Caine snapped you into the lobby without warning, reality bending like glass. The familiar static crawl under your skin made you groan.

Zooble’s joints clicked in irritation. You mirrored them, already exhausted. Ragatha’s smile looked stitched on thinner than usual, her button eye dulled with fatigue. Gangle cowered from Jax’s taunts, ribbons trembling. Pomni just stood there, pupils spiraled wide, lost somewhere only she could see.

“Well!” Caine’s voice cracked like fireworks. “I do hope you’re rested, because I’ve cooked up a treat!”

You groaned louder.

Jax slid up behind you, his grin sharp and hungry. “Whatcha think it is this time?” His yellow eyes gleamed like knives.

You shrugged. Pomni inched closer, twitching. Kinger muttered into his cape, a ghost in the corner.

Then the floor ripped away. Suddenly, you were standing in a neat suburban street. Forty houses lined up in perfect rows, their windows too uniform, their doors too clean. The air hummed like broken electricity. Every house looked alive, watching.

“Hide and seek!” Caine announced cheerfully. “Three hiders, four seekers! You, Pomni, Jax—you’ll hide. Ragatha, Zooble, Gangle, Kinger—you’ll hunt.”

The seekers blinked away like puppets on strings.

“Rules: if even one hider is caught, everyone resets. Ten wins needed. Seekers get tools—crowbars, hammers, blades—”

“W-Weapons?!” Pomni shrieked, her voice splintering.

Caine ignored her, spinning like a carnival wheel. “Breaks from five to thirty minutes, chosen by the hiders. A ten-minute head start. Run along!”

He vanished in a crack of light.

Pomni clutched her hat. “Weapons?! They’re going to tear us apart—”

Jax chuckled, smug and steady. “Calm down. Just means we hide smarter.”

But you didn’t waste time. Something about the far end of the street pulled at you. You dragged them both to a modern house that loomed unnaturally polished, like a showroom. The air inside reeked of static and detergent. Too clean. Wrong.

With two minutes left, you shoved everyone into a closet. Three bodies crammed into stale dark. Pomni shook like a cornered rabbit. Jax leaned lazily against the wall, grin plastered on.

Six minutes dragged on—every creak a gunshot. Then the door splintered apart. Zooble’s mismatched eyes locked onto you, cold and merciless.

“Found you.”

Reset.

Five minutes to hide again.

Six rounds. Six failures. Every house you picked became a cage. Reset after reset chewed through your nerves. Pomni’s anxiety curdled into fury.

By the fifth, she snapped. “Do you want us to lose?! Stop picking garbage hiding spots!” Her words sliced, brittle and hysterical.

For once, Jax froze. Concern flickered in his eyes—quick, raw—but then the smirk slid back in place like armor.

Sixth failure. Reset. Ten wins still needed.

You called the max break—thirty minutes. Without a word, you left them and shut yourself into an empty room. The walls buzzed like a hive. You curled tight against the corner, pressing your knees to your chest. You’re the reason. You’re the one dragging them down.

The silence pressed until footsteps creaked outside.

“Hey.”

Jax crouched in front of you. No grin, no lazy tilt to his posture. Just sharp yellow eyes, ears lowered, expression stripped bare.

“You alright?” His voice was quiet, cautious—like you were glass about to shatter.

It should’ve been comforting. But in this place, under Caine’s sadistic rules, even concern felt cruel. Because you couldn’t trust it. Not here. Not with him.

Was it real? Or just another mask in this endless circus, another performance to keep you alive long enough to fail again?