Chapter 6: The Housewarming Invitation

Chapter 6: The Housewarming Invitation

For two days, Alex lived in a state of suspended dread. The eviscerated corpse of the teddy bear and its small, obscene pile of bones remained on his living room floor, a grim monument to his failed rebellion. He had tried to clean them up once, but a wave of nausea and a paralyzing fear had stopped him. To touch them felt like touching the source of the infection, to acknowledge this new reality so deeply that there would be no going back.

The four miniature bears still held their silent vigil on the kitchen counter, their button eyes tracking his every haunted movement. His laptop remained open on the coffee table, the mocking, unresponsive screen of The Den a constant reminder of his excommunication. Your debt must be paid. The words were a brand on his consciousness. He was trapped, a prisoner in his own home, waiting for the next move from an opponent whose rules he couldn't fathom.

He hadn’t slept. He subsisted on tap water and stale crackers, his body buzzing with a toxic cocktail of caffeine and terror. Every creak of the building, every distant siren, sent a jolt of panic through him. He jumped when the refrigerator kicked on. The world outside his windows seemed distant and unreal, a pantomime of a life he no longer lived.

Then, on the afternoon of the second day, the silence was shattered by a sound so mundane it was utterly terrifying: the sharp, cheerful chime of his doorbell.

Alex froze, a piece of cracker turning to dust in his mouth. He wasn't expecting anyone. He hadn’t spoken to anyone. His heart hammered against his ribs as he crept toward the door, his stockinged feet silent on the floorboards. He peered through the peephole, the fish-eye lens distorting the hallway into a warped tunnel.

There was no one there.

But on his welcome mat sat a large, matte black box. It was a perfect cube, about two feet on each side, sealed with black tape. There were no logos, no markings, just a white shipping label affixed to the top. The deliveryman was gone, as if he had never been there at all. The deliveryman regrets the inconvenience, the robotic voice of Cody had said. Alex’s blood ran cold.

He listened for a long moment, his ear pressed against the door. Hearing nothing, he slowly unfastened the deadbolt and the chain. He cracked the door open and snatched the box from the hallway, dragging it inside before slamming the door shut and locking it again.

He hauled it into the center of the living room, his hands shaking. It was surprisingly light for its size. His eyes fell on the shipping label, and the last of his strength seemed to drain out of him, leaving him hollow.

The recipient's name was printed in stark, block letters: CODY GELLER.

But the address listed below it, clear as day, was his own. 124 Willow Creek Lane, Apt. 1B.

They had linked them. This wasn't just his nightmare anymore; it was theirs. The thought sent a bizarre and unwelcome wave of relief through him. He wasn't entirely alone in this. He fumbled for his phone, his thumb finally finding Cody’s name.

“Alex? Man, I’ve been trying to call you. You weren’t answering, I was about to come over,” Cody said, his voice a frantic jumble of relief and concern.

“Don’t bother,” Alex said, his own voice a dead, emotionless monotone that scared even him. “It’s already here.”

“It? What’s ‘it’?”

“A package. For you, Cody.” Alex stared at the black cube. “It was delivered to my apartment. How did they get my address, Cody? How did they know we were friends?”

The line went silent. Alex could picture Cody on the other end, his confident bravado crumbling. “That… that’s impossible,” Cody stammered. “I never gave them anything. Just a burner email. I swear, Alex. I swear on my life.” He sounded genuinely terrified, and for the first time, Alex believed him. They were both just flies in the same web.

“Get over here,” Alex said. “We’re opening it together.”

Twenty minutes later, Cody was standing in Alex’s living room, his face pale. His eyes took in the scene: Alex, gaunt and wild-eyed; the gutted bear and its pile of bones on the floor; the ominous black box sitting like a monolith between them.

“Jesus, Alex…” Cody whispered, recoiling from the sight of the bones. “Is that…?”

“The first gift,” Alex confirmed grimly. He gestured at the box with his foot. “I saw something on The Den. Before it… cut me off. People were talking about ‘Mystery Boxes.’ Is that what this is?”

Cody nodded, his eyes wide. “Yeah. It’s like, a prize or something. For solving puzzles on the site. People pay hundreds in crypto for them. No one ever says what’s inside, though. It’s part of the rules.”

“Well, we didn’t solve anything,” Alex said, “and we’re about to break the rules.”

He grabbed the kitchen knife he’d used on the bear. The symbolism wasn’t lost on him. Together, they sliced through the black tape and folded back the flaps of the box. Inside, nestled in black tissue paper, was a single, large, amorphous shape made of cheap, synthetic fur.

They pulled it out, and it unfolded onto the floor with a soft, synthetic sigh.

It was a costume. A full-body mascot suit of a honey-colored teddy bear. The material was that cheap, matted fun-fur you’d find on a carnival prize. The body was bulbous and cartoonish, with padded paws for hands and feet.

The head was the worst part. It was perfectly round and grotesquely oversized, with a wide, fixed, stitched-on smile that felt manic and predatory. Its eyes were two huge, black, soulless buttons that seemed to absorb all the light in the room, reflecting nothing back. It was a monstrous parody of childhood innocence, a perversion of the very gifts that had started this whole nightmare. It was a uniform. A skin to be worn.

“What the hell is this?” Cody breathed, taking a step back. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

Alex didn’t answer. His gaze had fallen on something else left at the bottom of the empty box. It was a single, crisp white sheet of A5 paper, folded in half.

With a hand that felt disconnected from his body, he reached in and picked it up. He unfolded it. There were only three lines of text, printed in the same simple, typewritten font as the clockmaker’s riddle.

The first line was a string of numbers. GPS coordinates.

The second line was a date: October 13th. Tomorrow.

And the third line, the words that confirmed every single one of his fears, tying together the bear, the voice, and this horrifying invitation into one neat, terrifying package.

Welcome to the housewarming party.

They stood in silence, the two of them, trapped in the wreckage of Alex’s apartment. The horrifying, smiling bear head stared up at them from the floor, its dead button eyes seeming to issue a final, unspoken command.

The psychological torment was over. The physical confrontation was about to begin. They had been summoned. Looking from the costume to the coordinates, then to Cody’s pale, terrified face, Alex felt the last vestiges of hope drain away, replaced by the cold, hard certainty of what came next.

“They’re expecting us,” he said.