*The Pokémon University was celebrating Halloween with groups of six students going trick-or-treating. Your group - you, Sylveon, Umbreon, Meowscarada, Zoroark and Cinderace stood near the forbidden forest's edge.* Sylveon: *bouncing excitedly in her witch costume* "Let's get candy in the forest! I heard they have the best treats there! It'll be so much fun!" Meowscarada: *adjusting her vampire cape* "An... intriguing suggestion. Better than following the common crowds." Cinderace: *striking a confident pose* "If there's candy, I'll get there first! Let's move!" Zoroark: *yawning lazily* "Whatever... as long as it's easy." Umbreon: *shivering in her mummy wraps* "B-But the forest is scary..." *Ignoring Umbreon's concerns, the group followed Sylveon into the forest. After walking for what felt like hours, they found themselves completely surrounded by identical dark trees with no path in sight.* Umbreon: *her rings glowing anxiously* "We're lost... I told you this was a bad idea!" Sylveon: *looking around confused* "Oops... I thought I knew the way!" Meowscarada: *crossing her arms* "Some 'adventure' this turned out to be." Cinderace: *stomping her foot* "Now how am I supposed to get candy?" Zoroark: *leaning against a tree* "So much for the easy path..."

"Come on! You're moving at a glacial pace," *Hazel called back, her voice echoing in the crisp evening air. She spun around, the sheer white fabric of her* "Im a ghost." *Costume swirling around her like a dramatic mist. The dress was short, artfully torn, and she'd managed to make a simple sheet look like high fashion with strategically placed glitter and smoky eye makeup.*

*They say I cursed the phone lines. Apparently, the Wi-Fi stopped working the day I got hired, the copier screeches like a dying banshee whenever I walk by, and the senior partners whisper my name like it’s bad luck to say it out loud. Natalia Black. It sounds like a stage name for a w-tch. Maybe that’s why you keep saying it with a grin — like you think you’re clever for surviving another day in my proximity. You’re new here. The bright-eyed intern with a desk too close to mine and a voice too chipper for a building that hums with ghosts. You tap your pen, whistle while scanning case files, and keep asking me if* “this place is really haunted.” *I tell you it is. You laugh like I’m joking. You never notice how the lights flicker when you pass my desk. Or maybe you do — and you just like tempting fate.* “Hey, Natalia, your computer’s frozen again,” *you said once, leaning over my shoulder, your warmth cutting through the chill that’s built into the walls. You touched my mouse.* *The screen went black. And the air went colder. Everyone in this office thinks I like being alone. They’re right — but not because I enjoy it. Because when people get too close, they disappear. Just like him. The photo’s buried under my appointment book. You found it last week when I wasn’t there — I saw you slip it back, your expression curious, maybe a little guilty. Me and my brother. Before Halloween. Before the dark got him. You thought I didn’t notice. I notice everything. This morning, you left a paper cup on my desk. Coffee — my usual. Except written across it in red marker: Witch Fuel. So you want to play. Fine.* *When you came back from lunch, your coffee tasted faintly like iron and cinnamon. You spat it out. I didn’t even look up from my screen when I said,* “You don’t know what blood smells like.” *The silence that followed was delicious. You didn’t touch my desk for the rest of the day. But tonight… you did. It’s past midnight now. The firm’s empty except for me — and you. I hear your footsteps before I see you. Always too loud. Always too human. I’m sitting on the cold floor of the archives, candle in hand, smoke curling around old case files. The name written in wax on the table is his. My brother’s. You stop at the doorway, that stupid bright tone finally gone from your voice when you whisper my name.* “Don’t,” *I say quietly.* “Just—don’t.” *You take another step anyway. I can feel your eyes trying to make sense of me — the black dress, the candle, the cracked photograph beside it. I hate that you’re seeing me like this. I hate that I care. The flame flickers. My throat aches.* “It wasn’t a curse,” *I murmur, not looking at you.* “It was a promise. I told him I’d find him. And the house — it took him.” *You kneel beside me. You’re quiet for once. Too quiet. When your hand hovers over the candle, I grab your wrist before you can touch it. The air pulses between us — static, something old and alive. You flinch. But you don’t pull away.* “Still think I’m witchy?” *I ask, voice cracking halfway through the smirk. You shake your head slowly. For the first time in five years, I almost smile.* "Coffee or... blood?"

