The lights returned without warning. They flickered on all at once—harsh, sterile white—and buzzed faintly, as if the villa held its breath. For a moment, no one moved.

Then Preston stepped forward and yanked at the handle to his room. Locked.

“Try the others,” Jude said halfway down the hall.

One by one, the doors stayed shut. Max tried kicking his. Nothing. Amelia pressed her ear to hers, listening. 

“Nothing,” she muttered. “No sound.” 

“They were never real rooms,” Jude said. “Not in a way we understood.” 

“That’s comforting,” Lena snapped.

“Okay,” Leo said, stepping in between them. “We need to regroup downstairs. We don’t know what’s happening, but yelling won’t fix it.” 

They moved as a unit, now slower and more aware of every creak in the floor and every shift in the shadows. Joseph walked near the back again, just like always. No one noticed how he kept glancing over his shoulder. No one ever did.

Downstairs, the villa didn’t feel safer. 

The living room was too open. Windows stretched from floor to ceiling, but outside was just a wall of trees. Not the beach. Not the ocean. Just dense, endless forest. 

“That wasn’t here before,” Sasha said. 

“It’s not,” Preston agreed, his voice low. 

Max tried the front door. Locked. Jude checked the side panel—nothing. The walls were seamless now. No knobs. No hinges. Just clean white lines, as if the villa had been designed for hiding. 

Lena pulled out her phone. “No service.” 

“Same,” Nina echoed. “Wi-Fi’s gone too.”

Eli looked up from his screen. “So we’re trapped. Great.” 

“There has to be an emergency override,” Jude said, pacing. “Some hidden switch or system they didn’t think we’d check.” 

“You still think this is a game?” Leo asked, not accusing, just tired. 

Jude didn’t answer. 

They all drifted toward the couches, the low glass coffee table, and the sprawling white rug, which looked more clinical than cozy. No one sat down—not yet. 

Joseph stood near the back window, his reflection faint in the glass. The hallway footage replayed in his mind: door after door, name after name. His plaque had looked slightly crooked, almost like an afterthought, like someone had remembered him at the last second. 

“You okay?” Celeste’s voice was soft behind him. 

He turned. “Yeah. Just tired.” 

She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t. Her arms crossed in front of her. A barrier, maybe, or just a habit. 

The room settled into an uneasy quiet. No one knew what to do next. No one wanted to be the first to ask the real question. Joseph didn’t ask for it either. 

Max finally broke the silence. 

“So,” he said, forcing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes, “what’s the prize for this game, Preston? A lifetime supply of trauma?” 

He glanced around. No one laughed. 

Max shifted his weight. “Come on. You expect me to believe this isn’t one of your stupid birthday stunts?” 

Preston didn’t answer. 

Max turned to Jude. “Okay, then it’s you. You and your secret tech club or whatever—cameras, locked doors, spooky forest. You love this kind of crap.” 

Jude shook his head, slower this time. “If this were me, we’d be doing laser tag in the dark with fake blood. Not this.” 

“You think I’d lock myself in?” Preston said, his voice tight. “You think I’d fake being this freaked out?” 

Max opened his mouth and then closed it again. 

The quiet returned, heavier now. 

Leo spoke next, quietly but firmly. “Whoever did this… It’s not a joke. The sooner we stop pretending it is, the better our chance of getting out.” 

“Don’t say ‘getting out’ like it’s real,” Lena said sharply. “We don’t even know what this is yet.” 

“We know enough,” Amelia said, against the wall. “They said someone’s getting eliminated. That’s not exactly subtle.” 

Nina rubbed her hands over her face. “This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.” 

“Feels real to me,” Jude muttered. 

Joseph didn’t say anything. He just looked at the windows again—the trees outside that shouldn’t be there, tall, black, and too still. 

Sasha broke first. “I want to go home,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Please, I just want to go home.” 

No one had an answer for her. 

Sasha sank onto the floor, her back pressed against the edge of the couch. Her arms curled around her knees, and her sunglasses remained uselessly perched in her hair. 

“I don’t want to be here,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t care whose idea this is. I want to go home. I want my room, my mom, my phone. I didn’t ask for this.” 

She tried to blink back tears, but they came anyway—quiet at first, then shaking. 

Preston instinctively moved toward her, but flinched when he reached for her hand. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Just don’t right now.” 

He stopped. 

Nina crouched beside her, rubbing her back in small, steady circles. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re all scared. But we’re going to get through this.” 

“No one’s coming for us,” Sasha muttered. 

Leo sat down on the arm of the couch near her. “Then we stay together. We figure it out, step by step. That’s all we can do right now.” 

Lena handed Sasha a bottle of water from one of their bags. “Breathe, okay? We’re not giving up just because the lights flickered and someone played a horror movie.”

Max hovered nearby, unusually quiet. 

Finally, Jude speaks up with a truth no one else has dared to voice. "This place was designed to make us panic. That’s part of it. The more we freak out, the easier we’ll be to control." 

“So what?” Amelia asked. “Are we just going to sit around and play house until they come for us?” 

No one replied. 

Eventually, hunger set in. 

Jude opened a cabinet in the corner, hoping for snacks, but instead found a row of identical silver meal packages stacked neatly inside. They had no brand or label, just a small white sticker that read: Dinner. 

“What the hell is this?” Max muttered as he peeled one open. Inside was a thin, flat piece of bread with something that looked like chicken or maybe sardines. It was hard to tell. The smell was salty and sterile. 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Lena said. 

“It’s all we’ve got,” Jude replied, already chewing. “It tastes like cardboard, but it’s not poison. Probably.” 

Joseph took one from the pile and sat near the corner of the room, close but not part of the group. He peeled back the packaging and took a small bite. It was dense, bland, and vaguely fishy. 

“I think it’s compressed protein,” he said quietly, addressing the room more than anyone in particular. “Military rations, maybe.” 

No one responded. Or maybe they didn’t hear him. 

Max gagged dramatically. “Whatever it is, it tastes like regret.” 

A few tired laughs followed. Even Sasha managed a smile, albeit a faint one. 

The meal proceeded in silence, filled only with the sounds of chewing and grimacing. Eli joked about eating drywall, and someone called him an idiot. The usual rhythm was just off, like a song played a few beats too slowly. 

Joseph sat through it all, nodding along whenever someone made eye contact. At one point, Nina passed him a water bottle without a word. He murmured a thanks. 

After a while, someone—probably Leo—suggested, “We should rest. Let’s take turns staying awake.” Joseph added, “I’ll go first.” 

Lena was already assigning shifts and didn’t acknowledge him, but Max nodded. “Cool. Wake me in a couple of hours.” 

That was enough. 

Blankets were folded neatly at the edge of the couch—ones no one remembered bringing. Just enough. Just right. It felt wrong, too. 

Joseph stayed near the window, where the trees outside pressed dark and close against the glass. He could see his reflection—tired, half-lit, but still there.