Tyrancilcus Rex wasn’t a stranger to weird nights, but this one felt different.

A message had been left on his desk — hand-written, frantic, smudged with something that looked suspiciously like glitter glue.

REXY
MEET ME IN CORRIDOR NINE
THEY’RE WATCHING
DO NOT BRING FRUIT
CONRAD

Rexy pinched the bridge of his snout. “Fruit? Really?”

He didn’t know much about Conrad except for the rumors:
A wanderer.
A shapeshifter.
A compulsive conspiracist whose disguises changed hourly.

Some said Conrad predicted disasters before they happened.
Others said he caused them.

Either way, Corridor Nine was usually abandoned. Which made the request even more concerning.

Rexy arrived at the shadowy hall just past midnight. The lights flickered weakly, buzzing like swarming insects. He adjusted his jacket, slipped a new toothpick into his mouth, and listened.

Footsteps approached.

Then… baa-ing.

Rexy blinked.

A man stepped out of the dark wearing a full-body sheep outfit, complete with wool-lined hood and hoof-shaped gloves. His eyes were wild, bright, and extremely awake.

“There you are,” Conrad whispered. “The cosmic watchers almost spotted you.”

Rexy stared. “Why are you dressed like a farm animal?”

“To hide,” Conrad hissed. “They can’t detect mammals that blend into agricultural patterns. Amateur mistake, Rexy. Amateur.”

“I’m not wearing that.” Rexy crossed his arms. “Ever.”

Conrad sighed dreamily. “They all say that at first.”

Rexy leaned forward. “You asked to meet. Start talking.”

Conrad dropped the sheep hood dramatically, revealing a mop of tangled hair and an expression of genuine fear beneath the theatrics.

“They’re inside the walls,” Conrad whispered. “Moving through the conduits. Watching the facility through systems you don’t even know exist.”

Rexy’s voice stayed steady. “Who?”

Conrad swallowed. “Something old. Something that came through the rift you patched with the genie. You think it closed cleanly? You think tears in reality just… stop?”

Rexy stiffened.

Conrad pulled a crumpled napkin from his wool suit. On it, in frantic scribbles, was a sketch of a creature made of angles and static — too many limbs, no obvious shape, and an eye in the center like a cracked lens.

“I call them the Looking Things.” Conrad’s voice shook. “They don’t walk. They… glitch. And anywhere they stare too long begins to break.”

Rexy tried to keep his tone dismissive.

“Conrad, if this is another joke, I’m—”

A low electrical hum shivered through the hall.

Lights dimmed.
Temperature dropped.
The air seemed to distort, like heat haze but freezing cold.

Conrad grabbed Rexy’s arm. “We have to move.”

A ripple passed along the wall — a shape pressing through the metal, phasing in and out like a half-rendered memory. A limb emerged. Then another. The creature shifted without sound, without gravity, as if reality bent around its existence.

Rexy felt his pulse spike. “Okay. That’s new.”

“It noticed us,” Conrad whispered. “They hate being observed. Come on!”

The creature turned its single cracked-lens eye toward them.

Reality warped.

Rexy grabbed Conrad and sprinted.

The hall twisted around them — angles bending, floor dropping for half a second before snapping back. Conrad dashed ahead with surprising agility, shedding pieces of the sheep outfit like confetti.

“This way!” Conrad shouted.

Rexy didn’t argue. The creature followed behind them in flickers — ahead one second, behind the next, growing clearer with each appearance.

They crashed into a storage room and slammed the reinforced door shut.

Rexy panted. “You weren’t lying.”

Conrad leaned against the wall, shaking. “I lie a lot, Rexy. But not about this.”

The creature pressed against the door, warping the metal inward. Conrad pulled a device from his wool suit — a circular, blinking coin.

“What is that?” Rexy demanded.

“A signal scrambler.” Conrad flicked it on. “It disrupts anything that tries to observe us. Including those things.”

The creature screeched — a sound like glass cracking underwater — and retreated as the walls stabilized.

Rexy exhaled slowly. “That bought us time. Not a solution.”

Conrad met his eyes. “I know where the tear is. What’s left of it. I can take you there. But you won’t like what we find.”

Rexy placed a claw on Conrad’s shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. We finish this.”

Conrad swallowed. “You believe me?”

“I do now,” Rexy said.

Conrad smiled — a strange, fragile smile that flickered between pride and fear.

“Then we should hurry,” he said softly. “Because that wasn’t the only one.”

Rexy nodded. “Lead the way.”

Conrad did.

And for the first time, his paranoia didn’t seem paranoid at all.

It felt like prophecy.