Page 128 of Stay Scared

Four bodies are forced into one black corridor.

Loose flooring shifts beneath my boot, and Cade’s hand catches my hip. Ash collides into his back. Owen catches Ash around the waist before his injured balance gives out.

The line snaps tight.

For one breath, none of us can separate. Cade braces me from behind, Ash presses against him with one bare hand on Cade’s shoulder, and Owen keeps one arm locked around Ash’s middle.

Heat gathers in a space built from damp timber and old concrete. Nobody can move without moving all of us.

Cade’s fingers flex against my hip. Ash’s breathing sounds too close. Owen says nothing and keeps his arm around Ash until the floor settles.

The boards stop shifting.

Hands leave bodies one at a time.

The rope stays taut.

I start forward again.

The passage climbs until a steel ladder reaches a trapdoor beneath the old theater projection booth.

The key Rook left fits the outer lock.

Owen turns it from below, but the trapdoor rises only several inches before stopping.

“Something is blocking it from above.”

Cade climbs beside him. Together they push until something scrapes across the floor above.

White light pours through the opening.

The light comes from screens, not the house.

We climb into the projection booth.

Dusty equipment surrounds a bank of emergency monitors mounted along the theater wall. Their power indicators remain lit despite the blackout.

Every screen shows a different piece of us.

One carries Cade chasing me through the carnival maze. Another mixes Owen’s surveillance archive with photographs taken inside my apartment. A third plays Ash’s distorted voice declaring that Crimson Night recognizes no safe words.

The cuts are precise.

Every time Cade backed away is gone. The hand I deliberately put on Owen is gone. Ash removing his mask when I demanded it is gone.

Rook’s version erases the stop phrase.

It erases my choices too.

A streaming interface surrounds the footage.

The viewer count climbs fast.

Hundreds become thousands while comments pour up the side faster than I can read them. Some call Cade violent. Others call Owen a stalker or ask whether Ash planned the whole thing. Someone posts a timestamp for the hallway. Another asks for the apartment footage again. A third writes that I look terrified in the red room.

My stomach turns.

They are pausing us, replaying us, choosing pieces.