It began in a cage. Not a fine little box where you would expect to find a bird. No, this was a crudely constructed crate of bones and sinew. The little girl in a pink raincoat could not remember how she ended up in this cage, much less this world. From her trapped view in her prison, she saw tables and chairs the height of three story buildings.

She had to escape. The pink raincoat girl gnawed the bone bars until she felt her teeth would fall out. Her efforts were rewarded when the bars finally gave out.

She could not have known it, but nothing was natural in this world. She was only as tall as a fork.

On either side of her, there were walls of stacks of boxes. Her only path was forward. The air was heavy, causing every one of her breaths to feel heavy. Occasionally, a rat or cricket would cross her path, but they paid her no heed. They had greater evils to fear.

In this world, known as Nowhere, the only inhabitants are young children, such as the tiny girl in the pink raincoat, and Visitors. The Visitors came to this world long ago, hunting every child until none remain. Mysteriously, the time of their appearance has been forgotten, as have their reasons for this hunt.

The little pink raincoat girl crept toward a soft, cold light. It was pure white, like a moonbeam. Upon finally reaching it, she discovered it was the gap between a door and the floor. Her only option was to slide under and discover what waited for her on the other side. A tall Visitor stood in a living room with its black eyes fastened on a clock on the wall. Its body was disproportionate, as its legs made up almost its entire height. It had long, wavy arms that hung limply at its sides. It wore a tattered jacket and ripped stockings. Since it wore no shoes, its feet were nakedly displayed.

Without making the slightest noise, the girl tiptoed past the black mass under a shelf, likely used for storing oversized spices. The Visitor, pleased with the clock, walked out of the kitchen and unceremoniously dropped its form onto a leather couch. Afraid for her life, the little girl proceeded through the kitchen, past a pile of questionable meat lazily left on the stone floor, and into the living room. She briefly rested under the same couch where the Visitor sat a few feet above her pink hood. After gathering her courage, she maintained her trek until she found a dead end.

There were tall jars filled with pickled fingers, toes, tongues, and eyes of victims of the Visitor. Through the glass, she saw a mouse hole which meant safety. The Visitor still reclined on the couch. She weaved through the first few jars with ease. One of the jars had leaked fluid on the floor, creating a slippery surface for the girl to walk across. At first, this did not pose any trouble for the child. After taking a bad step, the unthinkable happened: she tripped. Every glass jar around her fell and shattered.

The Visitor's eyes immediately saw the intruder.

The little girl dove for the mouse hole, and wriggled inside. The visitor clawed and scratched and snarled and snapped at the entrance like a hunting dog. The girl pressed her back to the wall and shuffled across, out of the Visitor’s view.

And then a hand clamped over her mouth.

The girl froze.

The hand was small, like hers, and warm, too. But it was paler, skinnier and a lot less strong than she expected.

‘Shh,’ the owner of the hand whispered behind her. ‘It’s okay. My name is Lindy. We’re safe in here.’ Lindy released the girl and turned her around.

Lindy looked nothing like the girl. She wore a yellow dress, had short red hair and was very, very skinny. But the girl paid no attention to that. She peered behind Lindy, past her stumpy, ground down teeth and bleeding knuckles, to the tunnel behind her.

‘Yeah,’ Lindy whispered. ‘I dug it myself. I think if I tunnel through the walls, I can get out of here without getting hurt.’

’But you are hurt,’ said the girl.

Lindy held up her bleeding hands, where the skin was worked to the bone and her nails falling off. ‘This? This is from digging. So are my teeth. It’s nothing compared to what the Visitors can do.’

’The Visitors? Did they hurt you?’

Lindy shook her head. ‘My brother.’

"So, what is your name?" Lindy politely asked. The girl in the pink raincoat had forgotten, unsure if she ever had one. "I don't have one." Lindy perked up at this. "Then I must give you a name!"

How wonderful a name is. It is uniquely one's own. One is called by it by friends and strangers. To the girl in the pink raincoat, Lindy seemed like both. They continued through the tunnels dug by Lindy until the girl herself suggested a name. The idea came to her after a white butterfly flew over their heads in a small clearing littered with newspaper. "What about Moth?" Both of the girls were delighted with this name.

Lindy brought Moth back to reality. "Moth, please be careful. Follow my lead. We are about to cross a Visitor's basement. We'll only be able to follow my tunnel halfway behind the basement," Lindy gulped, "we'll need to walk the second half in the open." Moth's heart dropped. Lindy was the only friendly being Moth had met in this Nowhere. She had so many questions.

"Where are we?"

"Why do the Visitors want to eat us?"

"Is there an escape?"

As the safety of the tunnels ended, Moth's heart began to beat faster, like a drum picking up speed. Her ears rang and her chest shook, but she comforted herself in the presence of her new friend Lindy.

