There were ten children—all jittery and jumbled—squished tight in a giant airplane made of rubbery metal. It floated, like a bubble, and landed in a place where grass grew taller than whispers and stretched out like a silent ocean.
The sky was upside-down, and the clouds dripped blue paint. The air smelled like melted crayons and secrets. They stepped out one by one—tap, tap, tap—little feet on big green. They weren't alone. In the middle, standing awkwardly like a broken doll, was a man. Or, was it a man?
He wore a sharp suit and a long, long coat. His hands moved like clockwork, but—no head. No face. Instead, perched on his shoulders, was an old television. And in the very center of that screen? An eye—a single, round, unblinking human eye, bigger than a dinner plate. The children's eyes widened, but the TV-man didn't move. Not until a soft bzzzzt crackled out, like static spiders crawling up your spine.
"Hello, little sparklers!" The voice echoed from nowhere, and everywhere. "Do not do bad things. Do not lie, do not cheat, do not run from shadows... Be good! Always good!"
The words wrapped around their heads like cotton candy spider webs, sticky and strange. And then, without a word, the man started to dance. His coat spun like a kaleidoscope, his arms flapping like wings made of paper. He swirled, twirled—one, two, three!—and the children, as if pulled by invisible strings, danced too. But this wasn't just in the field.
Far away, in a tiny room filled with candy wrappers and broken toys, a boy watched it all through a glowing TV screen. His eyes were wide as saucers, and his feet started tapping. He stood up, wobbled, and started dancing too. In the city below his window, in every dusty corner and every shadowy alley, more and more kids joined in. Tap, tap, tap, their feet moved in rhythm with Mr. Static. Above the city, a shadow loomed, a thin and tall figure standing on the very roof of the world. It was him—Mr. Static.
He looked down at the swirling sea of dancing children and spread his arms wide. The eye on his TV head spun, and a crackling laugh bubbled up. First soft, then louder, and louder, until it filled the streets like thunder made of giggles and shrieks.
"I am Mr. Static!" he sang, his voice stretching like old taffy.
And then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed. In the boy's room, he was laughing too. He didn't know why. His mouth moved, but the sound wasn't his. It was Mr. Static's—crackly, crunchy, and wrong. Across the city, laughter echoed in every corner. Children's mouths were wide open, teeth showing, voices blending into one big, awful chorus. And Mr. Static just kept laughing. The eye on his TV head swirled, round and round and round—until—
BOOM.
A sound like a thousand glass jars shattering. The ground shook, cracked, and the city crumpled like a paper house. The sky turned into a burst of colors—pink, green, orange—all blending into a whirlpool of light and noise. The earth broke apart, piece by piece, crumbling into nothing. And then—
Silence.
A boy's eyes fluttered open. He sat up in his bed, the sheets twisted around him like a cocoon. Everything was quiet. His room was small and gray, the walls bare, the floor cold. There was no Mr. Static. No laughter. No dancing. Just a dream. Just a dream. But when he turned his head, in the corner of the room, the TV flickered. For a split second, a blurry image—ten kids, a field of grass, and a man in a suit, his head a TV with a spinning eye.
The boy sat up, tangled in his thin, scratchy sheets. The room was cold—too cold. There were no colors, only heavy shadows leaking in from corners, thick and sticky like spilled ink. No windows, no light. His eyes darted around. Nothing moved. Everything looked twisted, wrong—walls bent at strange angles, floorboards creaked like broken bones. Slowly, his bare feet touched the ground—creeeaaak—sending tiny shivers up his legs.
He stood up, and the air tasted like rust and old pennies. His hands shook as he reached out for the door, the handle ice-cold under his fingers. He pushed it open, and the door sighed, heavy and tired. The hallway outside was long and narrow, stretching out forever, the ceiling low and suffocating. No lights. No windows. Just the dark, gray walls and the sound of his own breathing—in, out, in, out. He looked left. Empty. He looked right. Empty. Like a maze without an end.