Elise adjusted her mask—a pale, porcelain replica of her face, human yet disturbingly artificial. In her world, masks were the norm, carved to resemble faces but never convincingly enough to forget they weren’t real. The unspoken rule was clear: never remove your mask in public.

The quietness of the streets was surreal, with only the buzz of fluttering streetlights breaking the silence. Elise had stayed out past curfew, wandering for too long. Turning a corner into an unfamiliar alley, she froze: Hinged to the end of the alley was a light blue door, its surface covered in realistic, shifting eyes that fluttered like static. The paint rippled unnaturally. That door didn’t belong, but something compelled her to reach for the handle.

The instant she stepped through, the air shifted—faintly metallic, with a sickly sweet hint of cotton candy. Before her stretched an endless playground bathed in harsh fluorescent light. The equipment was grotesque: a spiraling slide that went nowhere, an upside-down swing set, and a merry-go-round spinning impossibly fast—even with no one on it.

Laughter echoed throughout this strange place, light and cheerful at first, but the longer she listened, the more fake and robotic they sounded, as if they weren’t actual children. Small figures darted between the constructs. Their masks of flowers were distorted parodies, glitching unnaturally with X’s for eyes and blood-red smiles that seemed wet in the light.

“Hello?” Elise called, her voice trembling.

The children didn’t react to her at all; the movements of the children were unnervingly fluid yet almost mechanical. She moved further onto the playground now, searching for an exit. Every doorway seemed to dissolve into static as she passed through. The laughter grew louder, overlapping on an unbearable cacophony.

The brightly-colored structures faded to shadow as she continued, edges pixelated and crumbling, like a corrupted file. Elise felt desperation claw at her as every step forward seemed to erase the world behind her. At last, she entered a final room of consuming darkness. The laughter stopped abruptly. An oppressive silence took its place. A low hum attracted her gaze to the soft light ahead; she shook all over, inching her way forward.

The following room was empty—except for the masks. They glowed with keen, white light where their eyes and jagged teeth should have been. They floating around her in a perfect circle, as if in orbit. Elise tried to back away, but the masks contracted their circle, each step in a movement synchronized with hers. A scream ripped from her throat, raw and terrified, echoing in the void.

And then—nothing.