The basement floor was cracked and covered with the remains of countless others. More jars of remains, stood on shelves to the girls's right. Flies swarmed the jars, desiring to consume their contents. On their left, the wall was bare except for knives. These knives were three times as long as them, with edges sharp enough to slice through their skinny bodies without so much as a second thought. Their path forward was clear, but they still need to exert caution. Moth asked Lindy, "Are there no Visitors here?" Lindy's reply was: "Not at the moment."

Lindy led the way across the floor; Moth followed closely behind. Chains hung overhead, swaying carelessly.

Moth and Lindy made it to the other side of the basement. They were safe.

For now.

They did not stop walking.

Even after the basement faded behind them and the tunnel walls closed in once more, Lindy kept crawling forward on her elbows and knees, her breath shallow and quick. Moth followed, trying to match her pace, trying not to think about the knives, the jars, the chains that still clinked faintly behind them as though remembering their passage.

The tunnel narrowed until their shoulders brushed the dirt on either side. The air felt thicker here, heavier, like it did not want to be breathed. Moth’s chest rose and fell in short, nervous bursts.

“Does it always feel like this?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Lindy said. “The deeper you go, the more it notices you.”

Moth paused. “What notices us?”

Lindy didn’t answer.

Instead, she stopped crawling and pressed her ear against the dirt wall. For a long moment, she stayed perfectly still. Moth copied her, hesitantly pressing her hood against the cold earth.

At first, she heard nothing.

Then—

Thump.

A slow, heavy beat, like a heart buried deep inside the house.

Thump.

Moth recoiled. “The walls… they’re breathing.”

Lindy nodded, eyes wide but strangely calm. “That means we’re close to the center of this place. Houses here aren’t just houses. They’re part of Nowhere. Alive, in their own way.”

Moth swallowed hard. “Do they… help the Visitors?”

“No,” Lindy said. “But they don’t help us either.”

Another thump echoed through the tunnel. Dust sifted down from the ceiling, landing softly on their hair and clothes. The ground felt warmer now, almost feverish.

“We should keep moving,” Lindy whispered. “When the walls start breathing, the Visitors start listening.”

They crawled faster.

The tunnel sloped upward and widened just enough for them to walk hunched over. The dirt floor gave way to wooden planks, old and warped, that creaked under their tiny feet. Each step sounded far too loud in the tight space.

Moth held her breath as long as she could, then let it out slowly. “Lindy… your brother. What happened to him?”

For a moment, Moth thought she wouldn’t answer. Then Lindy spoke, her voice thin and distant.

“He wasn’t taken,” she said. “Not at first.”

The planks creaked as she resumed walking.

“He was bigger than me. Braver, too. He said the Visitors were just pretending to be monsters. That if we showed them we weren’t afraid, they’d leave us alone.”

Moth’s stomach tightened. “Did they?”

“No.” Lindy’s fingers curled into fists. “They watched him for a long time. Days. Maybe weeks. Then one night, he stopped being afraid of them.”

Moth blinked. “Stopped being afraid…?”

Lindy turned back, her face pale in the dim tunnel light. “That’s when he started acting like them.”

The air seemed to grow colder.

“He stopped talking,” Lindy continued quietly. “Stopped blinking. He’d just stand in corners and stare at things that weren’t there. And one day… he tried to bite me. Said he was ‘helping them find me.’”

Moth felt her legs go weak. “What happened to him after that?”

Lindy looked away. “I ran. Dug these tunnels so he couldn’t follow.”

They walked in silence after that, the only sound the soft creak of wood and the distant, rhythmic thumping of the breathing walls.

At last, a faint grey glow appeared ahead.

Lindy raised a hand, signaling Moth to stop. They crouched low as the tunnel opened into a narrow gap between two floorboards. Through the crack, Moth could see a new room above them.

It was enormous, even bigger than the last.

Tall cabinets lined the walls like silent giants. A long dining table stretched across the center, its legs as thick as tree trunks. On top of it sat rows of empty plates and silverware, perfectly arranged, as though waiting for guests that would never come.

Moth’s eyes drifted upward.

At the far end of the table, something moved.

A Visitor sat in a high-backed chair, far taller than the others they had seen. Its arms were folded neatly in its lap. Its head tilted slightly, as if listening to something far away.

Then it spoke.

“Two heartbeats,” it murmured softly, its voice thin and echoing. “So close together.”

Moth’s blood ran cold.

The Visitor slowly turned its head toward the floorboards.

Toward them.

Lindy’s hand shot out and gripped Moth’s wrist with surprising strength. Her eyes were wide with terror, but her voice was barely a breath.

“Don’t. Move.”