One Twelfth

Lowell Stanton is a man who values precision. As a high-end estate appraiser, he catalogs the lives of the wealthy and deceased with detached, clinical professionalism. But when he is hired to inventory the pristine, minimalist mansion of the late Orson Garris, Lowell's ordered world violently unravels. Behind a locked studio door, he discovers a hidden collection of flawlessly crafted, hyper-realistic dioramas. At first glance, they are stunning works of miniature art built to a meticulous 1:12 scale. Upon closer inspection, they are exact, blood-chilling recreations of notorious, unsolved local murder scenes from the past decade. The true horror isn't what Orson built—it is when he built them. Supply receipts and hidden logs prove the scenes were constructed days before the actual real-world murders ever took place. When Lowell uncovers a final, unfinished diorama depicting his own apartment—featuring a tiny version of himself hiding from an unseen intruder—a moment of sheer panic causes him to accidentally snap a miniature wooden chair. Instantly, his phone rings; his neighbor is complaining about a loud crash in Lowell's real living room. The dioramas do not just predict reality. They dictate it. Armed with Orson's final notes, Lowell realizes the deceased artist wasn't the killer, but a man desperately trying to build safe escape routes into the models to avert the tragedies. Now, with the clock ticking and a very real intruder closing in, Lowell has exactly three hours to finish crafting the diorama's ending with the remaining supplies. He must build a weapon or an exit, or become the next permanent resident of a miniature crime scene.