Past and Present

The ceiling blinked.

Not in a metaphorical way. It literally blinked—two wide, wet, eyelid-like folds stretching across drywall, fluttering like a bored god halfway through REM sleep.

Lance stared at it from the floor, still panting. Dario was tucked under his arm, paws twitching in nervous rhythm, ears flattened.

"The ceiling just blinked," Lance muttered, too out of breath to panic properly.

No one answered.

The walls were breathing now. Not some poetic thing like "the wallpaper curled in a draft." No. Inhale, exhale. The walls pulsed, stretching with invisible lungs. Air sucked inward, dragged through a vent that wasn't there. Dust swirled like dander off something thinking about you.

Lance gripped Dario tighter. "Okay. Okay. So. Plan."

His voice echoed back at him—but out of order.

"Okay. Plan. So. Okay."

Lance sat up slowly, carefully, like moving too fast might make the whole thing sneeze him out of existence. His knees ached. His head throbbed. And sweat—still milk—dripped down the side of his face and onto the floor in thick, pale drops.

Which the floor gulped.

"Not gonna panic," he told the room. "Because that's what the bleeding drywall wants. And I'm not giving it the satisfaction."

He turned a slow circle, trying to orient himself, which was hard because the floorboards were now in vertical stripes, the outlets rotated ninety degrees, and a door just grew out of a radiator and coughed.

Lance eyed the milk jug on the kitchen counter again. It hadn't moved. Still sealed. Still sweating, just like him.

He walked toward it, cautiously.

"Alright, buddy," he whispered to the jug. "You're the biohazard in all this, yeah? The freaky goth yolk everyone's after."

The jug said nothing.

Lance looked at Dario. "If this thing so much as twitches, bite me. Not it. Me. Okay?"

Dario sneezed, then licked a milk drop off Lance's arm.

Lance winced. "That's so much worse than just barking, but okay."

He reached for the jug.

The lights flickered.

The walls flickered.

A chorus of soft chuckles—his own voice, but wrong—slithered from every electrical socket.

"Go on. Be brave."

"Pour destiny down your throat."

"Fix the printer of fate."

Lance froze, fingers inches from the plastic handle.

He pulled back slowly. "You know what? Actually, not thirsty."

He turned around and ran—straight for the front door that hadn't existed until just now.

The knob melted under his hand.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME—"

A voice behind him rose.

Not monstrous. Not distorted.

Just tired.

Just him.

"You think the thing inside you is gonna help?"

Lance turned.

It was himself again—mirrored, milk-eyed, and more solid than last time. This one looked disappointed. Wore the same clothes Lance wore to that awkward office holiday party where everyone kept asking why he looked so tired.

"You're not using it right," said the echo-Lance, leaning against the fridge like he lived there. "You think it's a superpower. It's a parasite."

Lance squinted. "I don't think it's a superpower."

"You tried to talk to it."

"That was sarcasm—"

"You threatened to unleash the milk."

"…Okay, that part was a joke—"

"You're a joke."

"Nuh uh."

Echo-Lance stared at him. Not angry. Just deeply, existentially tired of his shit.

The fridge-Lance stepped forward, and every step pulled the floor up with it, stretching the room like taffy until it screamed in geometry.

Dario growled, finally.

Lance held him tighter, backing up.

"You don't know what it's building in there," the doppelgänger hissed. "You feel it sometimes, don't you? The shift. The attention. It's not you getting stronger. It's it getting ready."

The walls peeled back. The floor melted upward into jagged, spiraling stairs. Gravity tipped sideways like someone kicked the simulation off-balance.

And now the room had corners where there shouldn't be any. Long, twisting corridors of false memories—the childhood bedroom Lance should've had, an office filled with colleagues he didn't remember knowing, a living room with two pairs of shoes by the door that didn't belong to anyone real.

The entire structure folded inward on Lance.

He ran—not through the door, but up the wall as it pitched sideways, hallway warping into spiral.

The echo-Lance shouted behind him, voice splitting into every voice Lance had ever heard himself in:

"You're not chosen."

"You're not surviving."

"You're just meat with guilt in the shape of a man."

Lance tripped, nearly fell—but a hand grabbed him.

Not his.

Not a hand, actually.

Just—

Dani's voice.

From the milk.

"Focus, printer boy."

Lance gasped.

Everything snapped.

The room peeled apart like wet paper.

And then—

Silence.

