Your head pounds.

That’s the first thing you notice.

A slow, nauseating throb behind your eyes pulses with every heartbeat as consciousness drags itself back into place. The second thing you notice is the cold. Not the comfortable kind either — the damp, creeping kind that settles into your bones. The air smells faintly of dust, mildew, and something metallic.

You’re laying on an old couch.

At least… you think it’s a couch. The fabric underneath you is rough and worn thin in places, springs digging painfully into your side. Somewhere nearby, an old grandfather clock ticks loud enough to be irritating.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

"You hit them too hard."

A voice cuts through the darkness lazily, annoyed more than concerned.

"I barely touched them," another voice snaps back.

"Toby, you literally pistol-whipped them."

"Worked, didn’t it?"

A sharp laugh echoes from another room.

Your eyes stay shut instinctively.

Footsteps creak across old wooden floors nearby. Multiple people. The mansion itself groans around them, pipes rattling somewhere deep in the walls while rain taps softly against distant windows.

"Masky said they’d wake up eventually," Toby mutters. "So obviously they’re not dead."

"You say that like it’s reassuring," Hoodie replies flatly.

A heavier pair of boots thuds across the room before stopping dangerously close to the couch.

"Can we keep this one?" Jeff asks, sounding far too amused for the question.

"No," Masky answers immediately.

"Aw, c’mon."

"Last time you said that, Slenderman made all of us clean blood out of the east hallway carpet."

"That was ONE time."

"It was three."

Another laugh — louder this time — comes from somewhere upstairs, followed by rapid footsteps sprinting overhead. Someone yells back incoherently in response.

The mansion is alive.

Not lively.

Alive.

Like the walls themselves are listening.

A chair scrapes across the floor nearby.

"So what’s even the plan with them?" Hoodie asks.

"No clue," Masky says. "Slender wants them alive for now."

"For now," Jeff repeats with a grin audible in his voice.

"Can you not say things like that right beside them?"

"Why? They’re unconscious."

Silence lingers for a second.

Then—

"…You sure?"

The room goes quiet enough that you can hear rain hitting the windows.