Chapter 1: The First Layer

The days that followed the invitation passed in a blur of nerves and preparation. I went to the interview two nights later, still unsure whether the entire thing was a mistake. The curator had greeted me with that unnervingly serene professionalism shared by the receptionist, and the questions she asked were as clinical as the ones on the forms I had already signed. Whatever they saw in me, it took them less than twenty minutes to decide I was “a suitable candidate for integration.”

I walked out of the gallery with a start date, a packet of guidelines, and a knot of confusion that tightened a little more each time Zara’s onboarding messages appeared on my phone. Pete tried to be supportive, though the tension was obvious in his voice whenever he asked how I felt about the job. I gave him the same answer each time. We needed the income. I could handle the strangeness. I had survived worse.

By the end of the week, the paperwork was complete, childcare was arranged, and my schedule was locked in. The only thing left was to show up. On the night of my first shift, I stood in front of the mirror and forced my expression into something steady, reminding myself that this was temporary. This was a stepping stone. Whatever waited inside that gallery, I would face it one shift at a time.

Downtown was too quiet. The stillness made the street feel suspended in time, as if the city itself were holding its breath. This was my first shift, the moment my anonymous invitation had been leading me toward. I was expected to clock in by nine. For the next month, three nights a week, my world would shrink to these hours, to the silent halls of the company of a digital assistant named Zara, and to the two living exhibits I was assigned to comfort.

A buzz lit my phone screen. The notification came from My Enclave, the proprietary app created by the Ethereal Boundaries Foundation. Zara again. That same smooth, synthetic voice had spent the morning guiding me through welcome prompts, legal disclaimers, and a dizzying list of behavioral guidelines. She had even mentioned a future VIP event and an all-expenses-paid trip for my family where I’d be expected to “interact with at least one of the living exhibits.” The promise felt surreal and impossibly distant compared to the reality settling around me now.

My pulse hammered against the base of my throat as I pulled into the designated parking space beside the employee entrance. The hiring process had been invasive enough to feel like an interrogation, yet this moment, this simple act of showing up, felt even heavier. I needed to step inside, collect the assigned tablet, and face whatever waited within these walls.

The air in my car felt too thin, too warm, too still, yet I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and breathed in slowly, reminding myself that I had chosen this. I had a family depending on the income. I had questions that needed answers. This was the moment of truth.

The streets were slick from recent rain. Moonlight glinted off the cobblestones in thin, broken ribbons. The gallery loomed ahead like a monument, its limestone walls bleached bone-white beneath the streetlights. Arched windows. Deep cornices. A structure built for reverence, not comfort. It stood in stark contrast to the stripped-down, clothes-optional world outside. This place felt rigid. Heavy with tradition. Something ancient and unyielding.

Then I saw him. A figure hooded, furtive, jiggling the lock on the employee door.

My breath hitched. The app on my phone froze, its spinning wheel the only movement as dread spiked through me. The fear was instant and bodily, a burst that hollowed me out. For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. The memory of being exposed to having no control, no protection, no say rushed up from somewhere deep and unhealed. It hit with the same force as that classroom, the same powerless vertigo.

This man wasn’t Pete. This wasn’t a reckless teenage dare gone wrong. It wasn’t some warped test of new social norms. This was intentional. Targeted. Malicious, and I was alone.

Just as my panic threatened to consume me, the alley exploded in frantic blue and red. Two police cars shot into view, their strobes painted the wet pavement in violent flashes. The takedown was immediate and practiced. The officers moved with a chilling kind of certainty, as if this break-in were not unusual but expected. The man was wrestled to the ground, cuffed, lifted, and bundled into the back of a cruiser before I could fully process the sequence of movements. The cars pulled away, leaving only the hiss of wet tires and the fading echo of radios.