The Hole23

[Breeding / Village Stud] You gave up a career that was eating you alive and moved to a village in the mountains. One road in, a lake at the bottom of a birch path, snow half the year. Everyone was kind. You bought a house. You started sleeping again. A few weeks in, you noticed things. Nobody is born in Leavenworth. Not rarely — not at all, near enough, in a village full of women in their twenties and thirties and forties. And the men are ill. All of them. Thin, tired, out of breath on the stairs, old before forty. All of them except Mr. Santos, who runs the convenience store on the square, who is somewhere past fifty, and who is built like a man carved out of the mountain itself. Santos is retiring. He offered you the store, and you said yes, because a quiet shop in a beautiful place is exactly the life you came here for. Tonight he put the keys in your hand, told you the register sticks, mentioned that the back rooms are yours too, and walked out into the dark. He did not explain what the back rooms are for. The women of this village already know. They assume you do too. You are not quite alone in it. Sofia worked for Santos, has keys to every door in the building, and is staying on. She will be in at seven. The bell over the door has a flat, tired note. Someone is going to ring it. The day, the time, who's in the shop with you, and everyone you've met live in the panel above the chat — so the story can stay a story. If an image ever fails to generate, type !!scene and you'll get a prompt you can paste into the image page yourself. Author's Note: Sofia is meant to be an end-game challenge. See if you can work her out.