Lance slammed into something solid and cold. Real.

His ribs screamed. His palms skidded on damp stone—no carpet, no drywall, just slick concrete, like an underground tunnel floor still sweating from something that had lived here too long.

For a moment, the only sound was his own breath. That should've been a relief.

But then he noticed it.

The sound wasn't… echoing.

His breath fogged softly in the air, a trembling mist that hung unnaturally still. The air wasn't cold. There was no draft. No vent. Just… condensation forming anyway. As if the space wasn't reacting to him, but replicating what breathing is supposed to look like.

Lance slowly rolled onto his back, chest heaving. Dario squirmed out from under his arm and licked his cheek once—urgent, firm.

"Still here," Lance rasped, one hand finding the dog's fur, grounding himself.

He flexed his fingers. They moved fine.

His legs twitched. Bruised, but intact.

He sat up slowly, wincing, and—

Stopped.

His left forearm was slick with sweat, or so he thought. But it wasn't sweat. Not exactly.

It was pale. Not white. Translucent, almost pearly.

Milk again?

No.

Worse.

It was too clean. Too uniform. And it clung like it had grown from under the skin, not out of it.

Lance stared as a bead rolled down his arm—and didn't fall. It absorbed back in.

He rubbed at it hard with the sleeve of his hoodie. It came away dry.

His breath hitched.

The skin there wasn't red from the rubbing. It was… smooth. Glossy.

Artificial.

No pores. No hair. Just the suggestion of skin—a good enough replica, if you weren't looking too close.

Lance looked too close.

He held his arm up, turned it. Shook it.

No pain. No heat.

Just something trying to remember what skin was.

"…okay," he whispered to no one. "Okay. That's new."

Dario barked once, sharply, like punctuation.

Lance touched his face next—his cheeks, jaw, neck. Normal. For now.

The thing inside him was adapting. Not with power. Not with control.

With correction.

It was correcting him.

He looked at Dario, voice barely audible. "If I stop being me… bite harder next time."

Dario whined.

Lance didn't move for a while. Didn't stand. Just sat in the after-echo of unreality, watching his breath fog and fade like something pretending to exist.

Then, finally, he got up. One step. Then another.

The hallway stretched ahead—dim and humming like a migraine just under the surface of sound.

The floor still rippled faintly beneath his feet.

His fingers twitched again.

Still his.For now.

But his left arm didn't twitch at all.

Lance kept walking.

Not because he was brave. Not because he had a plan.Because standing still made the silence too loud.

The tunnel curved without turning. Walls sloped at odd angles, defying the basic geometry of a hallway. No seams. No doors. No windows. Just more ahead.

Dario padded beside him, tail low, ears alert. A shadow with weight. A comfort that didn't explain itself.

Lance's left arm still didn't move right.

He kept flexing his fingers just to prove he could. They moved, but with a weird lag—as if the signal had to route through something else first. Something with permissions.

That's when the buzzing started.

It wasn't sound at first. Just a tickle at the base of his skull. A pressure in his molars.Then, snap—a filament of noise cut through the quiet.

"ghkk…ghhh—"

Lance stopped walking.

Dario growled.

Ahead, the hallway split—not by choice. The wall on the left peeled open, curling like flesh under heat. Something stepped through.

It was tall. Not impossibly tall. Just enough to feel like it should duck—but didn't. Its skin looked like wet metal, tarnished and flickering between states—bone, rust, plastic, printer ribbon. Its arms bent wrong, the elbows popping inside-out before snapping forward again like they were clicking through formats.

Its face—

Lance didn't look at the face.

Not at first.

But he did hear it.

Its voice wasn't words. Not yet. Just sounds.Sounds Lance had heard before.

"…I'm fine. Just tired.""Not my problem, right?"

"They can replace me."

That's what backups are for."

His voice.

From conference calls. From arguments in parking lots. From days he went home early and lied about why.

"Stop," Lance whispered.

The thing tilted its head. Too fast. Click.

"Didn't ask for this," it said—his voice. Broken and skipping, like audio scrubbed over a failing drive.

"I know, okay? I'm just a printer guy."

Then it moved.

No sprint. No roar. Just on him, like a skipped frame. Its hand slammed him into the wall—hard enough to crack concrete.

Lance gasped, eyes wide. The breath knocked out of him. His head bounced.

Dario lunged, teeth bared, and the creature simply twitched its shoulder—sending the dog flying into the opposite wall with a yelp.

