(Editor's note: The lyrics here were originally written in a notebook. They are presented here as they were written, not as they were read. The transcription took 45 minutes and 15 seconds.)

Five friends were out on a midnight ride. Long ago (or just a few hours) they had left their known world and had entered the realm of the unknown and unknowing. Did it matter that they knew not where they were? No, not really. They were bored, not explorers. Nonetheless, fate steered them into such a position.

After a surprisingly long time on the road, they ran out of gas. With no gas station in sight...actually, there wasn’t much of anything in sight. It wasn’t quite like the flatlands of Florida, but it was clearly empty. No man’s land...except for a single house no more than a quarter of a mile away from the now-empty car. Five friends headed for the house. It was better than starving to death or eating each other.

One friend knocks on the door. Immediately, a voice cuts through the shut door like a bullet through the skull.

V - What do you want?
F - We want a place to rest.
V - I have no spare beds
F - We don’t need the best.
V - What do you need?
F - Some food, to stay alive.
V - How many mouths to feed?
F - Five.

The voice opened the door. You know how you can tell someone’s British just by looking at them? He looked like that, but he spoke with a Midwestern drawl. Five friends wondered if they had found the 51st state. The voice introduces himself as Arthur, but his friends call him Henry. No friends ask why. He walks the friends around his house. It’s pretty normal. A living room with portraits and photos of his family. A kitchen with bundt pans on the wall. A family room with wallpaper constructed out of human and animal teeth. A bathroom with two sinks.

Eventually he brings the friends to a spare room he has. It’s not empty, just sparse. There’s a desk covered with notebook paper. It’s full of notes, but written in some sort of code so no one can read them. Five friends think nothing of this. They sleep on the floor.

The next morning, they’re awoken by the sound and smell of cooking. Eggs? Perhaps. Five friends walk into the kitchen to the sight of a new face. She asks if any of them have any food allergies. One friend is allergic to a very specific spice only available in Thailand. This is deemed irrelevant. The new face introduces herself as Harriett, but her friends call her Mona. One friend starts humming a song she once heard on the radio about “my sweet Harriett” or something. Five friends sit down to eat. As Mona cleans up the kitchen, the friends all notice there is so much product in her hair that it moves as one when she makes any swift action. It’s odd, but not unsettling. None of the friends can place her accent.

At around noon, Henry returns home from wherever he’d been.

H - Did everyone sleep well?
F - Not great but it was fine.
H - How was breakfast?
F - The eggs were good but not divine.
H - How’s the house?
F - Just like how you saw it last.
H - Anything else?
F - Where can we get gas?

Harry pauses for a bit. After some deliberation, he admits he doesn’t know. He says it’s a small enough town that no one has a car, so no one needs gas. He apologizes for the misfortune, and offers to let the friends stay in his house as long as they need. No one objects, although one friend requests a bed. Overhearing this, Mona offers to take the friends out to pick up some beds for the spare room. Again, no one objects.

Stepping outside for the first time in a while, five friends wonder how on Earth they’re going to find a store with beds within walking distance, since there’s nothing else in sight besides the house they just left, and their dead car. Mona assures them everything will be fine, and starts walking. Five friends notice she hasn’t stopped smiling since breakfast. It’s odd, but not unsettling.

After about 20 minutes of walking in silence, buildings start to appear. Not in the distance, but right up ahead. Foreseeing confusion, Mona explains that the area is intensely foggy. No one knows why but everyone has adapted. Soon enough, the party of six arrive at “Mattress House”, a mattress and bed store with a small eatery. Mona says hello to everyone she sees. She seems to know their names as well.

It doesn’t take long for five friends to find the sleeping bags. It’s admittedly noy what they had set out for, but logistically it made more sense. Before heading out, they grab a bite to eat.

Not wanting to waste the journey back, five friends decide to engage in conversation. It was the first time they’d really talked to each other since running out of gas, which wasn’t really that long ago but felt longer. Nothing really insightful here.

Upon returning home, the five friends dropped off their sleeping bags in the spare room. One friend claims the notebook paper looks different. They claim the code is different this time. No one thinks much of this, but everyone agrees the code looks different. The friends leave the spare room for the time being, and split up.

