The dimensional door didn't open so much as render.
One moment Zeke and Julie stood under familiar porch lights with the neighborhood finally quieting into something that almost resembled peace—then the air ahead of them shimmered like heat over asphalt and snapped into a rectangle of fluorescent glare. Behind it, shelves marched away into the distance. A tiled floor reflected harsh white light. Somewhere deep inside, a buzzer chirped like a dying bird.
Julie squinted. "That's… a store."
Zeke's HUD dimmed, then recalibrated. A new header scrolled in muted yellow.
LEVEL THREE: TERROR IN AISLE FIVE
No music. No victory jingle. Just the steady, indifferent hum of overhead lights.
The First Toy's voice didn't announce it this time. It simply drifted from Julie's earring and Zeke's keychain like a whisper through a cheap speaker.
"Keep your eyes up," it said. "Inside levels bite different."
Zeke tightened his grip on the Neo-90. Its new burst-fire mod clicked softly as it primed. Julie's VX-Goth Edition felt sleeker in her hands, the Bubble Bomb launcher attachment sitting under the barrel like a promise.
They stepped through.
The door sealed behind them with a pixelated sigh.
And the world changed.
The air smelled like floor cleaner and stale bread. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead in long, relentless rows. Every sound—every footstep, every breath—echoed weirdly against tile and glass as if the building itself was listening.
Ahead, escalators rose to a second level of storefronts and balcony railings. To the southeast—too close—two figures stood in the open like they'd been dropped there by a careless hand.
Two soldiers.
They weren't calm like the one on the street had been. These guys looked like they'd been running for hours and had just stopped because they couldn't decide where to die.
Zeke and Julie broke into a sprint anyway.
"Move, move!" Zeke hissed, cutting a diagonal across the lobby. Zombies drifted from behind an abandoned kiosk—slow, shambling, eyes lit with that sick comet-green. They weren't swarming yet. They were present. Like mold.
Julie fired two short bursts. The liquid light hissed and smoked, dissolving the closest corpse into quiet pixels.
The soldiers jolted like they'd been snapped awake.
Zeke's HUD chimed.
SAVED.
Then again.
SAVED.
One soldier pointed back toward the escalators with a shaking hand. "There's… there's things in the shops. Small things."
Julie's eyes narrowed. "Dolls."
The soldier stared at her like she'd spoken a password.
Zeke swallowed. "Okay. Great. I hate that."
They pivoted northwest toward the escalators—and that was when Julie froze.
On the up escalator, standing perfectly still, was a baby.
Not in a stroller. Not in a crib.
Just… standing there on the moving steps, motionless, as if the escalator had become a display platform and the universe was waiting for someone to notice.
The baby's eyes were wide and blank, lit by the fluorescent hum.
Zeke whispered, "Why is it not moving?"
Julie's HUD pulsed a soft warning. VITAL SIGNAL—CRITICAL.
"Because it's bait," she said, voice tight.
The escalator carried the baby upward, step by step, toward the balcony level.
Zeke's gamer brain screamed GO GO GO.
Julie's human brain screamed GO GO GO.
They ran.
Zeke sprayed the lower landing to clear the zombies that had wandered too close. Julie took the escalator two steps at a time, sliding around the baby's tiny form without knocking it off balance, scooping it into her arms with a gentleness that felt ridiculous against the hard bright world.
The HUD chimed:
SAVED.
Only then did Julie exhale.
The baby clung to her for half a second—then, as if a switch flipped, it wriggled free and toddled off at full speed, vanishing behind a cosmetics kiosk.
Zeke stared. "That baby just—"
"Don't think about it," Julie snapped, then softened. "We can't afford to."
They reached the upper level and moved along the balcony. Storefronts sat like aquarium tanks: glass walls, shadowy interiors, mannequin silhouettes. The whole place felt like a mall pretending to be a grocery store, or a grocery store pretending to be a trap.
To their right, two shop windows—already cracked by something's impact—faced the escalators.
