Sarah smashed the phone against the floor. The screen kept glowing through the cracks, now showing a live feed of herself from above—except in the video she was already smiling and cutting the cake. The real her wasn’t. Yet. The children’s voices rose in excitement. She grabbed the hottest candle and stabbed it into the cake. Gray frosting exploded outward, revealing a hollow center filled with teeth. Hundreds of tiny milk-teeth, chattering. The teeth poured out like rice at a wedding and started crawling up her jeans, biting, anchoring. She screamed and ran. The hallway stretched again, but this time every door she passed had her realtor’s severed head mounted on it, eyes following her, whispering in unison: “You signed the disclosure. Page seven. Eternal occupancy.”
