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**[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION… SIMULATION 13 LOADED]**
**"Unit: T.O'Malley. Personality Sync Active. Subject Trauma: Auditory Psychological Torture via Enforced Silence. Proceeding…"**
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Trey opened his eyes to stillness.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that felt like it was waiting.
The house was pristine—spotless white walls, polished floors, and windows that let in light but offered no view beyond a thick, hazy blur. Everything was symmetrical. Everything too clean. Too perfect. Like someone scrubbed life out of it.
He stood in the living room, barefoot. A soft draft passed through, even though the windows were sealed shut. The silence pressed down like a weight. Not even his breath echoed.
He tried to speak. "Hello?"
The word came out muffled. As if his own ears rejected the sound. His voice dissolved into the void. No reply. No noise. Just stillness.
He walked into the hallway. Every step sounded... wrong. The floor didn't creak *with* his weight—it creaked *before* it. Like the house anticipated him.
Trey froze.
A distant whisper—like a breath in his ear—hissed from the vents:
**"Trey…"**
He spun around. Nothing. The hallway stretched longer than it should've. Behind him, the living room seemed smaller. Like the house had swallowed part of it.
A shadow moved in the corner of his eye. He turned. A mannequin stood at the end of the hall, facing the wall. Covered in white cloth. Still.
Trey backed up. His foot hit something soft.
Another mannequin.
It hadn't been there before. This one was kneeling, like in prayer.
He turned and sprinted into the kitchen.
The fluorescent lights above flickered once, then steadied. A kettle sat on the stove. The burner was on. Boiling. But he hadn't turned it on.
As he moved toward it, the floor groaned again—just one creak.
Behind him.
He turned sharply. A third mannequin stood behind the counter. Closer than the others. Still under cloth. But he could hear something—*breathing*.
He backed into the fridge. It clicked open slightly.
The whisper came again, clearer now, directly behind his head.
**"You broke the silence..."**
Trey bolted upstairs.
Each step he took, the house *breathed*. Walls pulsing softly. The air became thick, damp, like being inside lungs. He slammed the bathroom door behind him, locked it, and collapsed by the tub, gasping.
The mirror above the sink was fogged up from nothing. He hadn't used water.
He stepped forward. Reached to wipe the fog. His reflection didn't move.
It just stared at him.
His hand hovered—then the faucet turned on by itself. Water ran red. Thick.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The mirror cracked.
He staggered back and heard soft, wet footsteps outside the bathroom door. Then, a voice—dry, ancient, whispering through the keyhole:
**"Silence is sacred. And you screamed."**
BANG.
The door slammed from the outside.
BANG.
Again. Louder. The knob twisted violently. The door groaned.
Trey backed into the shower, trembling. He tried to scream again—anything—but no sound came out this time. Nothing. His voice was gone.
The door creaked open slowly. No one there.
He stepped out. The hallway was *gone.* In its place: a long, narrow corridor of mannequins on either side, their heads slowly turning toward him, cloths peeling off their faces to reveal no eyes, no mouths—just smooth, pale skin.
The walls whispered in unison:
**"We'll keep you quiet."**
He ran. He didn't care where.
The floor warped. The ceiling seemed to descend as if collapsing. Mannequin limbs reached from the walls, grabbing at him as he pushed forward—his breath sharp, dry, loud in his own ears.
Until—
The floor gave out beneath him.
He fell into darkness.
And landed in silence.
Complete.
Utter.
Void.
A single voice spoke from all around:
**[SIMULATION COMPLETE. SUBJECT HAS BEEN NEUTRALIZED.]**
**[LOGGING RESPONSE TIME: 8 MINUTES, 34 SECONDS.]**
**[PREPARING NEXT TRAUMA…]**
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