Chapter 2: The Blank Page

Chapter 2: The Blank Page

“You have reached Ryan Sterling. I am currently unavailable. Please leave a detailed message regarding the nature of your inquiry, and I will respond at my earliest convenience. Thank you for your continued dedication to the Smiley’s family.”

The voice on the other end was pre-recorded, smooth, and utterly indifferent. It was the same placid tone Ryan used when explaining why an employee’s health insurance didn’t cover “anomalous appendages” or “existential dread.” The automated message was a corporate brick wall, and Andrew had just slammed into it at full speed. He hung up, the receiver slick with sweat in his trembling hand.

He was alone.

His eyes darted back to the drive-thru monitor. The grainy black-and-white feed now showed nothing but the empty, rain-slicked asphalt under the baleful orange glow of the security light. The figure was gone. It hadn't driven off; it had simply vanished from the frame between one panicked heartbeat and the next. But it hadn't truly left. Andrew knew, with a certainty that settled like ice in his gut, that the creature that had turned that invisible key was now somewhere inside the restaurant with him.

Think. Think. His brain screamed at him, but all he could summon was the frantic, useless flipping of pages in his mind. The Codex was his shield, a compendium of horrors neatly categorized and neutralized with simple, if bizarre, instructions. But this… this was off-script. An improvisation in a play where a missed cue could get you eaten, erased, or worse. This was a blank page, and the ink was his own blood.

Desire warred with terror. The desire to survive, to get paid, to see Lily’s smile again, was a powerful motivator. But the terror was a physical thing, a cold hand gripping his spine. Rule #1: Lock all entrances between midnight and 6 AM. No exceptions. The lobby door, now unlocked, was a gaping wound in his meticulously constructed defenses. He couldn’t just hide in the kitchen and pray for morning. The rules were there to maintain a fragile, artificial order. A breach had to be addressed.

With a shuddering breath, Andrew grabbed the handle of a heavy-duty floor mop, its wooden shaft worn smooth from years of scrubbing away unholy stains. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but its solid weight was a small comfort. He crept towards the swinging double doors that separated the kitchen’s sterile chaos from the dining room’s eerie stillness.

He pushed one door open a crack. The dining area was dark, a cavern of shadows punctuated by the faint, bloody glow of the emergency exit signs. The cheerful yellow tables and red plastic booths looked monstrous in the gloom. He could see the front entrance, the glass door slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of the unnatural, silent darkness from outside. The air that drifted in was cold, carrying a scent he couldn't place—something like ozone and old linen.

He saw it in the center of the room.

At first, it was just a shape, starker than the surrounding shadows. It stood motionless, its back to him. Andrew could make out a striped shirt and dark suspenders. It was the figure from the drive-thru. It was waiting.

Every instinct screamed at him to back away, to lock himself in the walk-in freezer and take his chances with whatever was groaning in there. But his feet felt nailed to the floor. He watched, mesmerized by a horror he couldn’t yet fully comprehend.

As if sensing his gaze, the figure turned.

Slowly. Deliberately.

The movement was unnervingly fluid, like a stage performer executing a perfectly rehearsed motion. And when it faced him, Andrew felt the air leave his lungs in a silent gasp.

It was a Mime.

Its face was a mask of stark white paint, with two perfect black dots for cheeks. The skin around its eyes was painted black, but where the eyes themselves should have been were just pits of shadow, deep, absolute voids that seemed to drink the faint red light. It wore white gloves, pristine and unblemished. But it was the mouth that broke Andrew’s mind.

It didn't have one.

Where a mouth should have been, the white paint was marred by a crude, thick, black line. Not paint. Stitches. Thick, black thread was crudely sewn through the skin, puckering the flesh and sealing the lips together in a grotesque, permanent seam. It was a wound, a mutilation presented as part of a costume.

The Mime tilted its head, its void-like eyes fixed on Andrew. There was no malice in its posture, only a silent, unnerving curiosity. It was studying him, an actor assessing his audience. Andrew’s mind raced, desperately trying to slot this creature into a category. Was it a Patron? A Drifter? An Echo? The Codex had entries for entities that communicated through whispers, through riddles, through leaving cryptic symbols in grease traps. But it had nothing for one that communicated through silence.

Andrew tightened his grip on the mop handle. He had to do something. This was a service industry, after all. "Can I... can I help you?" he stammered, his voice a pathetic croak in the vast silence.

The Mime’s expression, frozen by paint and thread, did not change. But its body responded. It raised one white-gloved hand and pressed a single, elegant finger to its stitched mouth, a clear gesture for silence. Then, it shook its head slowly, a gesture of gentle disappointment.

It seemed to decide that words were not the proper medium. It was time for the performance to begin.

The Mime raised both hands, its movements graceful and hypnotic. It held them up as if holding a needle and a long strand of thread. The pantomime was perfect, instantly recognizable. With its right hand, it pinched an invisible needle. With its left, it held taut an invisible thread. It even mimed licking the end of the thread and pushing it through the eye of the needle with theatrical concentration.

Andrew watched, frozen halfway between the kitchen and the dining room, a deer in the headlights of an oncoming nightmare. He didn’t understand. Was this a request? A threat? A joke?

The Mime finished threading its imaginary needle. It looked up, its black-hole eyes locking directly with Andrew’s. It smiled—or rather, the painted corners of its sealed mouth crinkled upwards.

Then, with a series of quick, sharp motions, it began to sew the air in front of it, its invisible needle darting back and forth, aimed directly at him from across the room.

A scream of pure agony ripped through Andrew’s mind, but it never reached his throat.

Searing, white-hot pain erupted across his lips. It felt like a dozen red-hot fishhooks tearing through his flesh at once. He dropped the mop handle with a clatter that echoed like a thunderclap in the silent room. He clawed at his face, his fingers meeting skin that was pulling impossibly, horribly tight.

He tried to scream, to yell, to make any sound, but all that came out was a strangled, muffled sob. The muscles in his jaw seized. He could feel his lips being drawn together, fused by an unseen force, the skin puckering just like the monster’s. The taste of his own blood, hot and coppery, filled his sealed mouth.

He stared in wild, abject terror at the creature in the center of the room. The Mime had stopped its motion. It held its hands out, palms up, as if to say, “There. Now we can communicate.”