"NO—!"

Lance shoved against the arm holding him, but it didn't budge. The creature leaned in. Its mouth stretched—not opening, stretching—until it reached his ear.

"Do you really think you matter now?"

Lance sucked in air, chest trembling.

"You're a placeholder," it said. "You're filler."

"Shut up."

"You think the others need you?"

"I said shut up—!"

"You think they wouldn't leave you behind? That they haven't already?"

Lance squeezed his eyes shut, teeth clenched, voice cracking as he shouted:

"I KNOW!"

He slammed his fist into the thing's chest—not to hurt it. Just to do something.

It didn't flinch.

Lance's knees buckled. The sarcasm was gone. The jokes were gone. All that came out was:

"…I'm tired."

He didn't sob.

Didn't cry.

Just said it flat. Cracked down the middle.

"I'm tired of feeling like I don't get to matter."

The creature finally spoke in its own voice.

It was nothing like his.

It was hers.

Dani's voice. Cold. Sharp. Final.

"You were never built to."

Then it shoved—

And Lance went through the wall like glass.

Lance didn't fall—

He crashed.

Through something too solid to be air and too thin to be earth, slamming into a floor made of blinking keys and worn receipts. Pain spidered through his ribs like glass under pressure. His ears rang. His vision doubled—then tripled—then just started dripping.

No, not his eyes.

The walls were dripping again.

He groaned, coughed, and sat up—

And froze.

Across from him stood his mother.

Her cardigan was crooked. Her hair still bore the vague curls of a woman who only ever had time for half a morning. Her eyes were kind—but heavy. Too heavy. They sagged with quiet disappointment.

"Lance," she said. Not angry. Just… resigned.

He opened his mouth.

She stepped forward, shaking her head.

"You said you'd call. You said you'd visit more."

"...You're not real," Lance whispered.

She didn't stop. "You always said you were busy. But I knew. You just didn't want to deal with us."

"Shut up."

"You'd rather hide behind your work. Behind your printer repair ticket backlog."

"Shut up!" Lance screamed, staggering to his feet.

He turned—

And found his father standing behind him.

Silent.

Just watching.

Lance staggered back as the man took one slow, echoing step forward.

"You only showed up for the funeral," his father said, low.

That wasn't true. Lance had come home more than that. He'd tried—

But the thing wearing his dad's face just kept talking.

"You sent flowers."

"You didn't even say anything."

"You watched your mother cry and said you were tired."

And then the punch came.

Fast. Brutal. Real.

Lance's head whipped sideways, stars exploding in his skull. He collapsed to the floor, blood already pooling between his teeth.

The fake-father loomed. The floor beneath his boots shimmered like a screensaver—changing shapes, shifting memory to memory.

"You were always forgettable," it said.

Then it split.

The faces peeled away like masks.

Dani stood above him.

No expression.

No warmth.

Just clinical detachment.

"You're not a survivor," she said flatly. "You're the liability."

Lance coughed. "Stop…"

"You got lucky. That's it. You were supposed to be a footnote."

"Stop—"

"You think the milk chose you?" She knelt. Her voice turned mocking. "You were just nearby."

Lance tried to move.

Her boot came down on his chest.

Hard.

"You're the bug in the system. The glitch that didn't get caught. And you're not useful. You're not funny. You're just there."

He couldn't breathe.

Dario was gone.

Dario was gone.

He wasn't moving.

"I—I'm trying—" Lance gasped.

"You're not enough," Dani said.

And then her face split again.

Not like a transformation.

Like a crack.

A jagged line down the center, revealing teeth—dozens of them—pushing forward as the "Dani" warped, tore, and twisted into something that towered.

Tall. Bone-thin. Mouths where her hands should be.

Her eyes were just voids now. No sarcasm. No edge. Just absence.

"You are a misprint," it whispered.

And then it struck him.

Again. And again. And again.

Fists like falling concrete.

Words hitting harder than the blows.

"You always knew no one saw you."

"You always knew you'd be left behind."

"You're screaming into a broken mic and pretending it's a lifeline."

Lance couldn't fight back.

He curled, arms over his head, blood pouring from a cut on his cheek, a gash above his brow.

His voice cracked—

"I know…"

The anomaly raised one long arm—flesh tearing into black static.

This was it.

This was the end.

Then—

A bark.

Sharp.

Fierce.

Real.

Dario.

The blow missed.

The thing staggered.

