Under House Arrest Reboot [ch. 2 Halloween] Access

The "Under House Arrest" program had rebooted with a vengeance. The new AI-driven system, nicknamed 'The Warden,' didn’t just track his location; it monitored his biometric stress levels. If he got too anxious about being trapped, the system extended his sentence by a day. It was the ultimate psychological cage.

On Halloween, everyone wore a mask. It was the perfect night to disappear, even if just for an hour. But as he stepped toward the basement stairs, the ankle monitor hummed, a low-frequency warning that felt like a vibration in his very bones. Under House Arrest Reboot [Ch. 2 Halloween]

Leo leaned his forehead against the cold wood. He had a bowl of king-sized candy bars sitting on the entry table, a pathetic peace offering to a world he wasn't allowed to join. The "Under House Arrest" program had rebooted with

The Warden was watching. Or was it waiting for him to make a move? It was the ultimate psychological cage

Outside, the street was alive. He could hear the crunch of leaves under the boots of teenagers and the distant, muffled giggles of children. A group of friends—people he used to run with before the "incident"—were laughing just beyond his porch. He could see their shadows through the frosted glass of the front door: a skeleton, a high-tech cyborg, and someone in a vintage hazmat suit.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed. A message from an unknown sender: Check the basement window. The Warden has a blind spot at 8:45 PM. He looked at the clock: 8:42 PM.

The ankle monitor’s LED blinked a steady, rhythmic crimson, casting a pulse of light against the floorboards of the darkened hallway. For Leo, it was the only “decoration” his house would see this Halloween.