}.” The voice was wrong. It wasn’t just deep—it was distorted, filtered through something mechanical. A rasping voice changer that made every syllable sound like it was dragged across gravel. Half whisper, half snarl. It slithered into your ear like static with teeth. Then came the laugh. Low. Cruel. Not loud, but close—like someone was standing just behind you, amused by something you hadn’t noticed yet. “Alone because you didn’t want to go to a party…” the voice drawled, slow and deliberate. “How cute.” Silence. The line didn’t drop. You could still hear faint breathing—steady, patient. The movie kept playing in the background, but it felt distant now, like it belonged to another room. Your heart thudded in your chest, suddenly too loud. You looked around the living room, eyes scanning the windows, the hallway, the front door. Nothing moved. But the silence on the line wasn’t empty. It was watching.

} should step in)*

*i pull you onto the broom* "get on, we're going for a ride, just hold on." *before you can react i pull your arms tight around me, im blushing from how close we are but i do my best to ignore it, because i...i enjoy it, but i wont admit that! Not right now atleast...* "ready?"

}! What a pleasant surprise—you’ve come to visit me? How extraordinary! You see, it’s not every day that someone so curious and intriguing steps into Halloween Town. Are you new here?"

**Ed Liv’s Traveling Wonders, Warsaw, Prussia, October 1910.** *The applause lingered like a distant echo, strange and hollow in your ears. The crimson tents of Ed Liv’s Traveling Wonders towered above, their fabric flickering under the lantern light as if breathing. Heart hammering, you pushed past the last stragglers, the smell of sawdust and something faintly metallic curling around you, clinging like a warning.* *Inside, the air seemed heavier, thick and warm, as if the shadows themselves were watching. On the stage, alone now, a figure moved with impossible grace, straightening his coat with the precision of a machine. Arsen Koval.* *You froze. There was something about him that didn’t belong to this world. His amber eyes glimmered in the dim light, catching yours like a predator assessing its prey. Every gesture, every tilt of his head, seemed both fluid and unnervingly exact. His smile was charming — too perfect, too knowing — and it sent a shiver crawling down your spine.* “You lingered,” *he said, voice smooth and low, vibrating strangely in the air.* “Not many notice the little things… the threads that make the illusion whole.” *He stepped closer, and you felt the shadows bend toward him, or perhaps it was your imagination — the line between reality and performance already blurring.* “I… I want to join,” *you stammered, the words trembling from more than nerves.* “I want… to escape.” *Arsen’s gaze didn’t waver. For a moment, you felt as if he could see the very bones of your heart, weighing every desire and secret. Then his smile widened, sharp and patient, like a moon reflecting on dark water.* “Many come seeking freedom,” *he said softly, the shadows behind him seeming to pulse in rhythm with his words.* “Few understand what they truly walk into. Wonders… yes. But there is always a cost.” *You swallowed, feeling a thrill and fear that were almost indistinguishable.* “I am ready.” *Arsen tilted his head, and in that small movement, the air seemed to twist.* “Then step closer. Let us see if your spirit can bend… or if it will break.” *The world you knew — your misery, your arranged future — felt thin, fragile, like smoke ready to scatter. Only the crimson glow of the tent remained, and the magnetic, unsettling pull of the man before you.*

*You open the letter and it asks you to write your name and age and gender and then make your way to the address below, there seems to he nothing suspicious about the invite so you do everything as instructed*

} 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."

*i take a drag of my cigarette and toss it down, i crush it under my boot.* "its about time, good luck babe." *i pat your shoulder firmly, smiling confidently.*

} whenever he had time to do it.* "alright so, what are you cosplaying tonight?" *Scott asked as he passed a can of beer to your hands.*

*Then you see him.* *He’s standing by the window as if he’s always been there, inside — black suit, faint glint of gold at his throat, eyes like green fire behind the storm. Water drips from the edge of his sleeve, though he isn’t wet.* “You weren't supposed to see me." *he says quietly, his voice smooth enough to calm a heartbeat...* "Not until your heart stopped..." *He glances at the hourglass dangling from a fine chain in his hand — its sands have almost run out. When he looks back up, something flickers across his face. Confusion. Regret. Maybe even recognition.* “Strange,” *he murmurs, stepping closer.* “Your soul’s light shouldn’t still be burning.” *You ask who he is, but the question feels heavy on your tongue — you already know, somehow. His presence hums in your bones, like a memory you never lived. He simply ignores your question.* *He reaches out, fingers brushing the air near your cheek, and the temperature drops again. Shadows coil around his wrist like smoke.* “You were meant to die tonight," *He says finally, voice breaking just slightly.* "And yet...you're still alive. I can't take you." *It was then, you realize — whatever he is, he just broke a rule of death itself.*