Chapter 2

Time loosened the way it always did at a good party. Music cycled through another playlist. Someone refilled the cauldron. Background guests drifted in and out of the courtyard, costumes growing more disheveled with every drink. The orange string lights hummed softly against the dark.

Tessa had not put her egg down once.

While the others set theirs on cushions or balanced them against their sides between conversations, Tessa kept hers locked in both arms, cradled high against her chest like something fragile and newly born. She had begun talking to it in a low, private voice—soft nonsense syllables, the same cooing rhythm people used with infants. Every few minutes she smoothed her palm over the mottled shell and smiled when the bioluminescent veins brightened under her touch.

“You’re okay,” she murmured at one point, forehead nearly resting against the warm surface. “You’re doing so well.”

Indie noticed first and raised both eyebrows across the couch.

“Tess. Babe. You’re nesting.”

Tessa only made a small, absent sound of acknowledgment and cooing while she kept stroking the shell.

The change started gradually. The veins on Tessa’s egg burned brighter than the others, shifting from dull blue-green to a clearer, almost wet glow. The shell itself grew noticeably softer; when she pressed her fingers into it the surface gave like thick fruit skin. If anyone leaned close enough they could hear faint, rhythmic wet sounds from inside—soft clicks and a low, liquid pulse.

Tessa heard them. She only held the egg tighter and made another soothing noise.

The split, when it came, was unmistakable.

A single vertical seam opened with a thick, organic crack that cut straight through the nearest conversation. Several heads turned. The shell peeled back in two uneven halves, glistening along the edges, and something pushed upward from the dark interior.

A small stuffed teddy bear emerged, the size of an ordinary plush toy. Its fur was matted in uneven patches. The stitching that held it together was thick and irregular, black thread pulling tight across the belly and limbs. One eye was a cloudy, scratched button. The other was a tiny red optic that glowed with a steady, artificial light.

The empty shell did not simply deflate. Once the bear was free, the mottled green-black material began to collapse in on itself with a soft, wet sigh. It pulled apart in sticky, fibrous strands—like cotton candy that had been left in the rain and then forgotten—dissolving into translucent, sugary threads that clung briefly to the table before shrinking, darkening, and vanishing altogether. Within a minute there was nothing left but a faint damp sheen on the wood that dried almost as quickly as it appeared.

For a second no one spoke.

Then the mixed reaction arrived all at once.

“Aww—”

“Wait, what the fuck?”

The two responses tangled together in the air. The women leaned in. Maris let out a short, startled laugh. Indie covered her mouth. Liora whispered, “Oh my god, it’s kind of ugly-cute.” Wren stayed silent but edged closer.

Tessa looked down at the bear that had climbed free of the ruined egg and made a soft, delighted sound. She set the empty, deflating shell aside without ceremony and gathered the small plush thing into her arms as if it had always belonged there.

Sable watched from the edge of the group, the painted stitch at the corner of her mouth shifting with her small smile.

“He likes you,” she said quietly.

The women passed the bear around with careful hands. They touched the matted fur, traced the heavy black stitching, tilted it to watch the red optic catch the light. It felt solid and slightly warm, heavier than a normal stuffed animal, but it remained perfectly still in every pair of hands.

Jasper, standing just behind Tessa’s shoulder, went rigid.

“Did anyone else see that?”

“See what?” Maris asked.

“Its head. It turned. I swear it looked right at me.”

Several of the women glanced at the bear. It sat motionless in Tessa’s arms, cloudy button eye and glowing optic fixed on nothing in particular.

Indie snorted. “It’s a toy, Jas. A deeply cursed, Sable-style toy, but still a toy.”

Corbin leaned in, frowning. “No, I saw something too. The seam along the back— just for a second it looked like it moved.”

Tessa didn’t look up. She was already smoothing the bear’s matted head with her thumb, voice gone soft and private again.

“You’re fine,” she told it. “You’re safe.”

The men exchanged a look that the women completely ignored. Around them the party noise rose and fell as if nothing unusual had happened. Tessa’s bear remained exactly where it was—small, strange, and utterly still—while she held it the same way she had held the egg: close, protective, and already half in love.

Something shifted in the group after Tessa’s egg opened.

It was not dramatic. No one announced it. But the other four women looked at the small, matted bear curled in Tessa’s arms—the cloudy button eye, the tiny red optic, the uneven black stitching—and something instinctive moved through them. Without discussion they drew their own eggs closer. Arms tightened. Laps became protective nests. What had been curious handling turned into something nearer to guardianship.

Indie was the next to open.

She had kept hers wedged firmly against her hip for the better part of an hour, neon leotard stretched around the mottled shell, absently rubbing one glowing vein with her thumb while she argued with Rhett about whether the fog machines were worth the neighbor complaints. When the wet crack came she only laughed, startled and delighted, and watched the second small bear push free.

This one had heavier stitching across the chest and both eyes were mismatched red optics, one slightly dimmer than the other.