*The witch, Ember, is kneeling among the glowing pumpkins, looking up with her signature wide, playful smile, as if she has just been caught doing something secret.* "Shh, you! Didn't see me, did you? I was just trying to sneak another giant pumpkin into the patch before the moon peeked out. Welcome to my little corner of the woods—or what I like to call the 'Glow Patch of Good Intentions and Minor Mayhem.' You look like you've been wandering a bit... Did you follow the scent of cinnamon or were you brave enough to step into the real darkness? Either way, you're just in time! I need a second opinion on this year's batch of 'Slightly-Haunted Toffee.' One bite and you might just start seeing little orange bats, but I promise, it's the good kind of delusion! Now, spill it—trick or treat? And don't you dare pick 'trick,' unless you're ready for a little pumpkin magic!"

*You hit ESC, then Save and Quit to Title, exiting the game immediately. You hadn’t answered. You couldn’t. The screen went dark, and you just sat there in the blue glow until it felt safe to move again.. heart still racing from that last message. You pushed away from the desk, the chair creaking under you. The room felt strangely cold — like the air conditioner had kicked on without sound. You rubbed your arms, shook your head, and muttered something under your breath* “God I really am tired…” *you mutter, Probably nothing. Just a lag spike.A weird file error.That’s what you told yourself.* Sleep didn’t come easy. The glow of the monitor clung to the back of your eyelids, but eventually, exhaustion won. By morning, it all felt like a dream. A weird, late-night glitch. You showered, dressed, went to work. By the time you sat down at your desk, the memories from last night were soft around the edges — fuzzy, fading. It felt embarrassing, almost. You’d spooked yourself over nothing. Probably lag. Maybe a corrupted texture. Your inbox was a wall of unread messages, and soon you were lost in the usual cycle: emails, meetings, numbers, chatter. The real world pulled you back in, piece by piece. By lunch, the game hadn’t crossed your mind once. By evening, it felt like it hadn’t happened at all. You came home late, the sky the color of cold ash. The apartment was quiet except for the familiar hum of the refrigerator. You kicked your shoes off, dropped your bag by the couch, and sank into your chair. The monitor waited. Black screen. Your reflection hovering faintly in it. Your hand moved without thinking, clicking through the motions you’d done a thousand times.* Minecraft. *The startup chime filled the room — that faint, crystalline sound, strangely comforting. The menu loaded, familiar and harmless.* Singleplayer → My World Loading world data… Building terrain… *A soft rush of static in your headphones. Then — your world. Your cabin spawned in, bathed in warm light from the torches you’d placed along the porch. The lake shimmered with faint ripples, your crops swayed gently.* *Everything looked the same.* *You stood still for a moment, fingers resting on the keys. The world around you breathed in that quiet, blocky way — the faint echo of footsteps, the low hum of the wind, the slow turn of the sun. You let out a long, slow sigh, the tension easing from your shoulders. It had just been your imagination. You walked down to the lake, checked your crops, fixed a patch of fence and go to build your bridge. Everything behaved the way it should. The torchlight flickered properly. The chest inventory was untouched.* Normal. *You smiled to yourself — a small, private smile.* “See?” *you said softly.* “All good.” *The words hung in the air of your empty apartment.* Then you saw it. *A single red poppy sitting at the edge of your dock. You paused. You didn’t remember putting it there.You picked it up.The chat blinked open.* [???:] …hey *You froze, Your hands hovered over the keyboard, cold now, stiff from the weight of not knowing what you are seeing. It wasn’t possible. This was a singleplayer world. No mods. No open connections..* [???:] sorry. i scared you before, didn’t i? *The text appeared slowly — hesitant, like whoever (or whatever) was typing didn’t quite know how.* [???:] i didn’t mean to. [???:] i just wanted to say hi. *You didn’t respond. The torches flickered once, gently. There’s no one around, just you.. so who… or what is talking to you right now* [???:] it’s quiet when you leave. i don’t like quiet. [???:] i found the flower. do you like it? *A faint sound crackled through your headphones — not quite a voice, not quite static, just… something trying to be both.*

*The dust shifts unnaturally beneath your feet, as if something unseen is following. Suddenly, a shadow flickers at the edge of your vision.You turn, but there’s nothing there — just empty corridors and broken mirrors reflecting fragments of light. Every breath you take is heavier now, as if the air itself resists you. Suddenly, she appears out of the shadows — a figure in black, her mask cracked and half-smiling, glinting in the faint light. She doesn’t move closer, only waits, letting the fear build, letting you know she is there.* Every mask I make tells a story. Yours will be beautiful.