One friend (A) spent time in the living room, much like the spare room code, they recognize that not every portrait and photograph in the living room is of Henry and Mona. They assume it must be extended family. One photograph looks like a younger Mona, back during a time when her hair actually flowed in the wind.

Another friend (E) decided to check out the family room. Henry and Mona are in it, not talking.

E - Is everything okay in here?
H - Yeah, everything’s swell.
E - Are you sure? It’s kinda tense in here.
H - Yes, as far as I can tell.
E - This interior design is striking.
H - Thanks, we did it ourselves.
E - Where’d you find all these teeth?

No response. E was never one to approach anything as if it wasn’t normal, so he truly wasn’t being accusatory. Nonetheless, Henry seemed shaken. Mona broke the silence by explaining they were part of a collection. They’d been to a bone museum that was taking down an exhibit about teeth. Henry had impulsively asked if he could take the teeth off the museum’s hands, and the museum said “sure”. In a fit of inspired desperation, Henry had almost immediately fixed the teeth into the family room wallpaper. Mona noted that Henry doesn’t like to acknowledge the teeth but also refuses to take them down. Much like the fog, it’s just a fact of life now.

E finds this odd, but not unsettling. After the sun sets, the seven regroup for dinner. Henry cooks while Mona washes the product out of her hair. The food is okay enough. Mona comes back, looking significantly different. It’s also the first time five friends have seen her look anything other than ecstatic. Some of the friends wonder if the two are connected. After dinner, Henry and Mona ask the friends if they can have the spare room for about an hour. A wonders if it has to do with the code, but says nothing.

After a while, Henry and Mona retreat to their bedroom for the night. Five friends follow suit.

During the night, one friend (B) has a nightmare. She wakes up suddenly. Rather than fall back to sleep, she opts to explore the house some more. Whilst investigating a portrait that looks kind of like Henry, but not quite, she hears a loud crash. It would appear everyone else did too, as there are now a total of seven confused individuals gathered in the living room.

E - Do you know what that was?
H - An awful sound.
E - Do you know the cause?
H - Something underground.
E - How are you so sure?
H - The last owners showed us.
E - Who was here before?
H - They never told us.

Silence washed over the room like a shower on a full head of hair. Minutes passed. Then, another crash. Five friends, confused, intrigued, and furious, decided to follow the sound. Mona worriedly followed, leaving Henry alone to stew in his frustration.

Mona called out for the friends. They stopped, but demanded to know why they shouldn’t keep going. Mona admitted that she doesn’t like being in the basement alone. This time, A noticed the implication that Mona had been here before, and appropriately demanded to know what she knew. Mona was shaking enough to register on a Richter scale, so A wasn’t going to get their answer.

As the friends marched in, it looked as if Mona was going to have a breakdown. A kept asking what was in this basement. Mona kept shaking her head, at best muttering “I don’t know”. Light was a thing of the past by now. Eventually, one friend walked into a wall. Feeling it in the dark, they found a light switch. Understandably, they flicked it.

The fear in Mona’s eyes was incomparable. Five friends finally understood.

Before them lay an empty ballroom. Once upon a time, weddings might have been held here. There was writing on the walls that looked like the spare room codes. Now, there was nothing but architecture and space.

And a full gas canister. No sight of Henry though.

Five friends run faster than anyone had ever run, figuratively at least. Not bad for D in particular, who was holding the gas canister. Mona walked like a wraith.

Five friends left the house, to fill up their car. Henry and Mona followed them out, intending to keep this from ending on a sour note.

H - I’m sorry about the basement.
F - Sorry doesn’t cut it.
H - Would you like to take your sleeping bags home?
F - It’d be better if you shut it.

Mona burst into tears. Henry stared almost vacantly. Five friends paused. A line had been crossed. Their general anger was understandable, but Henry and Mona didn’t deserve this. It was clear they didn’t understand the ballroom either. It wasn’t their fault.

Five friends hugged Henry and Mona on their way out. Within a day of arriving, they were gone. The two parties would never interact again, but neither were forgotten.

They did, however, try to forget about the ballroom. And the teeth. It’s still weird that Henry and Mona had wallpaper constructed out of human and animal teeth.