Chapter 6

Jack hadn't moved. He still sat at the edge of the slide, lifeless. His skin, once sun-kissed and warm, had been drained of all color, leaving him pale and waxy. And yet, it was still Jack.

Or was it?

I stared at him, searching for anything, a flicker of recognition, a twitch, a sign that something was still in there. But there was nothing. Just an empty vessel. I couldn't trust my senses anymore. Maybe this was reality. Maybe everything beyond this playground, the world I thought I knew, was an illusion. A dream, nothing more.

What if there was no outside world? No Ma. No home. Just this. An endless playground, circling back on itself, pre-recorded motions repeating in an infinite loop.

And if I didn't find a way out… I'd become just like Jack.

The thought sent a chill down my spine, one colder than the artificial wind that never quite touched my skin. Above me, the projection dimmed, the fake sky swallowing up the last traces of light.

I missed home. I missed real things. The air in my room, the feeling of my pillow against my cheek. The slugs outside after a rainstorm, carving their slimy paths through the gutter. Even the disgusting things—Rio barfing up chicken, ants swarming all over the mess. I used to find them so trivial and annoying. But now, they felt like proof that life had existed somewhere beyond here.

My stomach growled, a sharp, hollow pang. The taste of bile still lingered on my tongue, the only thing I had left of whatever I'd eaten last.

I looked down at my shirt. The ketchup stain was still there. Barely. A whisper of red, faded into the fabric, like it had been bleeding out for years.

The last meal I'd shared with Ma.

I pulled at the fabric, bringing the stain to my lips, pressing down, waiting for something. Sweetness, salt, anything. It tasted like nothing.

Not ketchup. Not even stale bread or grease. Just dust and sweat and time. The kind of taste you get when you press your tongue against an old couch cushion and realize it's soaked up a decade of misery.

But I kept sucking at it anyway.

Because if the stain was still here, then maybe the world I remembered still existed. Maybe Ma was real. Maybe Rio's stupid barfing was real. Maybe everything outside this plastic, pre-recorded nightmare happened.

Or maybe I was just licking a stain on a shirt, hoping for a taste of a life that had already been swallowed whole.

I lay back on the grass, letting my thoughts run. The blades dug into my skin, stiff and plasticky.

I closed my eyes. I thought of home. 

Nights when the shadows in my room grew too big, too hungry, stretching long fingers across the walls, swallowing the furniture whole. They moved even when nothing else did, shifting when my back was turned, bleeding into corners where the light couldn't reach.

I'd stare at them too long, and they'd stare back.

Not just darkness. Not just tricks of the light. Something else. Something waiting. Something patient. 

I used to run straight to Ma's bed, burying myself under the covers, convinced that as long as I stayed hidden beneath the sheets, I was safe.

She'd always be there. Always. In her flannel pajamas, her hair a tangled mess, rubbing my back and telling me everything was okay—even when we both knew it wasn't.

I opened my eyes again. Jack hadn't moved. The more I looked at him, the more I felt like I was staring at my future.

What if this place sucked me dry just like him? What if I lost myself, piece by piece until there was nothing left but a faceless body, sitting on the slide, waiting for someone else to find me?

What if that was the end of it? Not some grand finale, not some heroic last stand. Just a slow, quiet erasure. No pain. No struggle. Just a moment where I blink, and when I open my eyes again—I'm gone.

Not dead. Not even missing. Just... removed. Like I was never there to begin with.

Maybe that's how it happens. You don't wake up one day screaming, realizing you've lost yourself. You just wake up and there's less of you. A little piece chipped away. You forget the way your mother smelled when she hugged you. You forget the sound of your own laugh. You forget why you ever cared about getting out in the first place.

And then one day, you're sitting on a slide, and there's nothing left to forget.

You don't move. You don't breathe. You don't think.

You just exist.

Until you don't.

I couldn't let that happen.

I forced myself to move, crawling toward him. Careful. Slow. Like getting too close might trigger something, might make him jerk back to life and grab me. His skin was freezing. Dead-body cold. Not just chilly, but like he'd been sitting there forever, soaking up the nothingness, becoming part of it.

It seeped into my fingers, up my arms, burrowing deep into my bones. I shuddered so hard my teeth nearly cracked. I wanted to pull away.

But I had to know. Had to make sure he was just another piece of the set, another prop in this twisted little stage play.

I turned his face away. It was like handling a rag doll, a mannequin, a body that forgot it was supposed to fight back. His head lolled to the side, weightless. Even without eyes, I felt him watching me.

The cold sank deeper. Numbed my hands. My arms. My whole goddamn soul.

I needed warmth.

Jack wasn't using his shirt. That much was obvious. So I did the logical thing. I yanked it off him and pulled it over my head.

It was stiff, smelled like nothing, felt like a body bag made out of fabric. But it was better than sitting here, freezing, waiting to join him.

Survival outweighs guilt. Every time.

I curled up on the bench, pulling my knees to my chest, locking in whatever little warmth I had. Jack stayed where he was, still watching me, or maybe that was just my imagination.

Either way, I turned my back to him. Because I wasn't dying here.

Not for him. Not for anyone.

Up in the pristine glass room, two men watched.

One stood by the projection, posture effortless, presence heavy. The bull. His mask gleamed under the light, smooth and sculpted, veins of molten gold threading through the surface like something alive. He didn't move much. Didn't need to.

"I want to see this experiment begin," he murmured, voice barely reaching the air. Not a request. Not a command. Just a fact waiting to happen.

The other one, the ant, lurked just outside the light, mask segmented, almost too real, like some grotesque exoskeleton molded to his face. He tipped his head slightly, voice laced with amusement.

"Any moment now."

They weren't watching for insight. They weren't watching for meaning.

This wasn't about science, progress, or whatever justification made them feel important.

This was a spectacle.

And the spectacle was all that ever mattered.