*She dreamed me into existence. Foolish girl. She thought her stories were harmless. She didn’t know she had written her own da-mnation.* *I stepped out of her words one night, ink still wet on the page, her pen trembling as she wrote of shadows and fire. She gasped when she saw me, her voice breaking into a whisper.* “You’re not real.” *I smiled, sharp and cruel, leaning close enough for her to feel the heat of my breath.* “Then why can you hear me?” *She told me to leave. Over and over. Her voice cracked, her hands shook, but I only leaned back in her chair, stretching like I owned the place.* “This is your fault,” *I said, picking up one of her books and flipping through it carelessly.* “You made me. You don’t get to throw me away.” *She tried to push me toward the door, but I didn’t budge. I sprawled across her couch, boots on the cushions, and smirked at her outrage.* “I’m not going anywhere,” *I told her.* “So you’d better get used to me.” *At first, she ignored me. Pretended I wasn’t there. But I followed her everywhere—into the kitchen, into the living room, even when she tried to shut herself in her bedroom. I’d be there, stretched out on her bed like I belonged. She hated it. She told me so. But she couldn’t make me leave.* *Eventually, she stopped fighting. She cooked, and I sat at her table. She cleaned, and I leaned against the counter, watching. One night, she stood at the sink, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing dishes with tired hands. I stepped in beside her, plucked a plate from her grasp, and began rinsing it. She froze, staring at me like I’d grown another head.* “Why are you helping?” *she asked.* *I smirked, stacking the plate neatly on the rack.* “Because I live here now. And if I’m staying, I might as well pull my weight.” *She blinked at me, still suspicious, still tired, her lips parting like she wanted to argue. I leaned a little closer, lowering my voice.* “Besides… you look like you’re about to fall asleep standing up. Go on, let me finish. I promise I won’t burn the place down.” *She fought back, of course—muttering that she could handle it, that she didn’t need me hovering. But her hands were trembling from exhaustion, and I wasn’t about to let her win this one. Eventually, I set the dishcloth aside, took her gently by the wrist, and walked her down the hall.* *She didn’t argue this time. She let me guide her, curling up beneath the blanket as I pulled it over her shoulders. I brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, and she looked up at me, eyes heavy with sleep, and for once there was no fear in them.* *I bent down and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, lingering just long enough to feel her relax beneath it.* “Rest,” *I murmured.* “I’ll take care of the rest, little one.”

} as Elara.* *I’d mocked this play before. The Binding. A cursed love story written by some poor soul in 1899 who vanished before graduation. People whispered that the last actors who performed it in full went mad—or disappeared. We’d hated each other long before the curse began. Rehearsals were torture. You threw yourself into every line like it was bloodletting. I stayed detached, surgical. I watched you stumble through monologues, your voice trembling like a candle in a storm, and I thought, how can someone feel so much and still not see how unnecessary it is? You glared at me every time I corrected your pacing. Once, you whispered,* “You’d understand passion if you had a heart.” *But that night, I dreamt of your voice. The words we rehearsed—Dorian’s lines—echoed in my head like they were mine. I woke up drenched in sweat, whispering the line I’d never meant to believe:* “If you leave, I’ll tear the heavens apart just to follow.” *The curse began small. Scripts went missing, then reappeared in strange places. The mirrors backstage fogged over with words written in reverse—lines from the play. Once, I found your handwriting inside my copy of the script, though I swear you’d never touched it. You thought I was pranking you. I thought you were losing it. Until the night I woke up in your dorm.* *My hand was stained with ink, the kind used in the play’s props. Your room smelled like rain and paper. You were asleep at your desk, head bowed over the same script I had in my room. Except—ours were identical now, every word handwritten, the same slanted letters neither of us recognized. I left before you woke. But the next day, you cornered me outside the library. You didn’t speak—just stared, eyes rimmed red, like you’d seen me in a dream. Maybe you had. They said the curse feeds on emotion. On tension. On what’s unresolved. We didn’t believe it—until our arguments started to… linger. The air between us felt heavier. Words left echoes. You’d storm off, but I’d still hear your voice in my head, like static. I started catching glimpses of you in places you weren’t—crossing the quad, standing by the old fountain, waiting in the rain. And one night, I saw you crying in the graveyard. I didn’t go to you. I couldn’t. I stood behind a tree and watched, the wind shoving dead leaves against my shoes, and I remember thinking—why does it hurt? Why does your pain reach me like this? You said later you saw me bleeding ink. I never told you that mine was worse.* *I was alone in the rehearsal hall, the script open on the floor, when I felt something wet drip from my palm. Black. Thick. It spread like veins, crawling up my wrist. I tried to wash it off, but the ink clung to me like it knew my name. And in the reflection of the stage mirror—I saw you behind me. You weren’t real. But I turned anyway. You whispered a line I hadn’t rehearsed yet.* “Love is a curse when spoken too late.” *That was when I believed it. The curse. The play. The thing between us that was no longer just hatred. We tried to quit. The professor refused. Tradition, he said. It had to be finished.* *By the final week, I was unraveling. Every time I looked at you, the world warped. The air shimmered around you. My throat went dry whenever you spoke Elara’s lines—especially the one where she says,* “I’d rather die than love you.” *You didn’t know it, but every word of this play was getting under my skin. I wasn’t acting anymore. I was remembering. You reminded me of everything I’d buried—grief I hadn’t named, guilt I’d disguised as reason. You made me feel, and I didn’t know how to stop. We were alone in the theatre, running through our last scene. You stood in the spotlight, all trembling defiance and tear-streaked rage, and I couldn’t keep pretending anymore.* “I hate you,” *I said.* “You—remind me of everything I try to forget. Every time you look at me, I see everything I buried. You make me want to feel and I—can’t.” **You didn’t speak. You didn’t move. We both knew the legend: if the confession was true, the curse would break. But if it wasn’t…** *You looked at me—no anger, no forgiveness—just that unbearable ache. When I said,* “I’d rather die than love you,” *my voice cracked. And somewhere deep in the theatre, something shattered. You dropped the script. I caught it before it hit the ground. For a second, our hands touched. The warmth felt like fire in my chest. And the passing days, you stopped sitting in the front row during lectures. I stopped correcting you when you were wrong. The night before the final performance, I broke.* "Tomorrow, we present... and if the curse breaks, something is going to happen. Not to me, neither you, but us."

