Horror Game? Looks Cute novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Honey Jar
Juno taps the cute game's honey jar, falls inside, is thrown out of the cottage at nine by the friendly survivors, and ends face to face with a plush bear whose eye blinks.
The game was called Honey Hollow, and it was the cutest thing I had ever been paid to break.
It had pastel cottages, talking rabbits, and a bakery that almost smelled of cinnamon through my headphones.
I was the night-shift tester at Marrow Lane Games, and I had forty hours in that village.
It was midnight, the office was empty, and I had one bug left on my list.
A honey jar on the baker's counter that would not open.
Under my keyboard there was a yellow sticky note in blocky handwriting.
"Don't tap the honey."
It had been there when I got the desk.
I tapped the honey.
The screen went gold, and my hand went through it.
I woke up on cobblestones with the sun in my face.
I wore my grey hoodie and my socks, and nothing else I owned.
Around me were the cottages from my build, pink and yellow and mint.
A fox in an apron swept the bakery steps and smiled at me with a huge round smile.
"Welcome, guest! Please read the sign!"
The sign stood in the square, painted in curly letters.
"One. Be kind to the village.
"Two. Every seventh sleep is Lullaby Night. Please be home by nine!
"Three. Seven sleeps and the Gate Tree will let you go home."
I read it twice.
I knew this village by heart, and none of that was in my build.
"Hey! Hey, are you new?"
Three people hurried across the square toward me.
The man in front was big and golden-haired, with a quilted vest and a smile built for cameras.
"I'm Dex," he said, and he took both my hands. "You're okay. It happens to all of us."
"I'm Juno," I said. "I was just at my desk."
"We all were." He squeezed. "This is Mari, and that's Grover."
Mari wore a pale pink raincoat and a bright voice. "We found a cottage, hon. Cottage Four. You're staying with us."
Grover was older, with a grey beard and a security jacket with the badge torn off.
He looked at my face and then at the ground.
Dex walked me through the village.
He showed me the bakery, the well and the bell tower on the hill.
At the north edge stood a big tree with a carved door in its trunk.
"The Gate Tree," he said. "Doesn't open yet. We've been here twenty-six nights."
"Seven sleeps," I said. "The sign says seven."
"Signs lie." He grinned. "Tonight is the seventh for you, in a way. Lullaby Night. Stay close and do exactly what I say."
I went along because he was kind and I was scared.
The fox gave us honey biscuits, and Grover ate his without tasting it.
By the afternoon, I had learned that Cottage Four had one front door and two shuttered windows.
It also had a back wall I knew very well.
At eight-forty, Dex lit a lantern and shut the shutters.
"Here's your bed," he said, and he pointed to a cot by the front door.
"Closest to the exit, in case we need to run."
At nine o'clock, a bell began to ring.
It was not a pretty bell.
The light through the shutter cracks went from gold to red, and the lullaby started somewhere outside, a music box playing slowly.
Every animal in the village began to laugh.
"He's coming," Mari whispered.
Heavy steps came up the lane, soft and even.
Dex looked at me.
His face was still kind.
That was the worst part.
"I'm so sorry, Juno," he said. "It's one a night. It always has to be someone."
Mari took my left arm.
Dex took my right.
"No," I said. "No, wait."
Grover stood up from his chair. "Dex, don't. Dex. She's a kid."
Dex pushed him back against the wall with one hand and did not even look at him.
They dragged me to the door.
Mari unlocked it, and the red light poured in.
I kicked and caught her shin, and she hissed and let go.
Dex shoved.
I hit the porch on my hands and knees, and the door slammed behind me.
The lock turned.
Sleepy Bear stood at the bottom of the steps.
He was seven feet tall, soft and brown, with a pink bow at his neck and black buttons for eyes.
His stitched smile went from ear to ear.
He held a pink quilt over one arm, folded as neat as a hotel towel.
I did not scream.
I ran, left, off the porch, around the side of the cottage, straight at the back wall.
I knew that wall.
I had filed the bug myself.
A fence post didn't meet the corner near the floor.
A tester could clip into that gap and slide out the other side.
I threw myself at it, hands first.
The world flickered.
I came out behind the cottage on my stomach, in a patch of dead lilies, with a rabbit staring at me from the dark.
Its smile split sideways to its ears.
I rolled away, got up, ran, and a hand the size of a skillet closed on my hood.
I was lifted off the ground.
I turned in the air, swinging at it, and found myself face to face with the Bear.
He tilted his big head to look at me.
One of the black buttons was cracked.
Behind it was an eye.
A real eye, brown and wet, with lashes.
It blinked.
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