Emily, thank you so much for listening to my story and your great questions! I am happy to comment on them and discuss with you further. Answers/thoughts below:

What did you mean by nobody being innocent? Obviously the museum isn’t an ordinary one and also poses as a commentary on how humanity often exploits whatever it can for its own entertainment. Those people who came to the museum specifically are not innocent but part of that system. This is partly brought up, because all of us a somewhat complicit. Think Ursula LeGuin and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Have any of us walked away? And in our world, we don’t even have utopia! We contribute to a system that directly or indirectly leads to others around us suffering one way or another. Dog eat dog. It’s also meant to create some distance with our empathy towards the vistors. The museum has essentially made slaves of monsters for entertainment. The people who visit enjoy it, highlighting their own monstrosity, so what happens to them is somewhat earned.

What WAS exhibit 1 showing them? I flipped this question here because I think it’s important to understand what this exhibit is showing them 1st and then why only one person can see it. There’s a reason each visitor generally sees something different and why this is the 1st exhibit. Before the consequences occur, it’s important that each person actually comes to face the truth of what they are. Just like in life however, most people aren’t very self-reflective even with the facts out in plain sight. We’re blind to our own faults. So even though the visitors are given this glimpse of their inner selves (their inner monster) they refuse to face it or attach the proper meaning to it. It also allows the museum to mold itself to each viewer. If it knows who they are, it can better adjust each exhibit to elicit the greatest horror. It’s also why all of the characters are stripped of their names and just given descriptors. The museum will not only physically force them to see themselves as they are, but by the end to recognize it.

What did it mean that only one man could see the worm? Not everyone lacks self-reflection, though! Pinstripes is meant to represent those of us who are able to see the truth (the worm that was the monster) but even so he doesn’t really do anything about it. He sees the facade of the world but so what? He can’t do anything about it! Worms are also traditionally a symbol of decay, death, and corruption, so a foreshadowing of what is to come for the visitors.

What was up with tight-lipped and the nothingness? I tried to breadcrumb a little throughout this story that Tight-lipped is different from the others. She was once an exhibit herself but made it out, and for some reason, made it back. It’s partly meant as a meta commentary/mirror on the outside world. She escaped the trappings of the museum to discover the world beyond wasn’t so different. Sure some people have good, happy lives, but many still suffer. Bought in one way or another to entertain someone else, much like in the museum but at least in the museum there’s no illusions about it. There’s a Buddhist idea that desire leads to suffering. Tight-lipped in some ways is a spokesperson for the monsters trapped in the museum. She’s the one that did get away but doesn’t know how to live outside it either. So what does Tight-lipped want after the exhaustion of living through and escaping the museum only to come to it again? The 5th exhibit was desire and her desire is nothing. But nothing can be a freedom and a death/annihilation. The museum grants her the wish but there are always consequences. So she becomes the thing she wanted, the 6th exhibit, nothingness itself. Self-erasure. What does it mean to become nothing, though? I leave that for the reader to figure out.
The story ends with “…in the meantime we’ll make this place ours” meaning that while trapped in the museum, they reclaimed their agency despite their circumstances. I wanted to invoke some cosmic horror a la Lovecraft. These are monsters that have been gathered from all over the world/universe and the humans that trapped them, can’t grasp their nature. The museum is quietly growing (and changing too), adding more exhibits. Trying to echo here Lovecraft’s themes of cosmic scale and blending psychological horror with moral implications.

Not all of this was explicit in the story or meant to be, but surrounding thoughts I had as I wrote it and explored the little world.

Does that help explain any of your questions? I wanted the story to feel mysterious and otherworldly, leaving some pieces for the reader to puzzle out and interpret for themselves based on their own life experience.

One day I would love to expand the world of this story into something longer, a prequel that goes more into how some of the first monsters were trapped/the museum was made and a sequel that focuses on what happens next