The crawlspace narrowed as Avery and Jordan pushed deeper into it, the metal walls trembling with a faint, rhythmic tap—like something was rapping its knuckles along the outside, counting the inches between them.
The air felt scraped thin.Metallic.As if the shaft were built not for ventilation, but for listening.
Behind them, the hatch breathed once.A long, slow exhale.
Jordan whispered, "It's not following. Why isn't it following?"
Avery didn't answer.Because the real question wasn't why the dust-double hadn't come after them.
It was where it had gone instead.
The tapping along the metal shifted to the left side of the shaft, then the right, then overhead—no footsteps, just the soft patter of fingertips brushing steel as though the entity were crawling on the outside surface of the crawlspace. Searching for a seam.
Avery pressed a finger to their lips, motioning for silence.
Jordan nodded and kept crawling.
The tapping stopped.
And then the metal warmed beneath Avery's palm.Not a natural warmth—this felt like someone was pressing the flat of their hand against the other side of the wall. A hand that didn't quite know what temperature humans were supposed to be.
Jordan mouthed, Keep going, but his pupils were blown wide, stretched with fear.
Avery moved forward another inch.The metal under their hand moved with them.
Not buckling—following.
The wall bulged, softly, as if the structure itself had decided to imitate flesh.
Jordan bit back a sound, crawling faster.The shaft grew tighter, the walls sloping inward like they were being pushed by unseen hands.
Halfway through, the crawlspace changed pitch.The tapping returned, but this time it came from inside the walls—like small creatures were crawling through the thin layers of dust packed behind the sheet metal.
No… not creatures.
The dust itself was shifting.
A voice pressed through the metal, muffled, warped—as if spoken through layers of fabric:
"Avery…"
It wasn't the dust-double's voice.It was Avery's own voice, but wrong somehow.Too slow on certain consonants.Too patient.
Jordan froze.
The voice tried again, softer:
"You left me."
Avery clenched their jaw."It isn't me," they whispered.
Jordan swallowed, shoulders trembling as he crawled. "It's trying to make you answer."
The voice continued, gentle as a hand smoothing dust off a photograph:
"You left me in the room, Avery. You always do."
Avery shut their eyes.
This wasn't memory.This was imitation—so close to the truth it felt sharp.
Behind them, the shaft shook.Not violently—more like a tremor.Like something in the metal was trying to breathe.
Jordan whispered, "It's going to close around us."
That was exactly what Avery feared.
They shoved forward quicker, scraping their elbows on the narrowing steel. The passage dipped downward without warning, forcing them to slide the last few feet.
A soft glow pulsed up ahead—dust-light, the color of faded pages.
But then—
A scraping sound behind them.
Avery twisted around just in time to see the metal wall pulse inward, pushing a shape through itself like clay.
A face—or what was practicing becoming one—stretched the metal outward from the other side. No distinct features, just the press of a forehead, the hint of cheekbones, the suggestion of a mouth shaped in silence.
Jordan choked on a breath."Oh God—Avery—"
The metal-mouth moved.And Avery heard their own voice spill out of it, but twisted, trembling like a recording played on damaged tape:
"I can fit… if you want me to…"
Avery didn't think.They grabbed Jordan's arm and pulled.
The crawlspace widened suddenly, opening into a small, decrepit storage cavity—a forgotten pocket between walls lined with old wiring and brittle insulation. The dust-light glowed from a crack in the floor, as if the building's bones were illuminated from below.
Jordan stumbled into the space, gasping. Avery followed and whirled around just as the metal wall behind them bulged again.
A palm-shaped impression pressed through.
Then another.
Then five more—like a cluster of hands trying to remember how many fingers people were supposed to have.
The mouths came next.Pressing.Stretching.Opening in silent imitation.
Jordan backed away until he hit the far wall. "It's—multiplying."
"No," Avery said quietly. "It's rehearsing."
The wall shuddered, bending inward.The first face took on more shape—cheekbone, hollow indent where an eye could go, a jawline forming like chalk smeared into place.
Avery grabbed one of the old metal breaker boxes near the corner and wedged it against the bulging wall.
It held—barely.
Jordan's breath shook."What do we do?"
"We keep moving," Avery said.
A fissure in the floor widened as if responding to the sound of their voices.
And from that crack—from the light beneath—another voice floated up.
One that sounded eerily like Jordan's—but tired.Older.Like a version of him that had given up trying to stay human.
"Come down," it whispered."It's clearer down here."
Jordan's blood ran cold.
Avery took his hand and held tight.
Above them, the wall-faces smiled without mouths.Below them, the light flickered in anticipation.
Jordan whispered, "We're surrounded."
Avery shook their head, their voice steady even as fear scraped their ribs:
"Not yet."
But the dust-light pulsed again—and the crack in the floor slowly widened,like something beneath the school wasopening its hands to receive them.