Zeke's HUD flickered. PICKUPS DETECTED.
Julie's eyes tracked the corners. "Quick. Smash and grab."
Zeke unslung the bazooka he'd taken from the soldier back on the street. He didn't like how natural it felt to raise it.
He pulled the trigger.
The blast was less "boom" and more a violent thunk of reality getting punched in the ribs. Glass shattered outward in glittering rain. The smell of burnt plastic filled the air.
Inside, resting innocently on a shelf, sat a First Aid Kit.
Next to it: a cluster of Decoy Clowns.
Three pickups' worth.
Zeke snatched the kit like it might run away. Julie scooped the clown items, grimacing as the little plastic grins stared up at her.
Zeke muttered, "Why do they look like they know my secrets?"
From his belt loop, the First Toy keychain gave the faintest, wickedest chuckle.
"Because they do."
Julie shoved the clown pickups into her inventory and glared at her HUD like it had personally offended her. "We have victims on this level. Focus."
They moved east along the balcony until it jutted out into a protruding platform—an overlook with a railing and a drop to the lobby below.
A cheerleader stood there, hands clamped over her ears, eyes squeezed shut like if she didn't look at the apocalypse it might stop being real.
Zeke called softly, "Hey! Over here!"
The girl flinched. Her eyes snapped open. She saw their weapons, their glowing glasses—and then she did what cheerleaders did best in this universe.
She screamed and ran.
Julie surged forward and caught her by the wrist before she could sprint straight off the balcony edge.
"Listen," Julie said, voice sharp but not cruel. "When I let go, you run away from the noises. You understand?"
The cheerleader's mouth worked soundlessly.
Julie squeezed once. "Nod."
The girl nodded.
Julie released.
The cheerleader bolted down a corridor, alive.
SAVED.
Zeke watched her go. "Every time, it's like wrangling a cat made of panic."
Julie gave him a look. "Keep moving."
They headed north.
A shop doorway yawned ahead, but the glass beside it was already broken—like someone had taken a shortcut through the window rather than spend time opening a door.
"Don't waste keys," Julie murmured. "We walk through damage."
Zeke's stomach tightened. He didn't like that rule, but he understood it instantly.
They stepped through the broken window into a storefront that looked like a "travel essentials" shop. Postcard racks. Sunscreen. Little inflatable pool toys. The kind of place you'd never miss if it disappeared.
Two tourists stood near the front display, clutching each other and staring down at the floor.
At first Zeke didn't see what they were staring at.
Then he did.
Evil Dolls.
Three of them, scattered like someone's forgotten toys. Porcelain faces. Tiny dresses. Hair too neat. Eyes too bright. They weren't moving.
They were waiting.
One doll's head tilted a fraction.
Julie's breath caught. "Don't let them get close."
Zeke raised his Soaker—
The dolls moved.
Not like zombies. Not like anything human.
They skittered with rapid little steps, as if pulled by invisible strings. Their hands—too small to be hands—reached up with tiny blades of plastic. Their mouths opened into smiles that were not meant for children.
The tourists screamed.
Julie fired first.
Her ricochet stream snapped off a steel display pole and pinged into the dolls' faces. The first doll shattered into pixels.
The second doll hit the floor, rolled, popped up again, and laughed—a horrible little squeak.
Zeke burst-fired, the Neo-90's new mod thumping in his grip. The stream shredded the doll mid-lunge.
Pixels.
But the third doll made it.
It reached the tourists.
Its hands snapped forward.
The tourists' screams turned into shrill, ragged gasps as something… ignited.
A child-sized shape burst out of the tourist's shadow like a flame given bones.
A Fire Baby.
It crawled forward on hands that glowed orange-hot, leaving smeared scorch marks across tile. Its eyes were green comet-light, its mouth open in a wail that made Zeke's skin crawl.
Julie shouted, "Now we know what they do!"
Zeke blasted the Fire Baby instinctively.
The liquid light hissed and steamed, and the creature popped like a burning paper bag—pixels evaporating in a sharp crackle.
