THE SECRETS HIDING INSIDE THE SECURITY FOOTAGE OF OUR LIVING ROOM

The air inside the subterranean corridor grew progressively colder, smelling faintly of ozone and old, rotting wood. Mark followed Maya down the narrow concrete path, the walls on either side pulsing with a faint, rhythmic vibration, as if the entire facility were a living organism breathing beneath the earth. The endless rows of steel doors remained sealed, their brass nameplates gleaming dully in the dim emergency lighting that flickered overhead.

After what felt like hours of walking through the labyrinthine tunnels, Maya finally stopped in front of a heavy, unlabelled oak door at the very end of the corridor. Unlike the steel vaults that lined the rest of the hall, this door looked like it belonged to an old-fashioned Victorian study, complete with brass fittings and a frosted glass window pane that glowed with a warm, amber light from within.

"He's waiting for you inside," Maya whispered, not turning around to look at Mark. She reached out, her small hand turning the brass doorknob with effortless familiarity, and pushed the heavy wood open.

Mark stepped past her into the room, his breath catching in his throat. The space was an exact, mirrored replica of his own suburban living room upstairs, down to the sofa, the coffee table, and the family photographs hanging neatly on the walls. But the details were subtly, horrifyingly wrong. The books on the shelves were entirely blank, the television screen displayed a continuous, silent loop of static, and sitting in the leather armchair by the unlit fireplace was an elderly man wearing clothes from the nineteen-seventies, sketching furiously in a large leather-bound ledger.