Return to the Vivarium

Familiarity is a trap. I stood at the edge of the driveway, the smell of damp pine needles and burnt cedar from the "neighbors'" extinguished candles thick in the mountain air. The black sedan hissed, its engine ticking as it cooled. Graham—the man in the charcoal blazer, the one who said he’d bought the dinner—didn't look like a monster. He looked like a husband. He looked like the version of the man I’d married before the term "Vivarium" ever entered my vocabulary.

"Merritt," he said, his voice a mood of pure, exhausted grief. "You have to finish it. Before the loop resets."

He handed me the shovel. The handle was cold, the grain of the wood rough against my unblemished, fake palms. I looked at Sarah. She was standing by the cabin door, her silicone skin shimmering under the porch light like wet plastic. Toby was still in the back seat of the car, clutching the red metal truck as if it were a holy relic.

This was giving full 'the call is coming from inside the house' energy.

"I'm not digging a grave, Graham," I rasped. My voice felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone older. Someone who hadn't stayed in the closet.

"It’s not a grave," he whispered. He pointed to the photograph in Toby’s hand. "It’s the uplink. Under the matches."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I am a Foley artist; I know when a sound is dubbed. And Graham’s voice wasn't matching the movement of his lips. There was a delay. A glitch.

He was a recording. A high-fidelity projection schlepped into the Cascades to keep me on script.

I chose violence.

I swung the shovel. Not at the ground. At the black sedan.

*CRUNCH.*

The headlight exploded in a shower of glass. The high-intensity beam flickered, then died.

The projection of Graham wavered. His charcoal blazer turned to static. His face became a smear of pixels.

"Merritt," the speakers in the trees boomed. It was the Director. The real one. The one who remembered the 1999 fire. "That was a $200,000 prop. You’re blowing the budget."

"I’m changing the ending!" I screamed.

I ran toward the cabin. I didn't care about the perimeter drones or the accelerant rain. I needed to get to the server farm. I needed to find the woman in the red dress.

Sarah stepped in my way.

"The coordinates are wrong, Merritt," she said. Her voice was perfectly modulated, perfectly mine. "The server farm isn't in the logging road. It’s in the nursery."

"The nursery is ash," I said, pushing past her.

"Is it?"

She pointed to the cabin. The cedar walls were dissolving. The mid-century modern furniture was fading into wireframes. The art on the walls was turning into code.

We weren't in the Cascades.

We were in the basement.

The Foley pit.

The smell of rotting cabbage and wet soil hit me like a physical blow. The "cabin" was just a series of high-definition projectors and acoustic foam. Toby’s van was a wooden frame. Sarah was a mannequin I had smashed weeks ago.

I looked at my hands. The red paint was back. The jagged scar was there.

Verbal paralysis hit me like a wave. I was one bad day away from becoming a true crime podcast, and the narrator was currently describing my final moments.

"Phase 6: The Return," the Director’s voice boomed.

Graham—the real Graham, wearing his tux and the eye patch from the cliff—stepped out of the shadows of the sound booth. He was holding a glass of Chablis.

"Did you enjoy the trip, darling?" he asked. "The testers loved the 'escape' arc. Very Taylor Swift breakup era, except with more perjury."

I stared at him. The disgust was a physical heat in my gut.

"How... how long?"

"Three hours," Graham said, checking his Apple Watch. "The titration of the pink blend is very precise. You never left the pit. We just moved the cameras."

He toasted me.

"The 'Celebration of Life' is in twenty minutes. The neighbors are already in the living room. Lorna is practiced her eulogy. She’s giving very Real Housewives energy today."

I looked at the shovel in my hand. It was real.

I looked at the red metal truck on the floor. It was real.

"Sarah?" I managed to ask.

"Sarah is in the guest room," Graham said. "Getting into her white dress. She understands the assignment."

He walked toward me, his loafers clicking on the gravel of the pit.

"But you, Merritt... you’re a problem. You’ve been faking compliance. You’ve been gathering evidence. You’ve been... noisy."

He leaned in, his breath smelling of sandalwood and peppermint.

"And the Vivarium only has room for one of us."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the micro-recorder. My recorder. The one Toby had given me in the cistern.

He dropped it onto the floor. He crushed it under his heel.

*CRACK.*

"The cloud is private, Merritt. It’s always been private."

He grabbed my arm. His grip was a landscape of jagged peaks and cold certainty.

"Now, let’s go upstairs. The audience hates a boring ending."

He schlepped me toward the basement stairs. I didn't fight. I didn't scream. I became the ghost he wanted.

We reached the kitchen.

The Smart Glass walls were clear. The entire neighborhood was on the lawn, holding candles. They were wearing black.

Lorna was at the front, her wrist in a white cast, looking at the house with wet, greedy eyes.

"She has good days, still," Graham said to the room, his voice carrying through the integrated speakers. "We cherish the good days."

The guests looked at me with pity. They saw the soot. They saw the gray scrubs. They saw the madness.

Sarah walked into the room. She was wearing the white silk dress. She looked rested. She looked sane.

She looked like the Merritt Coe they wanted to remember.

"Hello, everyone," Sarah said. It was my voice. Perfectly modulated.

The neighbors cheered.

Graham led me to the center of the room. He tapped his glass.

"Tonight, we remember the light," he said.

He pointed to the Smart Glass.

"And we welcome the darkness."

The glass went opaque. Not white. Black.

Total sensory deprivation.

The music stopped. The hum of the ward began.

"Check the locket," Graham whispered.

I reached for my neck. The silver band was there. The red light was blinking.

*00:05.*

*00:04.*

"What happens when it hits zero?" I demanded.

"The reboot," Graham said.

He reached into his tuxedo and pulled out a box of matches.

*Finish the job.*

The handle of the front door rattled.

The lock began to turn.

I looked at the door, my blood turning to ice, and finally understood that the person standing outside wasn't a Trooper.

The door swung open, and the person who walked in was wearing a red dress and carrying a manilla folder.

It was Elena.

But she wasn't holding a passport.

She was holding a Curved Blade, and she was pointing it at Toby, who was standing in the foyer holding a camera.

"Target secured," Elena said.

Then she looked at me and winked.

"Merritt," she rasped. "Did you find the coordinate yet?"

I looked at the manilla folder as it fell to the floor, and in the strobing light of the drones descending through the skylight, I saw the face of the girl in the closet.

It showed—