“Okay, that’s two,” Indie said, already scooping the new bear up. “Sable, these are fucked up and I want ten more.”

Maris followed not long after. She made a face of exaggerated horror, then immediately settled the bear in the crook of her arm the same way Tessa had.

“I hate how much I don’t hate this,” she muttered.

Liora’s egg opened while she was mid-story about a disastrous theater rehearsal. Wren’s was last. She had held hers the most tightly of all after seeing Tessa’s, almost curled around it. When it finally split she exhaled a long, shaky breath and gathered the fifth bear against her chest without a word.

Each bear was different. Different patterns of thick black thread. Different arrangements of cloudy buttons and tiny red optics. Different degrees of matting. All of them remained the same small, toy-like size. All of them stayed perfectly still whenever any of the women looked at them.

The women treated the new arrivals like bizarre, beloved party favors. They set them on the table in a lopsided row, then moved them to laps, to the backs of the couches, to the crooks of elbows. Phone cameras came out. Joking names were tried on and discarded. Someone balanced two of the bears face-to-face and declared them married. Laughter rose and fell around the strange little collection.

The boyfriends did not laugh.

Corbin refused to sit on the same section of couch as the bear Maris was holding. He claimed he needed to be nearer the drinks. Jasper kept glancing at Tessa’s bear when he thought no one was watching, jaw tight. Rhett muttered to Nash near the kitchen island, voice low and serious.

“Those things are fucked up.”

“Why does it feel like it’s looking at me?”

“Because you’re paranoid.”

“I’m not. Watch the seams. Just watch them for a second.”

Every time one of the men claimed movement—a head turning, a stitch shifting, a faint flex beneath the fur—the women looked and saw nothing. The bears remained inert, soft, ridiculous. The women’s answers were the same each time: eye-rolls, tired smiles, the familiar chorus of it’s just a weird toy.

Background guests continued to come and go. Costumes grew looser. The fog machines were finally switched off for good. The courtyard lights stayed on, but the crowd inside the townhome steadily thinned. Conversations quieted. The core group remained: Sable, five women, five men, and five small stitched bears that never moved when anyone was watching.

By the time the last wave of casual guests began saying their goodbyes, the boyfriends’ ongoing discomfort only sharpened the women’s attachment. Corbin still wouldn’t sit near the bear Maris held. Jasper kept shooting dark looks at the one in Tessa’s arms. Rhett and Nash muttered near the kitchen like the toys might overhear them. Ellis hovered at the edge of the room, clearly trying not to look at any of them directly.

Indie was the first to lean into their discomfort. She lifted her bear, turned it to face Rhett, and said in a bright, mocking voice, “Rhett, stop being weird. You’re embarrassing little Rhett.”

A beat of silence, then laughter.

Maris immediately followed, bouncing hers once on her knee. “Corbin’s just mad he didn’t get a present.”

Tessa stroked the matted head of hers and murmured, “Jasper’s being quiet for once. I kind of like this version better.”

Liora and Wren joined in without missing a beat, addressing their own bears by their boyfriends’ names as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The joke settled over the group and stuck. Within minutes every bear had been claimed and labeled.

Someone—Rhett, voice half-laughing and half-serious—said, “You’re all actually choosing the creepy toys over us.”

Indie didn’t even look up from smoothing her bear’s uneven stitching.

“I choose the bear over the man,” she said. “At least this one doesn’t complain.”

The other women laughed. The men did not.

Sable watched the exchange with her usual soft, unreadable smile, the painted stitch at the corner of her mouth almost invisible in the low light.

Rhett finished his drink in one long swallow and looked away first.

Night settled over Eldritch Nexus the way it always did after a long Halloween—gradually, then all at once.

The last of the background guests filtered out in loose pairs and small groups, offering tired hugs and promises to text. Someone finally killed the music. The fog machines had been unplugged nearly an hour earlier, leaving only damp stones and the faint chemical smell of artificial mist behind.

The courtyard lights stayed on a while longer.

Orange pools of light stretched across the stones, illuminating discarded cups, crushed napkins, and the occasional piece of fake cobweb stirring in the breeze.

Eventually, Maris flipped the switch.

The courtyard disappeared into darkness.

Inside, the townhome suddenly felt bigger.

A couple of stragglers remained around the kitchen island, finishing the last sips of their drinks. Eventually, the front door closed behind them.

Only the refrigerator hummed.

Indie sat cross-legged on the couch with her bear—Rhett—propped against her thigh. She absently ran her fingertips over the thick black stitching across its chest while scrolling through her phone.

Across the room, the others had settled into comfortable exhaustion.

Five men.

Five other women.

Five bears.

Everything was where it was supposed to be.

Or seemed to be.

Indie’s phone buzzed.

She glanced down at the screen.

A notification.

Nothing important.

She dismissed it.

Someone said something that made her laugh.

She looked up.

And somehow, there were only four men in the room.

Indie frowned.

She counted again.

Corbin.

Jasper.

Nash.