Chapter 7: The Sea of Smiles

Chapter 7: The Sea of Smiles

Ethan woke with a gasp, his body lurching against the soft mattress of his bed. He was in his room. Not the lab. Not strapped to the Loom. The clean, white walls and minimalist furniture were a disorienting sight after the blood-red chamber of horrors. For a split second, a sliver of delirious hope suggested it had all been a nightmare—a stress-induced hallucination brought on by withdrawal.

Then the memory crashed down on him, and the hope was annihilated.

Clara’s ruined face. The frantic, desperate clawing at her own skin. The sound of tearing flesh. And those eyes. Those terrible, piercing, inhuman blue eyes, glowing with a light that did not belong to this world, staring at him from the wreckage of a human soul.

You are next.

The entity’s promise was not a memory; it felt like a brand on his consciousness. He scrambled out of bed, his heart a wild drum against his ribs. He had to get out. Not just to escape imprisonment, but to escape conversion. He was a ticking bomb, a vessel being prepped for its new inhabitant. Every second he remained in Gerry Gardens, the weaving continued. He could almost feel it, a subtle pressure behind his own eyes, a faint, alien hum at the edge of his hearing.

His frantic gaze swept the room. It was as secure as ever. The window was a seamless pane of reinforced glass, the door a solid slab of polymer. He was a rat in a cage, and the exterminator was coming.

There was no plan. There was no strategy. There was only the raw, primal imperative of a soldier in a kill-or-be-killed situation: survive. He needed a weapon. Anything. He tried again to wrench the desk from the floor, his muscles straining, but it was useless. It was all part of the cage.

A soft chime sounded at the door.

They’re here.

Panic flared, hot and sharp, but his training kicked in, smothering it with ice-cold focus. This was his only chance. He couldn't fight them head-on; he’d learned that lesson already. Their strength was absolute. He had to be smarter. He had to play their game.

He scrambled back to the bed, arranging his body in a listless slump, mimicking the vacant, broken posture he’d seen in Clara. He let his face go slack, his eyes unfocused, staring at the white wall. He forced his breathing to be shallow, his body still. He would be the perfect patient, a mind shattered by the 'treatment,' docile and ready for the next phase.

The door hissed open.

He didn’t turn his head. He listened. Two sets of soft footsteps entered the room.

“Good morning, Ethan,” a voice said. It was Leo, his tone back to that cheerful, clinical chirp he’d used before. “It is time for your morning nutritional intake.”

Ethan remained silent, unmoving. He heard the faint clink of cutlery on ceramic. They were setting a tray down on the desk. This was it.

“Subject is unresponsive,” a second, identical voice noted. “Psychic shock from the Shared Field event is more pronounced than in Subject C. The host consciousness appears to be… receding.”

“Excellent,” the first Leo replied, the word dripping with a terrifying lack of empathy. “This will accelerate the final weaving. The vessel is quieting itself. Dr. Finch will be pleased with this data.”

Ethan fought to keep his muscles from tensing. Vessel. Data. The casual, dehumanizing words were fuel on the fire of his rage.

He heard them take a step closer, their presence a cold spot in the room. He knew they were observing him, logging his catatonia for their monstrous master. He waited, his entire being coiled like a spring, for the perfect moment.

“Proceed with the sedative protocol,” one of them said. “We will transport him to the Loom for final integration.”

Now.

In a single, explosive movement, Ethan launched himself off the bed. Not at the Guides, but at the desk. His hand closed around the handle of the steak knife left beside a piece of uncut melon. The two Leos turned, their movements a blur of inhuman speed, but for once, Ethan’s desperation was faster. He had the weapon.

He didn't hesitate. He didn’t posture. He acted. He spun, the knife held low in a reverse grip, and lunged. One of the Guides reached for him, its hand a claw meant to subdue. Ethan ducked under the grasp and slashed upward, putting all his weight and terror into the strike.

The blade connected with the Guide’s forearm. Ethan braced for the jarring impact of steel on something unnaturally hard, but the knife sliced through with a sickeningly soft tear.

He jumped back, putting distance between them, his chest heaving. The attack had worked. A deep, four-inch gash ran up the Guide’s arm.

But there was no blood.

From the gaping wound, there was no spray of crimson, no welling of red. Instead, a thick, milky-white substance oozed out. It was the color and consistency of pearlescent paint, an ichor that clung to the edges of the wound before dripping in slow, heavy blobs onto the pristine floor. Beneath the tear, there was no pink muscle or white bone, only a shimmering, fibrous network of white filaments, like biological fiber optics, twitching faintly in the open air.

The wounded Guide looked down at its arm, not with pain or shock, but with a detached, analytical curiosity. It tilted its head. Its wide, painted-on smile never wavered.

“Tissue integrity compromised,” it stated, its voice perfectly calm. “Foreign biological agent detected.”

The other Guide’s smile also remained fixed, its blue eyes locked on Ethan. “The vessel is displaying unpredictable levels of resistance. Containment protocols must be escalated.”

The sheer, profound wrongness of it—the white blood, the lack of pain, the clinical self-assessment—shattered the last vestiges of Ethan's restraint. These things weren't human. They were monsters wearing human skin.

He feinted left, then darted right, bolting past them toward the open door. The wounded Guide reached for him, its movements a fraction slower now, but he was already through. He burst into the long, white hallway, the stolen knife clutched in his hand, his bare feet pounding against the cool floor. Freedom was a tangible thing, just a hundred feet away, past the lobby, through the front doors.

He ran, adrenaline and terror his only fuel. He didn’t look back. He just ran.

Click-hiss.

The sound was soft, but it echoed from all around him, a perfectly synchronized symphony of opening doors.

Ethan skidded to a halt, his blood turning to ice water in his veins. Up and down the corridor, on both sides, every single patient room door had slid open.

And in the threshold of each doorway stood a Guide.

Dozens of them. A sea of identical, handsome faces, all with the same neatly combed hair, the same piercing blue eyes, the same simple orderly scrubs. And the same wide, fixed, utterly terrifying smile. It was a legion of Leos, a silent army of uncanny valley horrors.

He was trapped in a hall of mirrors, and every reflection was a predator.

Slowly, in perfect unison, every head turned to face him. Their smiles seemed to widen, stretching their cheeks in a grotesque parody of joy. He was the sole focus of an entire colony of monsters.

Then, they spoke.

Their voices rose as one, not a shout, but a unified, multi-layered chorus that filled the corridor with an echoing, chilling resonance. It was the sound of a hive mind, a single will given dozens of mouths.

“The vessel must not be damaged.”

Their voices were calm, reasonable, and more terrifying than any scream.

“The vessel must be returned to the Loom.”

And with the finality of a prison gate slamming shut, they all took a single, synchronized step out into the hallway, their smiles fixed on him, their movements a horrifying promise of what was to come. The chase had begun.