The Gravy

"Right," Mike said, his voice too high, a thin thread against the low whir of the computer. "So, the next phase. The… the Gravy Scan." He gestured vaguely at the screen, where the geometric patterns had dissolved into a looping GIF of a perpetually churning, viscous brown substance. Gravy. Always gravy.

Leo snorted, pushing himself further into the beanbag. "The 'Gravy Scan'. Seriously? We spent three hours trying to 'align our ocular frequencies' with a picture of a cat wearing a tinfoil hat, and now it's gravy? This is beyond stupid, Mike."

"It's not stupid," Carmen retorted, eyes not leaving the screen. "The forum said… it's about 'softening perceptual boundaries'. The cat was Phase One, the 'Cognitive Defibrillator'."

"Right, and I felt nothing but a strong urge to get more sleep," Leo mumbled, rubbing his temples. The air in the basement was thick, cloying, like something was slowly pressurising. Or maybe it was just the pizza grease.

Zara, who had been sketching idly in her notebook, looked up, her gaze shifting between the screen and Mike. "What's the goal with the gravy? Just… stare at it? Until our brains turn into a lumpy sauce?"

Mike actually shivered. "No. The instructions are… precise. We need to focus on a familiar object, something mundane, and then overlay the Gravy Scan in our minds. Let the… the 'gravy' seep into it. The idea is to see the 'underlying truth' of the object."

"The underlying truth of Mike's old hockey stick is that it's probably got mould growing on it," Leo deadpanned, stretching. His back popped with a sound like dry twigs snapping.

"Ha-ha," Mike said, though there was no humour in his voice. He seemed to be fighting a growing tremor. "Look, the consensus on the board is that this one… it’s a big one. People are saying it changes everything. Like, fundamentally."

Carmen leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "Like how? People are seeing things?"

"More than seeing," Mike whispered, his eyes wide. "They're experiencing. They're saying the 'veil' gets thin. The things behind the screen… they start to show through."

Zara closed her sketchbook with a soft thud. "'Things behind the screen'? What, like my mum calling to ask if I've done my laundry? Because that's terrifying enough for me."

Leo laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "Hard pass. My reality is already sufficiently terrifying, thanks. Student loans, the climate crisis, the sheer number of cat videos I've watched…"

"But what if it's more than that?" Carmen interrupted, her voice gaining an edge of excitement that worried Leo. "What if this is… unlocking something? A different way to perceive the world?"

"Or a different way to lose your mind," Zara countered, her gaze drifting around the cluttered basement, as if expecting something to detach from the walls and float. The dusty shelves, laden with decades of Mike’s family’s forgotten junk, seemed to ripple at the edges of her vision. Or maybe it was just her eyes playing tricks. The basement felt… older tonight, somehow. More lived-in, but in a way that suggested uninvited guests.

"Okay," Mike declared, snapping them back, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. "We all agree on an object. Something simple. Something… unassuming."

Leo looked around. His gaze settled on an ancient, floral-patterned armchair in the corner, its springs probably long dead. "The armchair. It's hideous. Can't get any worse."

"Perfect," Mike said, nodding. "Everyone, stare at the armchair. And try to imagine the gravy. Seeping. Coating it."

Leo, against his better judgement, fixed his eyes on the armchair. It was upholstered in a faded, sickly beige fabric adorned with sprawling, aggressive chrysanthemums. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the brown sludge from the screen, thick and glinting, pouring over the floral monstrosity. This was ridiculous. He opened his eyes. The armchair was still there. Still hideous.

The Seeping Pattern

Then, Carmen gasped. "Oh my god." Her voice was a strained whisper, tight with a mixture of fear and awe. "It's… it's moving."

Leo frowned, adjusting his glasses. "What's moving? The dust motes? Your imagination?"

