They sat.
Shoulder to shoulder. Close. Tighter than they'd normally allow.
There was an unspoken agreement in the way they occupied the left side of the table—no one wanted to be isolated. No one wanted to sit across from her seat. From the place she might return to.
From this side, the window framed a clear view of the strange, unnatural neighborhood that made up Phase 20. The pastel-painted cottages lined the ghostly streets like frozen actors on an abandoned stage. Beyond them, there was fog. Endless, unmoving fog. And silence.
Nathan glanced out but said nothing. No one did.
They didn't have to.
The weight of the unknown pressed down harder now than before. The surreal, almost homey charm of the cottage had soured into something uncanny—too neat, too still, like the world around them was watching.
"So we just wait here for now…?"
Harper's voice was tight, half-whispered, as if louder words might wake something best left sleeping. Her fingers tightened around the edge of her chair.
She hated this. All of it.
The silence. The waiting. The creature in the kitchen pretending to be something human.
There was no hostility in the woman's behavior—not yet. But Harper's instincts screamed louder than her thoughts. That thing didn't feel right. It wasn't fear exactly, but something colder. Slimier.
Disgust. Something about her existence just felt… off.
Her very presence triggered something in Harper's brain that whispered: Don't trust it. Don't listen to it. Don't even look at it.
Ivy responded softly, her voice collected but distant.
"We have no other choice. We wait and see what she says."
She tapped the table once. Then again. The rhythm was subtle but constant. A metronome of logic fighting back the irrational unease.
"The rulebook said if we're polite, they'll help us." She looked forward, not at Harper, not at the others. "That's the only lead we have."
Alice didn't speak. Instead, she leaned slightly toward Harper and reached out, gently gripping the edge of Harper's t-shirt between her fingers. A quiet gesture. Her way of saying I'm here. You're not alone.
Harper looked at her, then sighed. A beat passed.
"Alright… let's just pray nothing weird happens."
Nathan gave a short nod. Ivy tapped again. Alice's hand remained clenched. The tension settled back in, wrapping around their shoulders like a cold blanket.
Nathan's knee bounced beneath the table. Rhythmic. Uncontrolled. He didn't even realize he was doing it.
Ivy kept tapping the wood, now counting silently between each knock. She hoped the timing would give her some sense of predictability—a pattern. Something to help her map what would come next. But every second felt slower than the last.
Alice and Harper kept close, neither daring to separate from the other. Their breaths were shallow, nervous. Eyes flicking occasionally toward the hallway.
They waited.
They waited.
And then— the footsteps returned.
Soft. Uneven. Shuffling.
Coming closer.
Closer.
Each step against the wooden floor sounded wrong. Not heavy enough. Not consistent. Like someone mimicking the sound of walking without knowing how to properly walk.
All four of them turned their eyes toward the hallway once again.
The fear crept back in, silently. Slithering up their spines.
Whatever was coming next—
And then—
She returned.
The old woman—no, the creature wearing the old woman's skin—stepped through the kitchen doorway, cradling a bowl in her gnarled, veiny hands.
Inside it were apples.
Red. Glossy. Juicy-looking apples, almost glowing in their freshness. The scent hit them all at once—sweet and ripe, unnaturally perfect. The kind of aroma that filled not just the room, but memory. The fragrance alone conjured visions of orchards in late summer, family picnics, fresh pies cooling on a windowsill.
But this wasn't home.
This was Phase 20.
And the woman who carried those apples didn't belong in any orchard.
She paused at the threshold between the kitchen and the hall, staring at them with that same grotesque, melted smile. It stretched wider than it should, as if her face forgot the limits of human skin. The corners of her dry lips trembled faintly as though holding back something else—something hungry.
And then she stepped forward.
Each footfall was soft, yet echoed sharply in their ears. As if the cottage held its breath to listen.
She placed the bowl in the center of the table, right in front of them. Four pairs of eyes followed it, unblinking.
A moment passed.
Then Ivy, ever the one to carry the burden of diplomacy, cleared her throat gently and spoke with careful restraint.
"Are these apples?"Her voice was measured, cautious, trying to sound grateful. "For us?"
The creature turned her head toward Ivy, smile still glued to her twisted face.
