You are in a white hallway. Doors run down either side of the hall, stretching on and on, each just as plain and unremarkable as the rest. In your stomach, there are the remnants of a feeling that you just dropped down, down, down from far, far away, and you landed, here, in the middle of this hallway.

You don’t remember what came before this. You reach for it, instinctively, stretching out a hand—but whatever happened before, whoever you were before, is gone.

There is only a hallway. The hallway.

You turn and look behind you.

More doors.

Which way, then? You turn again, and stare.

There is a door at the end of the hallway which you don’t remember being there before.

Carefully, you make your way step-by-step towards it. Disconcertingly, the hallway seems to be following you. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the doors passing by, but when you turn to stare at them head-on, the doors are the same as they were a moment ago. You are a flipbook of a person—your legs move ceaselessly, but your background never changes.

And you are at the door.

Your hand reaches out; clasps the doorknob. It turns at your touch and the door swings open soundlessly.

You step into a pristine white room. A man is sitting at a small round table in the centre of it. He wears a crisp, pressed three-piece suit. It is a dark, navy blue with faint pinstripes running over it, and a deep purple handkerchief has been delicately folded into his breast pocket. He has a toothy smile made out of 24-carat diamonds and lips like paintbrush tips.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he is saying. He is not looking at you. He is looking just past you. His hands are clasped in the manner of a news reporter around a phantom microphone. His eyes do not blink. “I am delighted to announce the opening of a new downtown football stadium. Our home team, the Nine Foxes, has expressed thanks to its generous sponsor, the Arctic Chalet, and would like to remind viewers that entering the code ARCTICSTADIUM gets you half-price on tickets, so take advantage of this offer now…”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

You slowly circle him. Is he an enemy? A threat? He does not notice you—or at least, he does not acknowledge you. His lips keep moving in strange ways as he discusses the weather, finance, and traffic conditions. You cannot read his lips. They move like inchworms.

You are seeing him from the back when you pause.

This is a well-lit room by any standards. The signature wash of white LED lights has bathed this room in uniformity and neutrality, and the polished tabletop is gleaming with small reflected highlights.

The man does not have a shadow.

You watch the back of his head. He still has not moved from his position. You can hear his bland voice, nattering on soothingly still. “...witnesses are reporting that the attack did not seem to have a racial motive. Rather, it seemed to be a complete coincidence…”

Slowly, you inch back around to his front.

Is that… a tear? His left eye is watering with a milky white substance. As you watch, the substance gathers and gathers and gathers, and it falls.

However, it does not fall as a droplet. It keeps falling, drawing out the rest of his eye sclera, melting his iris, and emptying his eye socket as it drops like a puddle of liquid cheese onto the table.

Splat.

“...Catherine Sykes, 26, said that ‘she can’t remember a time when the Wahlbergs weren’t around’.” His one hollowed, oozing eye socket stares at you, a gaping ghoulish sore. His other eye does not twitch. It is perfect, round, and devoid of anything. “She said, ‘This town is suffering from gentrification. It’s not what it used to be.’”

You slowly back away, never taking your eyes from the man’s face. He does not move. The only parts of his body in motion are his lips, moving up and down like two inchworms in tandem. His voice is a distant thing now. Your steps take you to the doorway, your breath hitching as you fumble for the doorknob, and you pull the door shut behind you as you exit with the last image of his emotionless face burned into your mind.

There is a faint click from the other side of the door—the sound of a switch, turning off the lights. Silence. Your breathing slows and your trembling stops. You look at the door.

Safe. You are safe.

“And now, back to the studio,” says the man from behind you, and he lunges.