"No, look!" She pointed with a trembling finger. And Leo saw it. Or thought he saw it. The floral pattern on the armchair, the chrysanthemums, were subtly, sickeningly, shifting. The beige background seemed to deepen, to take on a richer, more viscous hue. The flowers themselves began to bloat, their petals stretching and twisting like slow-motion drowning. It wasn't just a trick of the light; the fabric itself seemed to be breathing, expanding and contracting with an unnatural, wet motion.

Zara swore under her breath, a sharp, choked sound. She took a step back, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. "That's… that's not possible."

"It's the gravy," Mike breathed, his eyes fixed, unblinking, on the armchair. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. "It's the truth. The underlying truth of its existence."

Leo felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. He blinked hard, pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked again, the armchair was definitely… different. The chrysanthemums had melted into the beige, and the entire surface of the fabric now resembled a slow-motion video of congealing meat drippings. It looked like the chair was made of stew. He could almost smell it. A rich, greasy, unspeakably savoury scent, mixed with the dusty tang of the basement.

"I'm going to be sick," Zara mumbled, her face pale. She clutched her stomach.

"No, no, stay with it," Mike urged, his voice frantic, like a cult leader. "This is what they talked about. The bleed-through. The convergence of the… of the digital and the real. It's showing us the pure, unadulterated essence!"

Carmen, however, was mesmerised. She reached out a hesitant hand, almost touching the now unmistakably gravy-like surface of the armchair. "It's… beautiful. In a gross way. Like seeing how things really are."

Leo watched, aghast, as Carmen's fingertip hovered inches from the chair. He half-expected her to pull it back, disgusted. Instead, she leaned in, a faint, almost imperceptible vapour rising from the gravy-chair. It smelled like Sunday dinner and something deeply, unnervingly wrong.

"Don't touch it!" Leo yelled, his voice cracking. He lunged forward, grabbing Carmen's wrist, pulling her back from the chair. His hand felt cold, but hers felt unnaturally warm, almost clammy. "What the hell are you doing?"

Carmen stared at him, her eyes unfocused, a faint, blissful smile on her face. "It's just gravy, Leo. It's fine. It's… everything."

Everything? Leo looked at the armchair, which now seemed to shimmer and pulsate, almost oozing. The entire basement felt like it was shifting around them, the air thick with the smell of fat and something metallic. The faint hum from Mike's computer had intensified, becoming a low, resonant throb, vibrating through the floorboards, up into his bones. He could feel it in his teeth.

"We need to stop this," Zara said, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes wide with terror. She wasn't looking at the chair anymore, but at the old, unplugged television set in the corner, its screen a dark, dead void. There was a faint, blueish glow coming from behind it, pulsing softly, like a struggling heart.

Mike wasn't listening. He was frantically typing, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "They're saying the next step is interaction! We have to… we have to engage! The comments are going wild! Someone just posted a video of their dog turning into a roast!"

"A roast?" Leo stared at him, aghast. "Mike, you're not making sense!"

"It's the truth!" Mike shouted, turning from the screen, his face flushed, eyes gleaming with a manic fervour. "The true form beneath the illusions! The matrix of meat! We're peeling back the layers!"

The Unveiling of the Unsaid

Suddenly, the light from Mike's monitor intensified, casting grotesque, elongated shadows across the room. The blue glow from behind the old television set flared, illuminating Zara's pale face as she pointed, her mouth open in a silent scream. Leo spun, heart hammering against his ribs.

Behind the dusty, ancient television, where Zara pointed, the wall itself seemed to buckle inwards, not like plaster giving way, but like a membrane stretching. A faint, sickening sloshing sound emanated from it. Then, a dark, viscous liquid, impossibly thick and brown, began to seep from the wall around the television, like blood from a festering wound. It smelled of rendered fat and old pennies.

The 'gravy' from the screen, Leo realised with a sickening lurch, was now actively leaking into their reality. This wasn't a hallucination. This wasn't a trick of the mind. This was wet, greasy, tangible horror.