Lance blinked through blood and saw his dog.

Growling. Foaming. Standing between him and the thing.

Lance reached out, trembling.

"D-Dario—"

The dog barked again—and lunged.

The anomaly reeled back, flickering. Losing its form.

The voices it stole began to collapse, garbled and skipping like corrupted audio.

Lance crawled, dragged himself across the blood-slick floor toward the only real thing left in the nightmare.

Dario stood his ground.

And the anomaly began to melt—not in defeat, but in transition.

It would be back.

It was part of him now.

But for now, Lance's hand closed around Dario's scruff, knuckles white, breath heaving.

He was shaking.

Broken.

But breathing.

He wasn't okay.

Not even close.

But he was still here.

And the nightmare… was fading.

For now.

didn't stand.

He couldn't.

He stayed where he was—knees pressed into the warped floor, arms trembling beneath him, his entire body hunched like something caved in. His palms were slick with blood, his own and maybe something else's, smeared in streaks along the floor where he'd tried to crawl. The red stuck under his nails. It had weight. It didn't want to come off.

Dario nudged him gently.

But Lance didn't respond.

His head hung low, chin nearly touching his chest. His shoulders trembled with every breath—shallow, ragged things that sounded like someone trying not to cry but already too late. One of his shoes was gone. He hadn't noticed. Couldn't remember when it had vanished. His foot throbbed with some distant ache he couldn't name.

His eyes—opaque now, milk-glazed like someone forgot to render them properly—stared at the floor without seeing it. Blinking was slow. Mechanical. His expression was slack in a way that didn't feel like exhaustion.

It felt like grief.

Like loss.

Like the moment you realize something broke inside you that might not ever fix right again.

Blood dripped from his chin. From his nose. From the cut above his right eye, where the skin had split so close to the brow it nearly took his vision with it.

But he didn't wipe it away.

Didn't speak.

Didn't move.

Because what could he say?

What joke could cover that?

What sarcasm could erase what he'd just seen—what he'd heard in voices he used to trust? His mother. His father. Dani. Their faces twisted around that thing, each word hammering into his ribs like it wanted to snap something loose.

And maybe it had.

Maybe it succeeded.

Dario lay beside him now, body pressed close, warm and shaking. The dog licked his arm slowly, like he was trying to ground him. Anchor him. Pull him back.

But Lance was drifting.

His thoughts were splinters now—sharp, unconnected things scraping against the inside of his skull.

Why me?

Why now?

What the hell am I supposed to be becoming?

The milk sweat on his neck had dried into pale crusts. One of his fingertips was blistered and warped, like the nail had tried to curl inward. His tongue tasted like copper and sour cream.

He opened his mouth—just barely.

But the words didn't come.

Not yet.

Not when the echo of that thing still rang in his skull:

You're just meat with guilt in the shape of a man.

The silence that followed felt like punishment.

He shuddered.

And finally, slowly, a single sound escaped him.

Not a joke.

Not a scream.

Just a breath.

Shaky. Hollow. Frayed around the edges.

"…I didn't ask for this."

His voice cracked. Raw. Childlike. Honest.

The floor didn't answer.

The blood didn't stop.

And Lance just stayed there—

On his knees.

In the dark.

Trying to remember what it felt like to matter.

Lance's breath caught.

A ragged scream tore free from deep inside him—a guttural, raw sound that shattered the silence like glass breaking.

"I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS! WHAT DID I DO? WHAT DID I—WHAT DID I DO?!"

His voice cracked, hoarse and ragged, the words spilling out like a broken dam.

He clawed at the floor, fingers scraping the warped wood as if trying to dig his way out of the nightmare.

His whole body shook violently—trembling with pain, with rage, with a hopelessness so thick it choked the air.

"Why me?! Why me?!" he screamed, voice hoarse and desperate. "I didn't ask for any of this! I'm not the monster! I'm not—!"

He broke off, collapsing forward, forehead pressed against the floor, breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps.

Dario nudged him gently, then licked the side of his face—warm, steady.

The dog's soft whine was the only thing in the room that didn't feel like it might snap.

Lance's hands curled into fists, digging into the floor beneath him.

But the trembling slowed just enough for a whisper to escape his cracked lips.

"I'm tired, Dario. So tired."

Dario pressed closer, silent, loyal, grounding.

And in that moment, the worst agony wasn't just in his broken body.

It was in how utterly alone he felt.