[HOUSE]

Masaru’s eyes open, and immediately his hair stands on end.

It’s much like the others, starting in relative comfort, but there’s an air to the blue-gray calm of the house that immediately puts him on edge.

The spirit of the place is filled with familiar anticipation. It’s like trying to breathe in concrete.

As he sits up on the cool-colored couch, he looks around for the others. It doesn’t take him long to see that they’re all here.

Yuna’s resting her head on his lap from the left.

Valerie’s coming to her senses at his right.

Sato’s flinching awake in the one big comfy chair.

Seems pretty Western, Masaru ponders as he looks over the modern appliances, the kitchen island, and the little vacuum robot blinking dully in its charging station.

Valerie, rubbing her face from what seems like a restful sleep, glances over to him with a nervous smile as she glances around the place, her gaze falling upon the girl curled up against Masaru.

She grins, and he smiles back with a nod.

Taking care not to wake her early, the two look around, taking in the explicitly calm, but soulless environment up until they focus in on the same thing.

A professional-looking wall clock, reading not 8:17 PM, but 5:58 PM. The numbers and hands of the clock are the only things brightly colored in the whole living room: an alarming, critical red.

They both squint at the clock. There’s a charge to those numbers, as if something were waiting to happen.

“Eighteen hundred,” Masaru says under his breath with a wince.

“Yeah,” Valerie says. “Time’s important for this one.”

The two look around some more as, without warning, Sato thrusts his arms out.

“KYAAAAAAA!” he screams in shock as his head jolts around before slipping out of his chair and falling to the ground with a plop.

Masaru closes his eyes to subdue the irritation clear on his face and Valerie looks over to Yuna to watch the critical, waking wince.

Yuna blinks awake, and begins looking around as Masaru sighs out a single, annoyed “cool.”

“Wh-where is this place?!” Sato asks, struggling up to his feet in the perfect, weighted silence of the house.

“Calm down, man,” Masaru snips as Yuna yawns as she leans up from his lap. “I don’t know where we are.”

“My…” Yuna takes a moment as she realizes where she is. In only a second, the restful look on her face contorts into panic. “My house,” she whispers out, her arms pulling in to wrap around herself.

Valerie glances over. “I guess certain trials have higher priority than others in the sequence.”

Masaru sighs. “So we could hit Sato’s any time after this one.”

She nods as she reaches over to give Yuna a reassuring squeeze. “What happens he… are you okay?”

Yuna begins breathing heavily as her gaze flicks right to the clock: now showing a minute before 6:00, with the second hand ticking up to the twelve.

“I… I need your help!” Yuna shouts. “Please! Get their attention!” she says, rushing over to the kitchen as she looks around, as if for some kind of answer.

“Whose attention?” Masaru asks, glancing around for some sort of invisible person.

Valerie gets up from the couch and begins following Yuna around. “Is it… your enemy?”

“No!” Yuna shouts, already on the verge of tears. “My mom and da-”

The front door slams open, and two solid statues, one dressed in a slick, high profile suit, and the other in a smart, professional blouse, hover into the room. Their grins radiant an untouchable positivity, a guarantee in this household that there’s never anything wrong. The door slams shut as if by magic, and the two statues begin floating from one side of the house to the other as they erupt in speech.

“How was school today, sweetie?” the father figure asks in a relaxed, in-charge voice.

As Sato rushes to get to the opposite side of the room from wherever the statues are at, Valerie and Masaru watch carefully.

Her face already red with frustration, Yuna inhales to speak.

“IT-”

“Wow, what a day!” the mother statue booms abruptly, rapidly turning about to-and-fro, doing nothing in particular. “How are you, Yuna dearest?”

Yuna inhales again to scream.

“I D-”

“Phew! I think after a day like that I could use an ice-cold beer!” the father explodes, calm, relaxed, but so much louder than Yuna that even her shout becomes an indiscernible murmur. “What would you like to drink, Yuna?”

Yuna screams, tears forming in her eyes as she struggles to shout out what she wants, but the conversation continues on without her.

“I’ll get dinner from the fridge,” the mother says, stopping in front of the refrigerator, pausing, and then turning for the dining room table. “It’s great to be able to order-in every once in a while, eh Yuna?”

“I DON’T-”

“Especially on a day like this!” the father booms as he passes by Masaru, his expression steadily sharpening.

“That’s right, honey!” the mother agrees, “Your father just found out he’s getting a promotion!”

“Isn’t that amazing, dear?!”

Yuna continues to yell at the massive rocks masquerading as her parents as Valerie steps over to Masaru.

“She’s worried about not being heard, I think,” Valerie says.

Masaru nods, his stern gaze inspecting Yuna and the statues like some kind of abstract play. “But how will she be loud enough?” he asks as Sato peeps out from behind the couch.

“She speaks perfectly fine, too,” Valerie notes scratching her ear. “That much is for sure.”

Masaru’s eyes hone in on the statues, the enormous glib smiles on their faces, and Yuna, heaving in breath to scream. She does anything and everything to get their attention as she chases them around and jumps in their path, only to be budged harmlessly aside each time. She even pushes over objects, opens drawers, scatters things across the floor.

Her red face swells in fury, confusion, panic as she pulls at her hair. No matter how much she screams, Masaru can’t even hear her anymore.

The clock ticks to 6:05, and everything falls silent.

The warm lights provided by the clock die out, the studio lighting following the statues follow them one last time as they begin budging away from the table.

“Alright, sweetie. Off to bed for this old man!” the father says as he scoots off.

“Another big day for the firm!” the mother says, scooting along with him. “Goodnight, Yuna.”

They slide away down the same hallway as Yuna chases them. She holds on with all her might as they drag her along the floor, but once the door to their room opens, she releases them and scuttles back before it slams back.

And that slam is the last sound in the room.

Masaru looks over to Valerie.

“--- -- -----…”

He stops, his eyes widening as Valerie glances over.

“---… ---- ----.”

She stops as well, looking over to him with wide eyes as Yuna weeps on her knees.

Sato quickly pieces together what’s happening, and just leans into the couch in a cool, surprisingly unbothered acceptance of the situation. Though it doesn’t last long.