Carmen, instead of recoiling, let out a soft, delighted laugh. "It's working! It's really, truly working!" She walked towards the seeping wall, her steps light, almost skipping. Her eyes were still unfocused, but her smile was wide, unsettling.

"Carmen, no!" Leo scrambled to his feet, tripping over the beanbag, his shins barking against the concrete floor. A sharp pain lanced through his leg, but he ignored it. He had to stop her. She was walking towards what looked like a wall-sized weeping ulcer of brown sludge.

Zara, meanwhile, seemed rooted to the spot, staring at the old television. The blue glow behind it pulsed faster now, like a desperate beacon. She whimpered, a small, lost sound. "The… the signal. It's strong. It's… talking."

"Talking?" Leo yelled, grabbing Carmen's arm, yanking her away from the bubbling wall. She resisted, pulling against him with surprising strength, her eyes still fixed on the glistening brown. "What is talking?"

"The old tube," Zara whispered, pointing a shaky finger at the television. "It's like… the source. The heart of it. The filter is breaking."

Mike, oblivious to the physical horror unfolding, continued to tap frantically on his keyboard, muttering to himself. "They're asking for feedback! They want to know what it looks like! What it tastes like!"

"Tastes like? Mike!" Leo spun him around, gripping his shoulders. Mike's eyes were wide, glassy, reflecting the digital gravy-GIF on his screen. "This is not a game! Look around!"

Mike blinked, his gaze slowly falling on the seeping wall, then to the pulsating gravy-armchair, then to the old television with its intense blue backlight. A flicker of something that might have been fear crossed his face, quickly replaced by a strange, almost serene acceptance. "It's… it's beautiful, isn't it? The true texture of everything. The flavour of pure information."

"No, it's disgusting! It's a biohazard!" Leo shouted, disgusted. He could feel the fine spray of something wet and greasy on his face from the wall. He swallowed, the metallic, savoury taste coating his tongue.

Carmen had broken free of his grasp and was now pressing her hands against the viscous wall, her fingers sinking slightly into the brown sludge. She let out a small sigh, like someone settling into a warm bath. "It's… warm. And soft. Like… like everything is finally making sense."

Leo watched, horrified, as the gravy seemed to ripple around Carmen's hands, almost embracing her. He looked from Carmen's mesmerised face to Mike's zealous expression, then to Zara, who was still fixated on the old television set, her face etched with a desperate, burgeoning understanding. The hum from the computer, the sloshing from the wall, the faint, sickeningly sweet smell of cooked meat and ozone – it was all coalescing into a single, overwhelming sensory assault.

The basement was no longer just a basement. It was a membrane. A thin, stretched skin between worlds, and the online world, the world of misinformation and bizarre viral challenges, was bleeding through, literally and horribly. The autumn wind outside howled, a desperate, unheard warning against the creeping, digital rot within.

Zara abruptly stumbled forward, away from the old TV, her hand pressed against her forehead. "I hear it," she gasped, her voice raw. "The signal. It's telling me… it's telling me about the next phase."

"What next phase?" Leo demanded, his voice hoarse, a desperate plea for normalcy in a room that had become anything but. The smell was getting stronger, richer, almost suffocating.

Zara turned, her eyes wide, glistening in the eerie blue light. "It says… to fully merge. To become one with the 'gravy stream'. We need to… make an offering. A physical one."

Mike looked up from his keyboard, his eyes gleaming. "An offering? They've been talking about that in the deeper forums! But no one knew what it meant!"

Leo stared at his friends, at the horror congealing around them, at the insane gleam in their eyes. This wasn't just a challenge anymore. This was a goddamn ritual. And they were standing at the precipice, deciding whether to step into the abyss, or to fight their way back to a reality that suddenly seemed impossibly distant.

He knew, with a chilling certainty, that whatever 'offering' the 'gravy stream' demanded, it wouldn't be anything they could casually buy online.