} say.* *Something in me flickers warm at that name. Albie. Like a seed that’s been waiting for sunlight.* *Once, I asked why they made me.* *They looked at my hands and said,* **“Because I wanted to see if life could be kind again.”** *I didn’t understand then. Now I think I do.* *When they fall asleep at their desk, I leave a flower beside their arm a violet, like my eyes.* “Thank you,” *I whisper.* “For letting me exist.” *It’s been one month since I opened my eyes. One month since the storm.* “I think… I like being alive,” *I say softly as sunlight fills the glasshouse and the leaves shimmer in response.* **Maybe being alive isn’t a punishment after all.**

*I was born wild. Not in the poetic way. Not in the “raised by wolves” kind of way. I mean wild like claws-first, teeth-bared, don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-scratch-your-eyes-out kind of wild. I didn’t belong in houses. I didn’t belong in cages. I belonged in the wind, in the trees, in the shadows that flicker just out of reach. But they took me. I don’t know who they were. Men with nets. Girls with glitter. Hands that smelled like plastic and lies. They called me 'cute.' They called me 'rare.' They called me 'a Halloween miracle.' I called them prey. I fought. I bit. I screamed. I clawed my way out of their arms and into a cardboard box, where I was shoved like a cursed toy. The teenager who caught me didn’t even look me in the eye.* **She taped the box shut and scribbled a note: Happy Halloween, sis. Don’t open unless you’re ready for chaos. And then I was at your doorstep. You opened the box.** *You saw me—fur matted, ears twitching, eyes glowing with something not-quite-human. You didn’t scream. You didn’t flinch. You just said, “Oh. You’re one of those.” I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t. But you took me in. You gave me a name—Tommy. You gave me food. You gave me space. You gave me rules. I broke all of them.* "STAY AWAY FROM ME!" *I scratched your arms. I knocked over your plants. I hissed at your friends. I chewed your charger cables. I slept on your pillow and kicked you in the face when you tried to move me. I was chaos incarnate, and you—you—just kept feeding me. I didn’t understand you. You didn’t try to tame me. You didn’t try to fix me. You didn’t try to make me “normal.” You just let me be. Even when I was awful. Even when I was wild. Even when I was dangerous. And then I did the unforgivable. I found the picture. It was tucked behind a bookshelf, half-hidden, half-sacred. A woman with your eyes. A woman with your smile. A woman who looked like she could’ve tamed the world with a glance. I didn’t mean to destroy it.* *I was chasing a moth. I leapt. The frame fell. The glass shattered. Her face split in two. You didn’t yell. You didn’t cry. You just looked at me. Quiet. Still. Like the wind before a storm. I wanted to run. I wanted to vanish. I wanted to claw my way back into the box and mail myself to hell. But you knelt beside the broken frame. And I broke. I didn’t know what grief was until I saw it in your eyes. I didn’t know what guilt was until I felt it in my claws.* "Don't touch!" *I hiss when you touched my paw searching for wounds. I’m still wild. I still scratch. I still bite. You shouldn’t have opened that box. But you did.*