There was no fall.
Just a shift — like blinking mid-step and opening your eyes in a different room.
One second, Thea and Igor stood inside the Watchtower, walls crumbling. The next, they were upright, breath steady, standing in the middle of a wide suburban street under a burnt-orange sky.
But it wasn't the sky that made Thea's stomach tighten.
It was the houses.
Identical two-story homes, white fences, hedges trimmed too perfectly. Street signs with no names. Driveways with no cars. Every window dark. Every door shut.
It was their childhood neighborhood.
But wrong.
"This isn't real," Igor said, rubbing his temple. "None of this can be here. Our town didn't have a—wait."
He pointed.
The corner house had an old, half-broken swing set. One of the seats hung lopsided — the result of an epic Thea-and-Igor "engineering" mishap when they were twelve.
She stepped toward it, then stopped.
"Igor," she said slowly, "that is our swing set."
The wind picked up.
Leaves rustled, but none fell. The trees were too still. The air smelled like lilacs and dust. There were no bugs, no birds — just the subtle buzz of something watching.
"Look at this," Thea said, pointing to the cracked sidewalk. A single chalk drawing still lingered faintly. A smiling sun with crooked sunglasses.
"I drew that," she whispered. "When I was nine."
Igor stepped beside her. "So… they scanned our memories?"
"No. This is deeper. They didn't just pull images — they recreated emotion. I feel nine again, standing here."
"And what do you feel now?"
She hesitated. "Like something's coming. Something that knows me better than I know myself."
Right on cue, the loudspeakers crackled overhead — though there were no visible speakers.
"Welcome to Level Seven: The Maze That Remembers."
"In this final phase, you will navigate memory-constructed environments tailored to your emotional imprint. Beware: trauma creates doors. Regret opens traps."
"There is only one rule: Do not follow the children."
Igor's brow furrowed. "What does that even mean?"
Thea didn't answer.
Because she had just seen something.
A flash of white — behind the hedges of their old neighbor's house. Small. Darting.
A child?
No.
Herself.
Younger. Maybe eight. In a flower-patterned hoodie she remembered owning, crouched low behind the bush.
Then she vanished.
Thea's heart thudded hard.
"Igor," she said, grabbing his arm, "I just saw me. A kid version."
He didn't even blink. "I just saw you, too. But she was inside my house."
They turned slowly.
The houses were different now.
Subtly warped — the windows too narrow, the roofs higher than they should be. One house had a second story that shouldn't exist. Another had a door in the center of the garage.
"What is this place doing?" Igor muttered.
"Testing association. Nostalgia. Fear. They're using memory like bait."
She reached into her jacket, fingers closing around a penlight. Not a weapon — but solid in her hand.
A reminder she wasn't eight anymore.
They moved together.
Each step forward seemed to pull them deeper — like the street was stretching, recalibrating. Even the houses changed behind them, morphing slightly when they weren't looking.
A sharp ding! echoed.
They turned toward a house on the left — Thea's old childhood home.
The door opened by itself.
Lights flickered on inside.
And there, at the threshold, stood another Thea.
Only this one was wrong.
Her hair too perfect. Her smile too wide. Her eyes… glassy.
She waved.
"Welcome home."
Then shut the door.
Igor grabbed Thea's sleeve. "Tell me that wasn't—"
"I think that was me," Thea said. "But edited. Like a version they think I should've been."
"So what's the game? Confront your past? Avoid it?"
Thea looked back at the chalk sun on the sidewalk.
Then forward again.
"I think the maze adapts to our decisions. The more we resist, the more it rewrites."
A soft giggle echoed.
They both spun.
A child stood at the corner — dressed in outdated clothes, skin pale, face shadowed.
Then it turned and ran.
Down a side street.
A new path.
Igor's instincts kicked in. "Wait, no—don't follow—"
But it was too late.
Another child appeared across the street.
Then another behind them.
They were surrounded.
None of the children spoke.
They just stared.
And then, without a word, they began walking — away from the center, toward different corners of the neighborhood.
Trying to split them up.
Thea gritted her teeth. "Ignore them. Stay with me."
Igor nodded — but one of the children whispered his name.
He flinched.
Thea grabbed his hand.
"Stay with me."
Suddenly, all the children stopped.
Their heads tilted in perfect unison.
Then they screamed.
High-pitched. Inhuman. Not real.
The sky glitched — flickering static in the clouds.
The street warped — concrete twisting, lampposts bending like soft clay.
"RUN!" Thea shouted.
They bolted.
Through the maze.
The houses contorted. Doors slammed open and shut. Lights flickered on with mocking laughter. A billboard at the far end scrolled glitchy messages:
"THEA FAILED THE TEST."
"IGOR LEFT FIRST."
"MEMORIES ARE A LIE."
They didn't stop.
At the end of the block, a cul-de-sac pulsed — a dome-shaped building rising from the center like a bunker.
Its door opened for them.
Inside: darkness.
But no children.
No doppelgängers.
Just… silence.
Until the voice returned.
"Stage One: Complete."
"Emotionally bonded units detected. Separating paths for final calibration."
"What?! No—" Thea shouted.
But a wall slammed down between them before she finished the sentence.
Igor banged against it. "THEA?!"
"I'm here!" she yelled back.
The voice purred.
"Final Trial: Only One Can Leave."
Silence.
Then Igor's voice — steadier than she expected.
"Don't let them turn us into enemies."
Thea stepped back from the wall.
No panic.
Just resolve.
She whispered, "They'll regret picking us."
And stepped into the dark ahead.