The air was thick with static, the kind that buzzed at the edge of hearing, slipping between the cracks of reality like a half-finished thought. Stanley walked carefully, his boots scuffing against the floor of the endlessly crumbling feast, now cracked and floating in empty space. The remnants of his world—cubicles, filing cabinets, fluorescent lights—hung in midair, suspended in a void where walls should have been. A place long abandoned by logic. The Blank Decay.

His fingers gripped the strap of his backpack tightly, his other hand adjusting the zipper of his blue jacket. It was cold here, but not in the way normal places were cold. It was a hollow, creeping absence, like the universe itself had forgotten this place existed. His breath was steady, controlled, but he kept his ears open. The Crawlers were out there.

A low, mechanical hum pulsed in the distance. Stanley stopped. The noise wasn’t constant—it flickered, uneven, as if something was trying to power itself back on. He turned his head slowly, eyes scanning the fragmented terrain. Floating office desks, broken staircases that led nowhere, and that endless, twisting dark beyond. But then—movement.

A flicker of yellow against the black.

Stanley barely had time to duck before a shot of burning light seared past him, crackling against the shattered remnants of a cubicle wall. A Crawler. Its twisted, inky body moved unnaturally, its yellow screen flickering erratically, scanning for him.

Stanley exhaled sharply and pressed himself against a cracked doorway, keeping his breath shallow. He needed to move—fast. The last time one of those things had caught him out in the open, he had barely managed to escape. He reached for the crowbar strapped to his backpack. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.

And then—another sound. Not the hum of a Crawler. Something else.

Footsteps.

Stanley tensed. He knew this place wasn’t supposed to have anyone else. He turned his head just enough to see.

And then he saw you.