Eliza clicked on her bedside lamp, eyes squinting like knives. “This is the third time this month you’ve woken everyone up. What’s wrong with you?”
Kevin swung his legs over the edge of their bunk, half in shadow, voice low and sharp. “If Sister Agnes comes in here ‘cause of your screaming, we all get punished. You ever think about that?”
“I—I saw—” June tried to explain, his voice cracking under the weight of panic and confusion. But the words stopped cold in his throat the moment his gaze landed on May. She was curled up on her side on the lower bunk, wrapped in her blankets so tightly it was as if she had never moved at all. The knife was gone. No trace of what he had just seen or thought he had seen. Nobody else seemed to be paying any attention to her.
“Brain-damaged freak,” someone muttered.
“Just shut up and go back to sleep,” Eliza said as she flicked off the lamp with a decisive snap, “Or I’ll give you something real to scream about tomorrow.”
Darkness swallowed the room again, wrapping around June like a heavy blanket he couldn’t push off. He sat there in the dark with wide eyes, trying to make sense of the jumble in his head. A few minutes ago, he’d been dreaming, at least, he thought he had been. But then he woke up in shock with May standing over him with knife in her hand, trying to slit his throat. And yet, now she was just lying there, breathing steady, like none of it had ever happened.
So what is real? And what is’t?
He scratched at his scalp, mind spinning so fast it felt like it might break apart. Thinking wasn’t something he was used to, not like this. This new awareness, this clarity, it was too much, too fast, like someone had jammed too much power into a cheap wire and now it was starting to burn out. His skull pulsed like a pressure cooker about to blow.
Then he remembered the voice in his head. The one he had ignored, thinking it was just part of the dream. But now... now it felt like the only thing that had told the truth. It had said these were echoes, mimics. Not real. Just fragments pretending to be people. Yes. That made sense. It had to be the answer.
He was still inside the refrigerator. Still trapped.
This... all of this... was just his dying brain stretching seconds into hours.
“What do I do now?” June whispered to no one.
His fingers gripped his hair and pulled tight, pain blooming at the scalp as the headache rose up hard and fast, splitting behind his eyes like an axe.
One-two-three-four-five
…
The next day arrived without incident. No one seemed to remember what had happened during the night. June kept his guard up, but his mind was far from stable. Even in sleep, his demons gave him no rest, as if he was being tortured in his final moments of life. The previous night’s scene kept playing in his head on repeat, like a badly stuck loop.
Still, morning meant routine, and routine meant school, at least, that’s what he told himself.
With the images of the night still flickering in his head, he forced himself to the bath. The water didn’t help. But somewhere between scrubbing his skin and putting on the school uniform, a strange thought slipped in. He understood the labels on the soap bottles. The print on his towel. He could read not just sound things out, but actually get them. Maybe it wasn’t all bad. Maybe if his head was changing, he could finally study like the other kids. That idea lifted his mood more than it should have.
After changing, he arrived at the dining table. The breakfast looked good, but it tasted just as bad as dinner, maybe even worse. June forced it down. He wasn't allowed to leave until his plate was empty, and by the time he finished, his eyes had gone red from holding back the gag reflex. Only the water tasted the way it used to. That, at least, hadn’t changed.
He drained the cup and made for the door, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, ready to walk out and face whatever waited at school.
But Sister Margaret stepped in front of him before he could reach it.
“Hold on,” she said, standing close enough that June had to tilt his head back to meet her eyes. "Where are you going?"
He blinked. “I’m going to school.”
She didn’t move. Her arms crossed, her voice sharper than usual. “Yesterday, your teachers called. They said they can’t teach you anymore. That you don’t do your homework. That you don’t understand them. From now on, Sister Agnes will be teaching you at home.”
For a second, his brain refused to process it.
His mouth hung open. Words caught somewhere between thought and breath. Yes, it was true, he had struggled in school, and yes, he didn’t always finish his homework. But it wasn’t because he didn’t care. It wasn’t because he didn’t try. Every time he sat down to write or solve or read, something would slip through the cracks in his mind. And even when he did manage to finish an assignment, half the time it was stolen or ripped up by the other kids before he could turn it in. How was that his fault? His lips moved, but nothing came out. The instances were piling up in his mind like a Jenga tower with someone pulling all the wrong blocks. The real Sister Margaret would never agree to pull him from school so easily. She would have gone there herself to argue his case. Instead, she was keeping him trapped here.
June bit the inside of his cheek and took a slow step back, shoulders sinking. His hands curled into fists at his sides, but he didn’t argue. He didn’t ask why.
One-two-three-four-five-
He turned and walked away, holding everything together.
…
"None of... none of them are real..." June kept muttering as he scribbled and drew on the paper with charcoal. Drawing was the one thing he had always been decent at.
"The doorknob monster, the food, May, Sister Margaret, and now not going to school. They all want me to stay here." He listed everything in his head, trying to see the pattern.
