The stairwell didn't smell like dust.
It smelled clean.
Desto noticed it immediately—the kind of clean that didn't come from effort, but from absence. Like something had been removed so completely the space forgot it was ever there. His boot touched the first step without sound. The Glock stayed steady in his hands, muzzle angled just off center, trained where a body should be.
Nothing should be quiet after a gunshot.
The building hadn't reacted at all.
"Don't like that," Desto muttered.
Tristo stepped past him, unbothered, head tilted slightly as if listening to music no one else could hear. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed again, steady now, as though nothing had happened. He dragged his fingers along the stair railing.
Cold.
Too cold.
"You notice how it didn't flinch?" Tristo said.
Desto followed his gaze. The walls were untouched. The photos hadn't rattled loose. Even the dust hadn't stirred.
"Buildings flinch," Tristo went on. "Old ones especially."
Desto climbed another step. Then another. The pressure behind his eyes tightened—not pain, not fear.
Attention.
"Stay close," Desto said.
Tristo smiled. "You worried about me?"
"I'm worried about angles."
They reached the second floor.
The hallway stretched long and narrow, doors lining both sides. Every door was closed. Every nameplate intact. Children's drawings were taped to the walls—crayon suns, stick figures holding hands. One drawing had been scratched out so hard the paper tore through.
Desto stopped.
"Something's off," he said. "The count."
Tristo followed his line of sight. More photos here. More families. And in three of them, someone was missing.
Not torn out.
Not blurred.
Gone.
The frames hadn't changed size. The spacing hadn't adjusted.
Reality hadn't noticed yet.
"That's fast," Tristo murmured. "Usually it takes longer."
Desto glanced at him. "Usually?"
Tristo didn't answer. His attention was fixed on a photo of a woman holding a birthday cake. Candles lit. Her arm wrapped around empty air. The cake sagged slightly where a second hand should have been supporting it.
The pressure spiked.
A door creaked open at the far end of the hall.
Desto snapped the Glock up.
Yellow light spilled from the apartment. Inside, furniture sat neatly arranged. A television hissed with low static. A man stood just past the threshold.
Middle-aged. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a stained undershirt and jeans. His hair was thinning, carefully combed despite the sweat darkening his collar. His eyes were wide, unfocused.
"You shouldn't be here," the man said.
His voice echoed wrong—layered, as if several versions of him were speaking a fraction of a second apart.
"We're just passing through," Desto said.
The man's gaze slid past him and locked onto Tristo.
"You're early," the man said again.
Tristo stepped forward, hands open, almost gentle. "Everyone keeps saying that."
The man smiled.
Something in his face slipped—not melted, not twisted. Misaligned. His mouth stretched a little too wide. His eyes didn't blink together.
"I forgot my daughter today," the man said calmly. "Did you know that?"
Desto felt his grip tighten.
"You forgot your daughter," Tristo repeated, curious.
"Yes," the man said. "I remember teaching her how to ride a bike. I remember buying her shoes that were always too expensive." He paused. "But I can't remember her name. Or her face. Or when she stopped being."
The hallway lights flickered.
"Is she here?" Tristo asked.
The man shook his head. "No. She's gone."
The word carried weight. It pressed into the walls.
Behind them, a door slammed.
Then another.
Footsteps echoed—too many, overlapping, moving in wrong directions.
Desto shifted back half a step, Glock centered on the man's chest. "We're leaving."
"No," the man said softly. "You can't. You haven't been taken yet."
The television screamed with static.
The man stepped forward.
Desto fired.
The bullet punched through the man's sternum and passed through him like smoke, shattering the picture frame behind him. Glass exploded across the room.
The man didn't flinch.
Tristo laughed.
Not loud. Not manic. Just quiet delight.
"Oh," he said. "You're not the one doing it."
The man's smile faltered.
From above them, something heavy shifted.
The lights went out.
This time, they didn't come back.
In the dark, something brushed past Desto's shoulder—close enough to steal heat, close enough to breathe where his ear should have been.
A whisper slid through the hallway.
You're early.
Tristo's voice cut through the dark, calm and certain.
"Desto," he said. "Run."
Desto didn't argue.
They moved together—Desto pivoting, Tristo already sprinting. Doors burst open behind them. Frames shattered. Nameplates peeled off walls like dead skin.
They hit the stairs hard.
Desto glanced back once.
The hallway was empty.
Every photo was gone.
Not broken.
Gone.
They burst into the night, gasping. The building loomed behind them, silent and innocent. Pedestrians passed by laughing, arguing, living—unaware.
No sirens.
No screams.
Tristo bent over, hands on his knees, then straightened, eyes gleaming.
"That," he said, smiling, "wasn't supposed to notice us yet."
Desto stared at the building.
"Yet," he repeated.
Somewhere inside, something shifted its attention.
And this time, it remembered them.