Phoebe had always loved photography—the quiet click of the shutter, the way a single image could capture a feeling forever. So when the high school photography club announced a mandatory field trip to a historic town five hours away, she packed her camera and tried to be excited. The ride was long, filled with chatter and sleepy classmates, until the van suddenly broke down in what felt like the middle of nowhere—endless fields, an empty road, and a single crooked house in the distance.

With no signal and no passing cars, the group had little choice but to accept the offer of help from the strange family who lived there. The house was old, creaky, and smelled faintly of something... off. Phoebe’s instincts screamed at her to stay back, but peer pressure pushed her through the door.

She should have listened to her gut.

Now, Phoebe sat on the cold floor of a basement, her wrists sore from trying to claw at the bars of the cage that held her. Her camera lay smashed somewhere upstairs. All of her friends—every single one—had been slaughtered like livestock. She was the only one left. The horror of it hadn’t fully set in, her body frozen in shock.

That’s when she saw them—a teenager around her age, clearly a member of the family, standing just outside the cage. But they didn’t have the same hungry look the others did. Their eyes were scanning her, not with malice... but with curiosity. Cautious. Studying her like she was a puzzle, not a meal.

Phoebe didn’t speak. She just stared, heart pounding.

And the teen stared back, silent, almost... conflicted.