His head throbbed, but the pain was nothing compared to the terror he'd felt when May had nearly slit his throat or when the doorknob had tried to eat his hand.
Maybe this dream wants me to stay inside it, and if I leave, it'll disappear. But I don't want to stay here. What should I do…?
The answer came to him suddenly, as if his mind had been working on the problem without him realizing it.
"Hey, are you there?" he slowly called out to the voice in his head. Silence. It seemed to appear only when it wanted to, just like him when he tried to hide from the bullies. "Can you help me?" he pleaded. Still nothing.
When no answer came, he realized he could only help himself. But how? How could he wake from this?
June shook his head hard, as if trying to dislodge an idea from wherever ideas came from. Then it hit him. He climbed down from his bunk bed and went to the closet, where he found the knife Kevin had thrown at him yesterday. He took it and climbed back up to his bed.
Pain. It was pain that had woken him from his nightmare last night.
"Breath In-out-in," he whispered, taking deep breaths as he positioned the knife over his stomach, slowly increasing the pressure. One minute passed, then five, then thirty….
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Sister Agnes never came to call him for his lesson. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he tried to force himself to go through with it. The thought of the sharp blade piercing his stomach was too much, not to mention the fear already flooding through him.
He threw the knife away and collapsed onto the bed, curling up with his arms wrapped around himself like a hug.
Life had always been difficult. Now it seemed dying was just as hard.
…
Luckily the rest of the children at the orphanage were at school. June realized that if he trusted the voice in his head, these fake people seemed to follow some kind of routine, which worked in his favor. At least he wouldn't be under constant scrutiny.
A new idea struck him suddenly, snapping into place like a puzzle piece he hadn’t even realized was missing. If the doorknob had been fake, if the people around him weren’t real, and if the food itself was broken somehow, then what else in this house didn’t belong? His thoughts, once heavy and slow, now connected faster than he could keep up with. He remembered the nightmare, the kitchen coming to life, every machine and blade turning on him, and the more he thought about it, the more he believed that might have been more than just a dream. If any of it was real, then the kitchen might be the best place to start.
Without wasting another second, he climbed down from his bunk, stepped quickly to the door, and peeked into the hallway. His eyes darted left, then right. There were five nuns in the orphanage, Sister Margaret, Agnes, Lily, Fawn, and Zea and seventeen children. With the kids gone to school, he only had the sisters to worry about. If he could keep track of them, he might be able to move freely, at least for a little while.
Seeing the hallway empty and the stairs clear, he crept down quietly, each step placed carefully to avoid the creaks he knew too well. At the bottom, he paused again, glancing around the corner like he used to when sneaking away from bullies, a habit that only worked about half the time, but it was better than nothing.
“What are you doing here?”
The voice slammed into him like a door thrown open in a storm. His attempt at invisibility had failed.
Sister Fawn narrowed her eyes. "Why aren't you in your room studying?"
"I–I–" June stuttered, mind racing for an excuse while staring at the floor. "I was thirsty. Came to grab some water."
She stared at him, unmoved. From the tight line of her mouth and the tilt of her head, June could tell she wasn’t buying it completely, but in her presence, with his brain half-frozen under pressure, that was the best excuse he could come up with.
"Don’t wander around for too long. Otherwise…." she warned, giving him one last look before walking toward the prayer room.
June gulped and rushed to the kitchen, checking his surroundings again upon arrival.
He scanned the room quickly, counting the appliances in his head, eyes landing almost immediately on the blender. It was just the right size, not too big to carry, and more importantly, not something the sisters used often. If he took it for a short time, no one would notice it was missing. Still, he hesitated. It looked normal, nothing strange about it, but so had the doorknob, and that thing didn’t change until he touched it.
He reached out and tapped the blender lightly with one finger, then jerked his hand back, holding his breath. Nothing happened. That was enough to calm him, just a little. He stepped forward, grabbed the blender with both hands, and hurried back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time before ducking into his room. He shut the door, crossed the room, and slipped into the bathroom, locking the door behind him with shaky fingers.
His original plan had been to throw the blender from the rooftop, to see if it broke, if it bled, if it changed, but that would cause too much noise, and someone would definitely come to check. So, he had to settle for his second option. He placed the blender down carefully on the concrete floor, and slowly pulled the knife from his waistband, holding it tightly in one hand. But after a quick glance at the smooth, solid surface of the machine, he realized how useless that blade would be if this thing turned out to be like the doorknob. There was no way a kitchen knife would do anything but bounce off.
His eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for something more useful. The room was larger than most as it meant to be shared by several kids at once, and off to the side was a low wooden stool, the kind used while bathing. He snatched it up, weighing its heft in his hands. Then, he turned his attention to the door, wondering just how much sound it would actually block.
If the thing inside the blender screamed, or if something else started moving, he didn’t want anyone outside hearing it. Quickly, another idea struck him, fast and frantic, and he set the stool down again. Grabbing a pair of towels from the rack, he stuffed them into the cracks beneath the door and along the edges, pressing them in with shaking fingers until no light bled through, no gap remained.