"Yes," she replied, her voice again that incongruent childlike tone—soft, high-pitched, like a toddler after a long tantrum. "Please make yourselves comfortable."
That voice—That voice didn't belong to her face. To her body. To the room.It felt like something scraped from another reality and shoved into her vocal cords.
Harper had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from reacting. The sound alone made her stomach twist. She wasn't sure if it was disgust, fear, or some mixture of both. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as the woman stepped back from the table.
Alice's eyes, wide and alert, tracked every movement. Then her gaze dropped to the apples. She blinked.
They looked too fresh. Too perfect.
Not a single bruise. Not a stem out of place. Their skins gleamed under the pale light of the cottage like they had just been plucked seconds ago—but from what kind of tree?
Nathan watched silently beside Ivy, muscles tense, eyes calculating. He had stayed quiet the whole time, trusting Ivy's way with words—until now.
Just as she opened her mouth to continue the conversation, Nathan's leg shot out under the table and nudged Ivy's calf. Hard.
"Ouch!" she gasped, turning sharply to him, frowning.
"What—"
But Nathan didn't respond. He simply tilted his head, subtly.
His expression was serious. Focused.
His eyes flicked downward.
And then Ivy saw it too.
Nestled between the apples, just barely visible beneath one fruit near the edge of the bowl—a corner of paper.
Not an ordinary slip, either. It was aged. Yellowed. Like something written long ago.
The old woman, oblivious or pretending to be, turned back toward the kitchen.
"The lunch will be ready in five minutes," she chimed, sing-song.
"Please be comfortable till then."
And just like that, she was gone again—vanishing behind the kitchen threshold without looking back.
The cottage fell into silence once more.
A silence that now meant something.
All four of them stared at the bowl. At the apples. At the note half-hidden beneath them.
Something had just changed.
As soon as the old woman's shadow vanished into the kitchen, Nathan moved.
Without a word, he reached forward and pulled the folded paper from the bowl of apples. His fingers moved quickly but cautiously, as if the paper itself might bite.
Ivy blinked.
"What is that?" she asked, her voice a sharp whisper.
Alice and Harper both leaned closer, their eyes trained on Nathan as he carefully unfolded the note.
Silence.
Nathan's brows furrowed the moment he read the first line. His whole expression shifted—from tension, to confusion, then something closer to unease.
"What?" Harper said quickly, eyes narrowing. "What does it say?"
Nathan turned the paper so the others could see. His voice was low as he read aloud:
"Do not laugh at her actions, no matter how funny."
The silence that followed was even heavier.
"...Huh?" Alice tilted her head, her soft voice quivering. "W-Why would we laugh? She's really scary…"
Nathan didn't answer. He just stared at the paper again, like maybe if he looked at it long enough it would rewrite itself into something less ominous.
Harper let out a tight breath. "You're kidding, right? What kind of warning is that?" She looked around at the others, her voice laced with frustration and fear. "So now we have to worry about laughing?"
Alice tugged gently on her sleeve, inching closer.
"But... what if she does something really weird?" Her voice was soft and anxious, eyes darting toward the kitchen. "Like… like if she walks funny again or makes those weird little noises?"
She whispered the next part, "Her voice sounds like a baby cartoon..."
Harper hissed, "Alice, shhh—don't even joke about that right now."
Ivy leaned forward, her eyes focused on the note like she was trying to decode a riddle."This has to be serious," she muttered. "Someone left this for us. In the apple bowl. That's not random."
"Maybe it's from another group," Nathan said, finally breaking his silence. His voice was low, tight. "Someone who came here before us. They probably figured it out the hard way."
Ivy nodded slowly, voice sharp with logic but her fingers trembling slightly on the table.
"So whatever happens next… if she does anything weird, we don't react. At all. We stay respectful. Stone-faced."
Harper groaned quietly and ran a hand through her hair. "I already hate this place. Now we're not even allowed to laugh?"
Alice pulled her knees up a little in the chair, hugging them close as her voice came out like a whisper.
"I don't think I can laugh right now…"
A pause.
"But what if I do by accident?"
Nathan turned to her, his expression softening.
"If you feel it coming on… just look away. Don't look at her, don't even think about what she's doing. Just focus on something else. One of us will distract her if we have to."