The tourists didn't wait. They ran out the broken window and vanished into the mall corridors, sobbing.
SAVED.
Zeke stared at the empty spot where the Fire Baby had been. "That's… not fair."
The First Toy's voice drifted in, too calm.
"Fair is for board games. This is survival."
Julie's eyes stayed on the floor, scanning for more dolls. "Key," she said.
Zeke blinked. "What?"
Julie pointed. In the back exit corridor, tucked in a dead end to the east, a key lay on the ground, shining faintly like an offer.
Zeke snagged it and tucked it away.
Then they backed out through the broken window again, because neither of them wanted to stay one second longer than necessary in a shop full of things that looked harmless.
They moved west into the next store: a clothes shop.
Mannequins stood in rows like skinless people, frozen mid-stride. Their blank faces reflected the fluorescent light in a way that made Julie's shoulders tighten.
"Please don't let the mannequins be alive," Zeke whispered.
Julie didn't answer.
She walked straight to the northeast corner, where a cheerleader crouched behind a rack of pastel sweaters.
Julie crouched with her. "Hey. You're okay. You're okay."
The girl's eyes were wet and wide.
Zeke kept watch, weapon up, scanning between mannequin legs.
The cheerleader stood, trembling, and ran the moment Julie guided her to the exit.
SAVED.
In the northwest corner, near a display mannequin wearing a suspiciously smug outfit, a pickup glowed.
Speed Shoes.
Julie grabbed them and shoved them toward Zeke. "You're faster. You take them."
Zeke hesitated. "You sure?"
Julie's eyes flicked to the aisles beyond, the shadows between shelves. "Yes. I'll need you to be fast when things go wrong."
He didn't argue.
He kicked the shoes on.
The moment the soles hit the tile, his HUD flashed and his body changed. His muscles tightened, his heartbeat synced to a different tempo. The world felt like it lagged a half-second behind him.
Zeke exhaled. "Okay. That's… insanely good."
Julie's mouth twitched. "Use it."
They left the clothes shop and swept southwest past the escalators. Zombies had begun to crawl out of places they hadn't been before—behind kiosks, between trash cans, from shadowy gaps where a floor should have been solid.
Zeke noticed the pattern instantly.
"They're popping up faster near the southeast corner," he said.
Julie's gaze followed his. Down there, the tiles were cracked, darker. Like the mall's foundation had been chewed on.
"That's the bonus point trap," she said.
Zeke's lips pulled into a grin despite himself. "We could rack up—"
Julie cut him off without looking at him. "No."
Zeke opened his mouth.
Julie looked at him then—hard, focused. "We have babies. Tourists. Cheerleaders. The points don't matter."
Zeke's grin faltered.
He nodded. "Okay. Okay. Rescue first."
They entered a store on the south side through the second entrance—past a ruined display and a cash register that still chirped faintly when its drawer hung open.
A baby stood behind the counter.
For a moment, it looked absurdly safe there, like a tiny cashier waiting to ring up the end of the world.
Julie vaulted the counter and scooped it up.
SAVED.
Zeke exhaled. "At least that one was—"
A doll skittered from under the counter, and Julie spun and blasted it point blank.
Pixels.
Julie's stare didn't waver. "Nothing is safe."
In the middle of the shop floor, a cluster of Decoy Clowns glowed like a bad joke.
Julie scooped them into her inventory and shivered. "We've got three sets now."
Zeke made a face. "I hate that sentence."
They exited north and moved east into the shop they'd ignored earlier—an even dingier little place with shelves half-empty and broken fluorescent tubes buzzing like angry insects.
A tourist couple stood in the southwest corner, holding hands, trembling but untouched.
Julie guided them out gently.
SAVED.
They moved to the western edge of the level, toward the supermarket entrance.
The moment they crossed into the grocery store proper, the air changed again.
It smelled like produce and cold metal. The lighting was harsher. The aisles stretched long and narrow, making every corner a blind spot. The floor was slick with something sticky near the tills.
