They exited the safe house through a back alley cracked with vines. It was dusk, but the sky didn't match the time. Too green. Too low. Like clouds were pressing in from the wrong angle.
They crossed into an older part of the city—someplace built before zoning laws stopped being polite suggestions. Flickering neon signs buzzed above a pharmacy whose windows had been blacked out with pages from Astrobiology Quarterly. Stray cats walked in patterns that seemed geometric.
A passing cyclist waved to them with an oversized glove that made his hand look like it belonged to a marionette.
Lance barely noticed. His head was down. Shoulders tight. Eyes opaque like cloudy glass marbles, catching reflections that bent too easily.
People stared.
They didn't just notice him—they recoiled.
A woman stepping out of a convenience store stopped mid-step and dropped her phone. A man walking his dog crossed the street without looking.
"Okay," Lance muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Definitely not just the vibes anymore."
Dani, beside him, didn't comment. She watched reactions. Catalogued the spacing. Narrowed her eyes like she was trying to calculate how far gone he looked to everyone else.
They reached the diner before it rained.
Or... before something that sounded like rain.
The awning above the door was held up by skeletal bird legs. A sign flickered: FRANK'S / NOT FRANK'S / DON'T ASK.
Inside, it was warm.
Too warm.
And quiet.
Conversations overlapped weirdly—people's mouths moving a half-second before sound caught up. One guy was laughing at a joke no one had told yet. A waitress poured coffee into a mug that wasn't there.
Lance sat in the corner booth. Dani stood a moment longer, surveying the room like someone scanning for hidden weapons.
Then she slid in across from him.
"You gonna be okay if I talk to someone here?" she asked, tone dry.
"Sure," Lance murmured, still trying not to meet anyone's eyes. "It's not like I'm the glowing-eyed milk prophet or anything."
"Yet."
She left him with that.
Lance sighed and leaned back. Dario hopped up beside him like he'd done this in a thousand booths before.
The waitress came over. Her apron said CHARLENE, but the name tag said SIX.
Her eyes widened when she saw Lance. She stiffened.
"Coffee?" she asked, not looking directly at him.
"Uh... yeah. Please."
She nodded but didn't write it down. Just left.
And behind her, every other person in the diner was trying not to look at him.
Even the guy playing solitaire with Uno cards paused mid-draw.
Lance leaned down and whispered to Dario.
"You're still the only thing that makes sense."
The dog's tail thumped twice.
From the corner of the room, a new voice cut through:
"He's leaking."
Dani whipped around.
A man had appeared beside the old pinball machine. Early thirties, maybe, wearing a trench coat too short for his frame and a tie that had clearly been stolen from an arcade prize wall. His hair was graying in lines that didn't match his age, like time had shaved across him with a dull razor.
He looked at Lance. Then Dani. Then back at Lance.
"Yup," he said again, louder. "You got one of those."
Dani narrowed her eyes. "Kenton."
"Dani."
"Why are you here?"
"I live here," Kenton said, gesturing like obviously. "The rent's paid in scrip and emotional labor. This place hasn't bled since last May. It's safe-ish."
"Define 'safe-ish,'" Lance said.
Kenton turned to him. Smiled.
It wasn't comforting.
"Safe enough that if you scream, someone might remember hearing it."
Lance stared.
Kenton leaned in.
"And you? You're the guy with the dairy demon, right?"
"It's not a demon," Dani muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Then what is it?" Lance asked, a whisper.
Everyone went quiet again.
Even Charlene/Six.
And in that quiet, outside the diner's window—something passed.
Fast.
Too fast.
Just a flicker of movement against the glass, like a shape bending light.
But it didn't stop the world.
It didn't crash in.
It just noticed.
And moved on.
Kenton's fingers fidgeted around his napkin like it was trying to crawl away. His eyes darted from Lance's sleeve to Dani's unblinking stare, then back again.
"I wasn't gonna bring this up," he said, voice hushed, jittery. "But then I saw that sweat."
Dani raised an eyebrow. "You say that like it's code for something."
"It is," Kenton muttered. "I've only ever seen milk sweat in two cases. One of them was declared a Class-Ω Containment Breach. The other lives inside an isolated concrete sphere suspended over a salt trench in Western Kazakhstan."
Lance blinked. "I hate every single word in that sentence."
Kenton ignored him. "You remember Cell Block Milk?"
"I remember it shouldn't exist," Dani replied. "That was sealed before I was born."
Kenton leaned in. "It's leaking again. Something recursive. Not from the inside—from outside it. Like someone is echoing through it backward."
"English," Lance whispered, head in his hands.
"There's a thing," Kenton said, waving vaguely like he was trying to draw a constellation with his fingers. "An entity. A misfold. Like a reality crease that bled wrong and got up and walked. It's attracted to people who were never supposed to exist. Anomalous nobodies."
He pointed at Lance. "Like him."
Dani folded her arms. "You're saying he's being hunted by a living paradox because he's unimportant?"
"No," Kenton said. "I'm saying he's important to the wrong things. He registered in the Milkfold. That's what we used to call it. The breach site."
Lance looked up, deadpan. "I need you to know how deeply that name hurts me."
Kenton nodded sympathetically. "It's bad. I fought for Curd Vault Alpha but got voted down."
Dani leaned forward. "You're not joking."
"Have I ever joked about sentient dairy?"
A beat.
"...yes," she said.
"Okay, but I was right, wasn't I?"
Dani narrowed her eyes. "You're telling me something breached containment, echoed into this idiot's life, and now he's... what? A magnet?"
Kenton nodded. "For concepts. For anomalies. For the kind of things that get stored in libraries where the books bleed when you whisper."
Lance groaned into his hands. "I just wanted to buy milk."
"And you did!" Kenton said brightly. "But unfortunately, that milk was likely a metaphysical relay node."
"Why are these words real," Lance mumbled.
Kenton stood up abruptly. The diner hushed again.
"We have to go," he said. "Now."
Dani raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
Kenton's eyes darted to the window, where the neon signs flickered in perfect sync.
"They found him," he said. "They know he's alive. The saint is stirring."
"Who?"
"The Misfolded Saint. Keeper of Patternless Entry. The first being to mimic a god before gods were even an option."
Dani reached slowly for her briefcase weapon. "And this thing is..."
"Already halfway here," Kenton said, pointing to the window.
Lance turned.
Across the street, a man in a stained UPS uniform stood motionless in the middle of the road. His head turned full 180 degrees to face them.
And he smiled.
With no mouth.
Kenton whispered: "Time to run."