Alice nodded slowly, her big eyes wide with fear but trust.
Ivy folded the note and slipped it into her pocket.
"Whatever happens next… let's not test the limits of this place. We follow the rules. All of them."
The table fell silent again.
And just then—
They heard it.
The creak of the kitchen door.
The shuffle of crooked feet.
The old woman was coming back.
The sound of dragging steps returned.
The group straightened instantly, all eyes shifting to the hallway connecting the kitchen to the main room. The old woman stood there again—but this time, something was different.
Her expression.
She wasn't smiling.
Her face, already a nightmarish mess of decay and deformity, now held a deep, almost childlike frown. Her sagging cheeks drooped even further, and the reddish, swollen skin beneath her pale, milky-grey eyes twitched slightly as if about to peel off. One of her eyelids drooped so far that it seemed barely connected, the wrinkled skin around it soft and raw like rotting fruit.
Her jaw trembled as she spoke, the corners of her cracked lips turned downward.
"You don't like apples?"
Her voice had the same soft, innocent lilt as before—a childish, squeaky tone that didn't belong to this… thing.
She blinked slowly, her cloudy pupils barely shifting as she scanned their faces.
"I really thought you would like apples..."
She paused, her tone deflating like a balloon losing air.
"Those are really sweet apples."
She sniffed slightly, as if trying to hold back tears.
"Everyone loves the apples here."
Her disappointment wasn't theatrical—it was raw, sincere, and disturbingly human.It felt like watching a child watch their birthday gift being rejected by people they wanted love from.
The group sat frozen. A slow, creeping horror slid into their bones—not just because of her words, but because of the rulebook's warning, now echoing louder than ever:
Do not be mean. Do everything they say. Respect them.
And the note:
Do not laugh.
Ivy's eyes widened slightly as it clicked.
This wasn't a leftover warning from a previous group. This note was the phase's instruction—an official directive hidden in plain sight. Laughing wasn't just dangerous—it was a trigger. A trap. Like a landmine hidden under polite hospitality.
But why laughter? Why such a specific, strange line?
She didn't have time to think. The old woman was waiting.
Nathan spoke first, his tone calm, warm, desperate not to insult her.
"No, no—please don't think that way," he said quickly, shaking his head.
"It's not that we don't like them."
Alice leaned forward gently, her voice soft and sweet, mirroring the woman's.
"We just weren't really hungry… that's all."
She gave a small, nervous smile, her fingers fidgeting with the apple's stem.
The old woman's frown didn't change.
"Everyone can at least have a bite?" she asked sweetly.
But her voice didn't match the face—that thing.
Her skin was loose, warped, hanging like wet fabric draped over bone. Dark red lesions peeked out from beneath the folds of her cheeks, and her lower jaw shifted slightly out of sync with her words, revealing glimpses of blackened gums and chipped teeth. There were open sores—some oozing greenish pus—near her temples, where her hair had started to fall out in sticky clumps.
From one corner of her face, near her jaw, the skin appeared half-melted—like candle wax left too long in the sun—sliding toward her chin and hardening again. Her smile, when it came, stretched the ruined skin unnaturally wide, exposing a deep crack in her lips that tore slightly as she grinned.
Harper looked away, a hand over her mouth.
"Ah, sure. If you really wish," Nathan said, forcing a smile that barely held. He grabbed an apple and turned to the others, urging them silently.
One by one, they followed.
Alice hesitated, but took the apple gently, holding it like a glass ornament. Ivy grabbed hers with a calm expression, but her fingers tightened around it like she was holding a grenade. Harper, jaw tight and throat dry, snatched one up, not even looking at it.
And just like that—
The old woman's grotesque face lit up.
Her sagging eyes widened, and that monstrous smile returned. The flesh around her cheeks wrinkled even more deeply, folding over like old paper being crumpled. One of her ears twitched and a trail of greenish-yellow pus slipped down her neck from beneath her hairline.
"Thank you," she chirped.
Then she turned, her lumpy, bloated feet dragging as she shuffled back into the kitchen.
No one spoke.
They sat there, clutching their apples like lifelines, afraid of what came next.
And still wondering…
Why not laugh?