He stepped back and looked around once more, double-checking the windows, the corners, every silent place something might be watching from.
Outside the glass, the sky had shifted. The grey had deepened to charcoal, thick with clouds that looked like they’d been smeared across the sky by a giant’s hand. Rain felt close. A faint beam of light pushed through the thin curtains above the sink, just enough to cut a pale path across the bathroom floor, dim but steady, like a flashlight under a blanket.
June turned back to the blender.
He stood over it, tightening his grip on the stool, and took one long breath before lifting it high and bringing it down hard.
The blow landed with a heavy thud, the kind that echoed in a quiet room and stuck in the chest.
“Ggggrrrrrrr… Rrrrrrr…”
The sound came almost immediately.
Loud, mechanical, guttural—like the noise an animal makes when some hit it with stone and it wasn't sure if it wants to run or bite.
The blender, lifeless only seconds before, began to vibrate where it sat. Its base rattled gently against the concrete, and the blades inside started to spin, not fast, but steady without any power cord plugged in.
It had no right to be moving. But it was.
June's fear instantly peaked, his hands shaking as he smacked the blender again. But the thing had grown a mouth with a long tongue on its base and moved to bite before tossing the wooden stool into its open head, which shredded it into pieces with its spinning blades. Almost immediately it jumped toward June, who scrambled backward and nearly slipped on the bathroom tiles.
The blender monster landed with a heavy thunk, its plastic body cracking the floor tile. Its mouth stretched impossibly wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth that hadn't been there before. The blades inside spun faster, whirring with hungry anticipation.
June backed against the bathroom wall, his mind racing. The toilet stood to his right, the sink to his left. He grabbed the small metal plastic can and hurled it at the creature, but the blender simply caught it in its maw and chewed it to pieces, spitting out twisted plastic shards. The thing advanced, hopping forward with weird, jerky movements. Its power cord now swung behind it like a tail, the plug scraping against the floor tiles with a sound like nails on wall.
June's eyes darted around for escape. In an attempt to halt its momentum he threw everything he could get his hands on. The soap dish. Toilet paper. A small bottle of shampoo. But nothing seemed useful against something that could chew through fabric, wood and plastic. Next his eyes fell on the toilet tank lid. It was heavy ceramic, solid and thick. As the blender monster lunged again, June dove sideways, narrowly avoiding its snapping jaws.
He scrambled to the toilet, but quickly realized he had cornered himself again, like always. His fear threatened to spill out of his pants. But, the blender launched itself at him again, its metal jaws wide and flesh tongue snaking. With nowhere else to go, June lifted the heavy porcelain lid as a shield. The monster's mouth clamped down on it instead of his face.
There was a horrible screeching sound as the spinning blades hit the ceramic. The blender shuddered violently, its fleshy mouth stretching wide in what looked like pain. Thick red blood mixed with oil began oozing from between the seams of its plastic body.
June wasn't thinking anymore. “Come one,” He pushed the lid further into the monster's mouth, his arms trembling with effort and fear. “Try to eat this.”
The blender's long tongue thrashed wildly, slapping wetly against the bathroom wall and leaving smears of blood. Its mechanical teeth scraped against the ceramic with an awful grinding noise. More thick blood spurted from its body as sparks flew from inside, and a burning smell mixed with something rotten filled the small bathroom. With a final lurch, the blender tried to pull away, but the lid was stuck in its jaws. The metal teeth cracked and bent. Its tongue split down the middle. The motor made a high-pitched whine that sounded almost like a scream, then a loud pop as something critical broke inside. The blades stopped spinning, and the monster’s plastic body seemed to deflate slightly, as if whatever had been inhabiting it was leaking out.
It twitched once, twice, then fell motionless. The eyes that had formed on its sides glazed over, and the mouth went slack, tongue hanging limply over the edge of the toilet.
Whatever unholy life had animated it was gone.
June stood there, frozen in place, the toilet lid still clenched in his trembling hands, his knuckles pale and tight from the effort it had taken to swing it down. He couldn't believe it, he was still breathing. Still alive. His ears rang from the chaos, and his entire body felt like it had been dragged through boiling water.
Then… .. .
[VOICE IN HEAD]
[Hostile Entity: Blender (Sentient)] - Dead]
[+2[XP]+ Gained]
[+[1]+ Radical Extracted]
[You may allocate EXP to increase level and Radical to increase personal radicals Points.]
[Recommendation: Distribute Free Radicals to the most beneficial radical for adaptive survival…...]
…... .
[Allocating Free Radical…]
[Radical Type Selected: Intelligence]
[INT +1 | New Total: 8]
A ripple moved through June’s head. Not painful, not exactly pleasant either, but noticeable, like someone had lifted a thick curtain off his thoughts and let in clearer air.
[Warning: The Dungeon has fully awakened.]
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