Inactive display boxes stood stacked near the registers:
FUN BABY.
The brand logo was a smiling infant face that was just slightly wrong.
Julie stared at it. "That's… gross."
Zeke's HUD flickered. "Victim signal ahead."
They moved past the tills, deeper into the aisles.
A baby stood alone in the middle of one aisle, as if it had been left there like a forgotten item.
No stroller. No parent.
Just a baby, facing the shelves.
Julie approached slowly.
Zeke kept his weapon trained on the floor, because he didn't trust anything smaller than his shoe anymore.
Julie picked the baby up.
The HUD chimed:
SAVED.
The supermarket didn't relax.
It never relaxed.
Near the northwest corner, soda cans glittered on a shelf like a tease. Zeke grabbed them quickly and moved back, resisting the urge to scan every aisle for loot. Loot could wait.
People couldn't.
They moved east along the tills, toward another bay.
Decoy Clowns.
More.
Julie collected them and immediately looked like she regretted existing.
Zeke's HUD pinged faintly. Tomatoes.
He followed the signal around a fruit-and-veg display, grabbing the pickups—bright red spheres that felt both ridiculous and strangely heavy.
Then they found the back door.
It was shut. Not locked like a normal door.
Shut like the building didn't want them to go behind it.
Julie glanced at Zeke. "Bazooka?"
Zeke didn't love it. But he lifted the launcher, aimed at the door's frame, and fired.
The blast tore the door off its hinges and blew it inward in a shower of splinters.
Cold air rolled out like a breath from a freezer.
They stepped through into back corridors—narrow, dimmer hallways lined with boxes and metal racks. The fluorescent lights back here flickered like they were thinking about giving up.
Zeke's HUD pulsed. PICKUP—ICE LOLLIES.
They found them at a junction, two glowing popsicles tucked beside a stack of crates.
Julie grabbed them and immediately looked relieved to have something that wasn't creepy.
"Okay," she murmured. "Cold weapons. Good."
They doubled back and took the southern corridor east.
The hallway opened into a back room.
And there, in the northwest corner's grocery shop back room—exactly as the map would have cruelly demanded—stood another cheerleader, pressed against a wall like she was trying to merge with it.
Zeke kept watch as Julie guided her out.
SAVED.
The cheerleader ran.
The door behind her swung shut gently on its own.
And for a moment, Zeke and Julie stood alone in the back corridor, breathing hard, listening.
The mall above them hummed. Zombies moaned distantly. Somewhere, something small skittered and then stopped, as if it realized it was being listened to.
Julie's HUD dimmed.
No more victim signals.
All clear.
Zeke looked at her, shoulders rising and falling. "We did it."
Julie nodded, but her eyes stayed sharp. "Yeah. But this place… it feels like it's trying to teach us something."
The First Toy's voice drifted in again, soft as plastic rubbing together.
"It is," it said. "You learned to watch the floor."
Zeke frowned. "The floor?"
"Dolls," the Toy replied. "Babies. Corners. Blind spots. Indoor levels are about what you don't see."
Julie's fingers tightened on her weapon. "So what's next?"
The First Toy didn't answer immediately.
A shimmer appeared at the end of the corridor, like a door being printed into reality.
But this one didn't glow with supermarket light.
It flickered with something darker.
Behind the shimmer, Zeke heard a sound that didn't belong in a grocery store or a mall.
A distant revving.
A chainsaw, far away, starting and stopping like someone testing it.
Julie's face went pale.
Zeke's HUD flickered once, like it hesitated to show the truth.
Then it displayed a single icon.
A hedge.
A maze.
A lumberjack silhouette.
The First Toy chuckled—small, amused, and not even slightly comforting.
"Good shopping trip, kiddos," it said. "Hope you grabbed enough clowns."
The door finished rendering.
And the fluorescent hum of the supermarket faded behind them, replaced by the quiet promise of greenery… and something hungry moving inside it.