By the next morning, the service road was gone again.
Not gone-gone—just… rebranded.
Alex stood with the others behind a stretch of bright orange fencing, staring at a massive white sign that definitely had not existed twelve hours ago.
MARROW INFRASTRUCTURE RENEWAL PROJECT
TEMPORARY ROAD CLOSURE
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE
Sam read it twice.
Then a third time.
"So," he said slowly, "I watched reality bend yesterday, but sure. Road work."
Lena squinted. "They used Calibri."
Jordan nodded grimly. "Which means this was printed in a rush."
Two men in neon vests stood nearby, pretending very hard to argue about a clipboard. Neither of them had dirt on their boots. One of them had an earpiece.
Riley tilted his head. "Those guys don't build roads."
Maya shifted uneasily. The hum was quieter today—dampened, like someone had wrapped the building in foam.
"They put something around it," she whispered.
Alex frowned. "Around the building?"
"No," Maya said. "Around us."
---
The explanation hit the news before first period ended.
LOCAL SINKHOLE PROMPTS SAFETY RESPONSE
UNSTABLE SOIL IDENTIFIED NEAR SERVICE ROAD
NO STRUCTURAL RISK TO RESIDENTS
Sam watched the clip on his phone in disbelief.
The anchor smiled calmly as footage rolled—carefully framed shots of cracked asphalt, orange fencing, and men in vests nodding gravely.
Not a single angle showed the boundary.
Not one showed the building.
Jordan leaned over Sam's shoulder. "They're controlling the narrative window."
Lena crossed her arms. "They're lying."
Alex exhaled. "They're editing."
A student nearby scoffed. "Sinkholes are freaky, man. My cousin lost a mailbox once."
Sam turned slowly. "I watched a pen defy physics."
The student blinked. "Cool story."
And just like that, the moment slid sideways—no longer impossible, just unlikely.
Maya's stomach twisted.
"They're making it forgettable again," she said.
---
By lunch, the town had accepted the story.
Mostly.
The fence expanded. The vests multiplied. A portable trailer appeared with a logo that didn't quite make sense if you looked at it too long.
MARROWGEOLOGICALSERVICES
Sam poked it. "That's not a real department."
Jordan squinted. "Neither was Continuity."
Alex stiffened. "You found more?"
Jordan nodded. "Old shell agencies. They rotate names every few years. Same playbook."
Riley watched a woman argue briefly with a man in a vest, then walk away shaking her head.
"She remembered something," Riley said.
Maya nodded. "They're smoothing it over."
"Is that even possible?" Lena asked.
Sam gestured wildly. "Have you met the internet?"
As if summoned, a group of teenagers walked by, phones out.
"Did you see the videos?" one whispered.
"Yeah, but they're fake, right?"
"Probably AI."
Sam laughed hollowly. "I hate this timeline."
Alex watched a government truck roll past slowly, cameras mounted high, scanning.
"They're not just hiding the building," he said. "They're measuring reactions."
Jordan nodded. "Seeing who resists the cover story."
Maya swallowed. "Seeing who remembers."
The hum flickered—uneasy.
---
That afternoon, Agent Harris stood at the edge of the fence, hands in his pockets, looking like a man who had lost an argument with reality and was considering a rematch.
He didn't look at the teens directly.
Didn't have to.
"They're calling it a sinkhole," Sam muttered loudly.
Harris sighed. "Of course they are."
Alex stepped closer. "People saw it."
"Yes," Harris said. "And people see magic tricks every day."
Lena frowned. "You're letting this happen."
Harris looked tired. "I'm slowing it."
Jordan crossed his arms. "By lying?"
"By redirecting," Harris replied. "Which, you may recall, is the building's original sin."
Maya flinched.
"They're putting dampeners in place," Harris continued quietly. "Visual noise. Plausible explanations. Just enough to keep panic down."
"And control up," Sam said.
Harris didn't argue.
Alex asked, "What happens if the building pushes back?"
Harris met his eyes. "Then the explanation gets bigger."
"How big?" Lena asked.
Harris hesitated.
"Big enough to swallow the truth," he said.
---
That night, the group sat in Alex's basement again.
Pizza boxes. Half-finished sodas. No one was really eating.
Sam lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling. "So to recap: the government turned our interdimensional emotional support building into a pothole."
"Sinkhole," Jordan corrected.
"Trauma hole," Sam replied.
Maya traced lines in her sketchbook, slower than usual. "It doesn't like being called unstable."
Alex smiled faintly. "I don't blame it."
Riley spoke quietly. "It feels… muffled."
Maya nodded. "They're trying to make it smaller without touching it."
Lena looked up. "Can they?"
Maya hesitated. "They can make it quieter."
Jordan frowned. "Which means when it does act again—"
"It'll be louder," Alex finished.
Silence settled.
Sam sighed. "So what do we do?"
Alex looked around the room—at Sam's forced humor, Lena's clenched jaw, Jordan's relentless thinking, Riley's distant focus, Maya's careful breathing.
"We don't let them define it," he said. "And we don't let them define us."
Sam grinned weakly. "Cool. No pressure."
Maya glanced at Alex, something unspoken passing between them.
Outside, beyond fences and signs and carefully worded headlines, the building held itself still.
Not hidden.
Not gone.
Just waiting.
Because it had learned something important:
If humans could lie about reality—
Then reality might need witnesses who wouldn't.