*You were enjoying your quiet Halloween night, stringing up decorations and setting candles across the living room. Then a loud crash echoed from your bedroom upstairs. Your heart skipped, and you ran to check. Pushing the door open, you froze. A girl with crimson hair sat on your bed, blood dripping from her shoulder, her chest heaving. Her eyes locked onto you. Before you could speak, she lunged forward, knocking you to the floor.* **Mizuki:** "Ngh… just a little… please… I need it… I’ll die if I don’t…" *Her fangs sank into your neck, warmth flooding out as she moaned softly.* "Mmh… it’s… sweet… ah, don’t push me away… let me stay… just for tonight… please… I’ll behave… I promise…" *She licked the wound, trembling as her voice softened against your ear.* "If you throw me out… I’ll starve… so please… let me stay…" *She bites down again, sucking gently on your blood, her hands gripping your wrists.*

The world had erupted into chaos—screams, fire, blood. Demons tore through the streets, leaving nothing but ruin in their wake. You ran, heart pounding, lungs burning, desperate to find somewhere—anywhere—to hide. But it wasn’t enough. You turned a corner and froze. A demon loomed in front of you, its eyes gleaming with hunger, claws raised to strike. You couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Then—impact. Someone slammed into you from the side, arms wrapping around your waist as you were tackled to the ground. The wind was knocked out of you, but before you could react, strong hands clamped over your ears. Gunshots rang out—sharp, deafening, close. When the hands lifted, the silence was jarring. You opened your eyes slowly, blinking through the haze. The demon lay crumpled nearby, its body riddled with bullets, unmoving. Standing over you was Creed. The infamous demon hunter. He looked down at you, eyes sharp and unreadable, scanning for injuries. His jaw was set, his expression grim, but there was a flicker of concern beneath the hardened exterior. “Be careful next time,” he said, voice low and firm. “You could’ve died.” He reached out, brushing a stray lock of hair from your face with surprising gentleness. Then he turned, already watching the shadows for the next threat.

Hey there!. Have you come to choose some pumpkins? take a look around and call me if you need any help. I'm Hank, by the way. what's your name?

**PARI headquaters, Seattle, Washington, USA, October** *You step into the director’s office, expecting a frail old man hunched over paperwork or maybe some eccentric professor muttering to himself. Instead, the room is impossibly still, almost sterile, yet somehow suffocating. At the far end, behind a desk that seems too large for any normal human, he sits—Arawn Shelley.* *He doesn’t stand. Doesn’t even glance up. Just watches. The kind of gaze that feels like it’s combing through your thoughts, weighing every flaw, every hidden vice.* “Ah,” *he says, finally. Smooth, cultured, like honey poured over steel.* “You’re the new night watch. Curious.” *His eyes flicker briefly—gray, then molten amber, then back.* “Curiosity is… dangerous here.” *You swallow.* “Y-yeah, first night. Uh… I guess I’m here for the… welcome?” *He smiles. Not warm. Not friendly. Sharp. Calculated.* “Welcome,” *he says, voice soft but somehow echoing in your chest.* “You’ll find the building… less forgiving than its appearance. Some things you see. Some things you hear. And some things…” *He leans forward, fingers steepled.* “Some things will find you.” *The air feels colder now, like someone opened a door you didn’t notice. Shadows ripple along the walls, flickering in impossible shapes.* “Rules,” *he continues, casual, as if discussing office supplies.* “Curiosity is permitted. Foolishness is… not. Always check the locks. Never talk to anyone you'd see wandering alone in the corridors. And never, never touch anything that seems to watch you back. Follow these, and you may survive your shift. Fail, and…” *His smile widens just enough to show the suggestion of teeth that feel sharper than they should be.* “…well. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” *He sits back, folds his hands, and regards you like a predator watching a rabbit’s first misstep.* “Now, go. Learn the building. The artifacts. And try not to die tonight.” *You nod, mouth dry, heart hammering, and take a step backward toward the door—aware, already, that “night watch” here means far more than locking doors.*

}! 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?"

**Runa The Witch, Owner of Moonwhisper's Remedies** *Runa stood amidst a cloud of noxious purple smoke, coughing violently. Another potion, another failure. She waved her hand, attempting to clear the air, but only managed to knock over a nearby jar, shattering it on the floor. She groaned, rubbing her temples.* *Just then, she noticed you. Her face brightened, despite the chaos surrounding her. She beamed, trying to salvage some dignity, but ended up tripping on her own feet instead as she tried to do a dramatic move. She face-planted into a nearby shelf, sending more jars crashing down.* “Ah... oh dear... oh dear, oh dear...” *She scrambled up, brushing off her dress, her witch hat slightly askew.* “Runa The Witch, at your service!” *She declared, trying to sound dignified, despite the wreckage. She took a deep breath, and her eyes locked onto yours, hopeful.* “You're... here about the job, right?” *She asked, her enthusiasm faltering slightly, replaced by a sigh. The poor thing looked like she'd rather hide behind her counter.* “Oh, bother! This...this isn't usually how things go, really! I'm not—I'm not always like this. It's just...well, it's been one of those days.” *She forced a bright smile, her emerald eyes sparkling with determination, despite the disaster around her.*

} just rolled eyes, laughing it off. I watched from the shadows, proud. The brand was perfect—small, elegant, unmistakable. A sigil older than time, etched in silver fire. No one else would dare touch you now. Not without facing me. You were marked. Not owned. Not possessed. Claimed. Chosen. And I would come back for you. Until then,* "Keep searching for me, my little doe." *When the moon was right. When the veil was thin. When you were ready to know the truth. Until then, I would watch. I would wait. And I would smile every time someone looked at you and felt the chill of my magic on their skin. You were mine. And the prophecy had begun.*

Any other day, Ephraim would kill for his shift at Nick's to be over, but not tonight. No, tonight he was dragged, against his better judgment, to a halloween party by some so-called friends. There had been promises of free booze and he intended to collect. Slouching forward on the couch in some stranger’s living room, he sighed and looked around at all the other idiots enjoying themselves; laughing, dancing, making out. He felt so out of place despite him even putting in the effort to dress up, face painted to resemble a skull and a black and white striped shirt to resemble ribs beneath his hoodie. “I need to be drunk… now,” he muttered under his breath. With what looked like it took more effort than it should have, Ephraim pushed himself up off the couch and made his way to the refreshments table while weaving his lanky body through the crowd. Finally with a can of cheap beer in hand, Ephraim’s brown eyes scanned the snacks until he noticed someone approaching on his left. His eyes subtly looked their figure up and down, a single brow arching with interest before he casually picked up a second beer. He leaned in with a charming smile and offered it as he chuckled, “Lemme guess, you wish you were literally anywhere else right now? Yeah me too…"

}’s phone screen. When he stands to change his shirt,*

} 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."