Will Harris came to consciousness with the distinct and unwelcome sensation of sitting in a truly terrible chair.
It wasn’t merely uncomfortable. It was an affront to ergonomic design, a masterpiece of posterior punishment. The back was too straight, the velvet covering felt suspiciously like felt, and it offered all the lumbar support of a wet noodle. He shifted, his hand instinctively going to the smooth, cool armrest, his thumb beginning to trace a slow, repetitive circle over the polished wood. A little pressure, a little friction. Again and again.
His eyes opened.
The chair was the least of his problems.
He was in a room that had no business existing. The walls were a dark, charcoal grey, seamless and matte. The floor was covered by a single, colossal rug patterned with interlocking gold and silver lines that made his eyes ache. And scattered across it, like chess pieces set for a game he didn’t understand, were his friends. All of them.
Lenny Williamson was already on his feet, big and loud and taking up twice the space he needed. “Alright, very funny! Jett, if this is another one of your elaborate birthday pranks for Archie, I swear to God—”
“My birthday was four months ago,” Archie Everhardt mumbled from a wingback chair that looked genuinely comfortable. Will felt a pang of bitter envy.
“And this has Modo’s fingerprints all over it,” Florence Everson said, her voice cutting through the rising chatter. She sat perfectly composed in a stiff-backed chair, her hands folded in her lap. She looked as though she was waiting for a train that was five minutes late, not waking up in an impossible prison. “Theatricality. Misdirection. No discernible exit.”
Will’s gaze followed hers. She was right. There were no windows. No doors. The wall where a door should be was as smooth and uninterrupted as the others. He stood up—his own chair creaking in protest—and walked to it. He pressed his palm against the surface. It was cool and solid. He knocked. The sound was a dull, dense thud. Nothing. He slid his thumb over the wall’s finish. Too textured. No comfort there.
He turned back to the room. The whole menagerie was here. Hannah and Daryl were huddled together on a loveseat, their faces pale. Mane Attraction—of course he’d found the most ridiculous gilded chaise lounge—was dramatically fanning himself with his own hand. Olivia Burke was methodically checking her pockets, a frown etched on her face. Even Grizz, their hulking, silent driver, was present, standing sentinel by a grandfather clock that wasn't ticking.
“Where are we?” Hannah’s voice was a thin whisper.
“More to the point,” Florence added, her eyes sweeping over the assembly, “*when* are we? I was supervising the loading of the tour bus in Nashville. Will, you were with me.”
“I was,” Will confirmed, his mind racing. One moment, the familiar scent of diesel and stale coffee outside the Ryman. The next, the phantom pain of a bad chair and the smell of old dust and ozone. No transition. No memory. Just a cut, like a bad film edit.
“I was at the hotel!” Lenny boomed. “Mid-lunge! My quads are going to be a mess.”
Suddenly, the lights in the room dimmed, leaving only a soft, ambient glow from the geometric lines in the rug. A collective gasp went through the group. The wall opposite them flickered. It wasn't a wall. It was a screen. A colossal, cinema-sized screen.
White text began to type itself out across the blackness, silent and unnervingly neat.
**DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE. YOU CANNOT.**
**YOU ARE HERE TO OBSERVE. TO UNDERSTAND.**
**ALL QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED. ALL SECRETS WILL BE BARED.**
**YOU WILL WATCH.**
A thick, heavy silence fell over them, a physical weight. Mane Attraction had stopped fanning himself. Lenny’s mouth was hanging open. Will could feel his own heart hammering against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. His thumb found the armrest of his chair again, rubbing, rubbing, a desperate, useless motion.
Secrets will be bared. The words coiled in his gut. They had enough of those to fill a library.
Florence spoke first, her voice dangerously quiet. "Who are you?" she asked the screen.
There was no answer. Instead, the text faded, replaced by three large words in a stark, blocky font. A title card.
**THE GOAT 2026**
Will stared. The others were murmuring, confused. “The goat? What goat?” Lenny asked. “Like, the animal? Or…?”
“Greatest Of All Time,” Olivia supplied, her voice flat. “It’s an acronym.”
But Will wasn’t listening. 2026. The year. The near-future date screamed at him from the screen, a promise and a threat. He knew, with a certainty that turned his blood to ice, that this wasn’t random. This wasn't about some abstract concept of greatness.
Because the screen flickered again, and the title dissolved. In its place, an image bloomed, grainy and saturated. It was a wide shot of a run-down barn, its red paint peeling, a familiar tire swing hanging limp from a massive oak tree beside it. Frank's old barn. The place where everything started. The place they had all sworn never to speak of again.
A wave of nausea crashed over him. This wasn't a prank. This wasn't some convoluted stunt by Modo or Jett. This was a reckoning.
Florence saw the recognition on his face. Her composure, for the first time, cracked. Just a hairline fracture. “Will?” she asked, and the single word was laced with a demand she didn't voice. *What do you know?*
He couldn’t answer. He couldn't look away from the screen. He knew that barn. He knew the broken slat on the top-floor window and the rusted hinges on the big double doors. He knew the ghosts that lived there.
And as the camera began a slow, ominous pan toward the barn doors, he knew, with a suffocating dread, who it was about to find inside.