Thea blinked hard.
They were standing on a sidewalk in broad daylight, birds chirping overhead. Everything looked normal — too normal.
Trimmed lawns. Mailboxes. Driveways with parked sedans that hadn't gathered a speck of dust. The houses were almost identical, just varied enough to avoid suspicion. A slight shift in paint tone. One porch with wind chimes, another with a flamingo.
It was eerily perfect.
Like a neighborhood designed by someone who'd only ever read about them online.
Thea nudged Igor. "Tell me you see it."
He scanned the street slowly. "Suburbia 2.0. Creepy in an over-filtered kind of way."
A dog barked in the distance.
They both flinched.
It sounded like a recording.
"Alright," Thea said, checking her phone. Still no signal. The time? 12:00 PM. It didn't move.
"Frozen time again," she muttered.
Igor picked up a newspaper from a porch nearby. "The Blooming Gazette," he read aloud. "Volume 001. 'Everyone's Happy Here!' That's not suspicious at all."
She peered at the headline: "NEWCOMERS ARRIVE — INTEGRATION BEGINS"
They exchanged a look.
Thea pointed. "Let's find someone. Anyone."
They walked down the sidewalk, the sun locked in an eternal zenith overhead. As they rounded the corner, they spotted a figure — a man in his 50s, watering a garden.
He turned.
Smiled.
"Lovely day, isn't it?" he said, not blinking.
Thea replied slowly, "Yeah… beautiful. Hey, could you tell us where—"
The man dropped his watering can.
It clanged unnaturally loud on the concrete.
He stood still. Then spoke in a monotone:
"Please remain in character. Observation window is still open."
Thea froze. "What?"
But the man didn't answer. Instead, he crouched to pick up the watering can, smile pasted back in place. "Hydrangeas need extra love this time of year," he said, as if nothing had happened.
Igor stepped back. "He's not… real."
"No," Thea whispered. "He's programmed."
Behind them, a garage door creaked open.
They spun.
Out stepped a woman in an apron holding a pie.
"I made extra!" she called cheerfully. "Strawberry rhubarb — Igor's favorite, right?"
He blinked. "I've never said that to anyone."
Thea's stomach dropped.
This wasn't just a fake town.
It was their town.
Their past. Their memories. Turned into a simulation.
They ran.
Down street after street of looping nostalgia. A version of their high school. A childhood park. The broken vending machine from their bus stop—except it wasn't broken anymore. It lit up perfectly.
"Someone's been inside our heads," Thea hissed as they ducked into an alley behind a hardware store replica.
Igor nodded grimly. "They've recreated everything. But not accurately. Like someone built it from fragments."
She crouched, catching her breath. "It's a memory maze. Not just a test—this is extraction. They're pulling something out of us."
"Or trying to insert something," he muttered.
A speaker crackled to life overhead.
"You're adapting too quickly. That's not allowed. Please return to your designated integration points."
They looked up. Surveillance drones — no longer hiding — floated just above the roofs. Watching.
Following.
Igor laughed dryly. "So subtle."
Thea stood. "We need out. But I don't think this place has a door."
At the end of the alley, a figure stepped into view.
Not a drone. Not a smiling resident.
A girl.
About their age. Dark hoodie. Greasy bangs.
Real.
Her eyes darted between them. "You're new."
Thea tensed. "Who are you?"
"Name's Molly," she said quickly. "Don't say anything too loud. They haven't fully loaded this sector yet."
Igor stepped forward. "Are you stuck here too?"
She gave a bitter smile. "Three weeks and twelve 'memory resets,' give or take. I stopped counting after the test where my mom tried to eat me with a spatula."
Thea winced.
Molly looked between them. "You're not like the others."
"Others?" Igor asked.
"The test subjects. They think this place is real. The ones who wake up usually break in a week. You… you guys walked in like you were already pissed off."
Thea folded her arms. "We are."
Molly looked over her shoulder, then gestured. "Follow me. Quietly."
They followed her through a shattered grocery store façade, then behind a fake cereal aisle, through a hole in the drywall. A hidden path.
"What is this place?" Igor asked under his breath.
Molly spoke as she walked. "They call it Sector 9. But it's not a sector. It's a sandbox. They test how memory affects behavior. Loyalty. Morality. Identity. It's like a theme park made by gaslighting psychologists."
"Charming," Thea muttered.
Molly stopped before a heavy metal hatch. "This is the only place I've found without cameras. I think the older zones are less monitored."
She opened it.
Inside: a rusted stairwell spiraling downward.
Igor sighed. "Of course it's down."
They descended into a storage basement. Dust. Darkness. Silence.
Molly clicked on a lantern.
"This is my safe zone. Only place I haven't hallucinated yet."
Thea stared at the peeling walls. "Why help us?"
Molly hesitated.
Then: "Because I saw what happened to the last ones like you. The ones who stayed sane. They didn't exit. They got recycled."
Igor stiffened. "Recycled how?"
Molly's eyes gleamed in the lantern light.
"They became part of the maze."