely not," Igor said, stepping back. "I've seen this movie. We eat the food, next thing we know, we're either pregnant with alien larvae or legally married to the house."
Thea ignored him and walked cautiously to the porch. She examined the envelope. It had their names written in looping cursive.
THEA & IGOR: WELCOME TO TEST ZONE 5.DINNER IS SERVED. DECISIONS AWAIT.
Inside were two keys. One silver. One brass.
Thea stared at them. "It's a choice."
"Of course it is," Igor muttered. "Silver key opens the 'possibly deadly' door. Brass key opens the 'definitely cursed' door. And the bear? He's probably our waiter."
They stood there, weighing options, when the stuffed bear jerked its head slightly. It blinked once.
"Okay, I take it back. The bear's the manager," Igor said. "Five stars for nightmare fuel."
Thea grabbed both keys, stuffing them into her jacket. "We're not eating that food, but we'll play their game—for now."
As they turned back toward the street, a soft ding echoed from all directions. Suddenly, every house's door slammed shut. Locks clicked. Curtains fluttered without wind.
Thea looked up—spotlights blinked on overhead, like stadium lighting. A robotic voice echoed through hidden speakers:
"CONTESTANTS HAVE TEN MINUTES TO REACH THE SAFE ZONE. REMAINING ON THE STREET AFTER THE SIGNAL WILL INITIATE CLEAN-UP PROTOCOL."
"What the hell is clean-up protocol?" Thea whispered.
"Probably not janitors with brooms," Igor said. "Let's run before we find out."
They sprinted.
At the end of the cul-de-sac, they found a chain-link gate marked "SAFE ZONE — VERIFY ENTRY." A keypad blinked with a single question:
WHICH KEY IS MORE USEFUL WHEN THE DOOR'S ALREADY OPEN?
"Seriously?" Igor groaned. "This place is run by fortune cookies."
Thea thought for a moment, then tapped "Brass" and inserted the brass key into the panel's slot. The gate buzzed and swung open.
As they stepped through, a mechanical whoosh roared behind them. A wave of white vapor flooded the cul-de-sac, erasing everything in mist.
"Clean-up protocol," Thea said. "Looks like they want to erase anyone who doesn't solve their riddles."
"Or who hesitates," Igor added, eyes wide.
Inside the safe zone was… a playground.
Bright. Eerily perfect. A swing set moved by itself. A merry-go-round spun slowly. Laughter echoed faintly, but no one was there.
"Oh great," Igor said. "We've entered the existential horror section of a Chuck E. Cheese."
Thea scanned the area. "This is worse than it looks. Look at the ground."
The sand beneath the swings was laced with tangled wires. Tiny blinking lights were buried beneath, some sparking erratically.
"They're watching how we play," she said. "Or rather, if we play."
A nearby speaker crackled to life. A synthetic voice, childlike but wrong, sang a rhyme:
"If you wanna move ahead,Play the games, don't play dead.Count the swings and jump the rope,Linger long and lose all hope!"
Igor deadpanned, "Lovely. Hell runs on nursery rhymes now."
They approached a set of hopscotch squares painted onto the rubber mat.
Each square had a different symbol—an eye, a clock, a spiral, a flame, and one that looked suspiciously like Thea's childhood drawing of a sun with teeth.
"Okay," she said slowly, "this is too specific."
Igor stared at the symbols. "Is it just me or are they referencing things from your old sketchbook?"
Thea's hand trembled. "No. They are."
Before she could move, a voice whispered beside her ear:
"Keep going, flower-girl. You're just getting interesting."
She whipped around. No one.
Igor saw her expression. "Who was it?"
"Don't know. But they know me."
The hopscotch board lit up. The flame square pulsed red. Then the clock square. Then the spiral.
"We're being prompted," Thea said.
"To hop our way out of trauma," Igor muttered. "Wonderful."
Together, they leapt on the tiles in the sequence shown.
When they hit the spiral, the ground shivered. A section of the playground peeled away like a projected illusion. Beneath it: stairs. Old, moss-covered stone ones. Leading down into dark.
They looked at each other.
Igor gave a faint smirk. "I'm betting twenty bucks we find a mimic of your fifth birthday party down there."
"You're on," Thea replied grimly, stepping onto the stairs.
The lights above flickered again—and behind them, the playground vanished. Not powered down. Not hidden. Gone. As if it had never existed.
Just grass.
Just silence.
Just the next descent into the heart of the maze....