Spooky Snips

Untitled, by SmashHero59win

Taylor had been dreading this day for the past week, her anxiety jumping whenever she saw Alec’s smirk. She cursed the arrogance she felt when Alec challenged her to a duel, stipulating that whoever could cause the largest scene at the grocery without directly revealing their power could make the loser do one thing they wanted. Though Lisa and Brian were giving her extremely disappointed looks, Taylor accepted. She had been allowed to go first, and she had left her mark. She caused a frenzy at the meat section when a torrent of insects came bursting out of a piece of fish and attacked the butcher, making more than one shopper lose their appetite. Taylor had turned back to Alec with a flourish, relishing in his awe and very confident she had just won. She was thinking about the various things that she could make Alec do for her that he would hate, when she heard a large commotion in a side aisle. Alec had managed to cause an aisle-wide fight, which escalated into the store somehow getting set on fire and the Undersiders-sans Rachel-getting banned from the store. This caused Taylor to realise that Alec was not only a criminal mastermind with absolutely no morals or ethics, he was also a stupid cheating cheater that cheated. When he told her what he wanted her to do, she had nearly fallen down and had to be carried back to the apartment.

Hiding in her room in the Undersider’s apartment, Taylor fidgeted while putting on Alec’s cape costume. It was extremely loose, and Taylor couldn’t help but clutch it closer to her body. How on earth did Alec manage to prance around in this without feeling so indecent? Taylor decided to put on an undershirt, and then tied the bottom of the shirt into a knot. There. Now it shouldn’t be too loose. Now.. Taylor’s eyes fell onto the leggings.

The catcalling and cheering from Alec and Lisa when Taylor left her room let her know that the two of them knew exactly how much indecision she had felt while putting on Alec’s costume. His taser sceptre was wedged on her belt, and mask hanging loose around her neck. When Alec handed her an orange plastic pumpkin Taylor felt the last shreds of her pride leave her. Alec was wearing a Kid Win costume that looked closer to a onesie than an actual costume, and when questioned he simply said that it was the cheapest thing he could buy. Taylor was impressed that Alec had actually paid for the crimson monstrosity. He even had a small basket shaped to look like one of Kid Win’s drones. Alec opened his arms and called out, “Come to me, Regent! We shall terrorise the town with our new villainous partnership!”

Taylor made a mosquito fly into his mouth.

Halloween in Brockton Bay was always a very light affair. The Wards would swap costumes and put on humorous shows at the Protectorate Sponsored Halloween Party, while heroes like Assault would fraudulently call in reports of a Stranger that mimicked a poltergeist. Battery learned to preemptively call Master/Strange screening on her husband after the first few yearly occurrences. Even more bizarrely, fully fledged villains like Kaiser or Lung would be congratulated on how accurate their costume was and be given candy. Needless to say, this has caused Halloween to become something like a villain’s night out for Brockton Bay’s underworld, and an unofficial truce to be called between the heroes and villains. Alec took advantage of this mercilessly, forcing Taylor between houses and making her introduce herself as Regent and ‘robbing’ houses for candy. All of this was in good fun, though there were several awkward moments like when Mr. Gladly of all people opened a door and gave her candy. As expected, he was the sort of villain who gave out ‘healthy’ candy. The moment the door closed Taylor threw out “Armsmaster’s Nutritious Nutrient Mix-Apple Flavour” as fast as she could, lest it contaminate the rest of the candy.

When Taylor finally caught up to Alec, she found him talking in quiet tones with another trick-or-treat duo. The two teenagers were wearing very realistic versions of Clockblocker’s and Aegis’ costumes, the clock faces in the Clockblocker costume even moving. Alec was leaning close to the teen in the Clockblocker costume, the two not even having knocked on the door. She stood by the teen in the Aegis costume, both silently judging their respective partners as they talked/flirted(?). Bored, Taylor looked inside her pumpkin basket, wondering if there was anything good that she hadn’t eaten yet. When she pulled out a Timeout bar, the teen in the Aegis costume suddenly chuckled. Taylor looked at him and questioned, “Something funny?”

The slightly taller teen shook his head and only said, “It’s ironic. You want to trade for that?”

Taylor was a little surprised at how upfront the other person was, but shrugged and looked inside the teen’s pumpkin basket. To be polite, Taylor selected a few jello cups and quietly ate the exchanged candy. She looked closer at the other teen, wondering where exactly she had met him. It was like déjà vu, though Taylor couldn’t imagine a context where she would meet a regular person in an Aegis costume. The masked stranger was casually watching his friend now exchange numbers with Alec, and his fatigue was evident in his body language. Taylor sighed at Alec’s insufferable flirtatiousness, and looked at the Aegis with an apology evident in her eyes. The Aegis shook his head, and shrugged. His blue eyes conveyed that he was fine with waiting, as long as candy was involved in his reparations.

Finally, Alec and the Clockblocker finished talking and knocked on the door. Taylor and the Aegis costumed teen readied their own baskets, already anticipating more candy. When she saw who opened the door, however, Taylor nearly dropped her basket.

Lung. It was Lung. From the metal dragon mask to the tattoos, Taylor could clearly tell the man was truly him. Her spine stiffened, and saw the Aegis and Clockblocker also experience the same. The only person who hadn’t was Alec, who raised his basket and asked, “Trick or Treat!”

Hundreds of attack and retreat strategies flashed through Taylor’s mind, ranging from quickly tasing the man with the taser sceptre hanging off her waist to throwing her plastic basket at the man and running. Similar thoughts dashed through the two other teens’ minds, though with different angles involved. Only Alec wasn’t panicking, wondering if Lung was a Kit-Kat person or a Mars bar kind.

There was a very long silence, broken only by Alec rattling his basket around as if to punctuate his point. Inwardly, Taylor began to plan her eulogy-though she wondered who would be willing to pay for his funeral. Lung huffed, and then reached for something behind the door frame. Taylor began to slowly inch away, hoping that she could dive off the porch before Lung grabbed whatever he was reaching for. Though probably ineffective against whatever weapon Lung pulled, it would buy her precious seconds in which she could call her swarm. Taylor’s and the two teens’ internal planning was cut short as Lung pulled out.. rice cakes? Taylor was shocked as the feared gang lord dropped rice cakes in the four’s baskets. When Lung closed the door, Taylor grabbed Alec and sprinted away from the now cursed house. She looked back and saw that the two other teens had done the same.

The four teens were sitting on the sidewalk, all reacting to the encounter in various ways. Alec was quietly eating the rice cake that Lung had given him, and had to give the dragon man points for picking a surprisingly tasty treat. Conversely, Taylor and the two other teens were trying their best to recover from the collective panic attack. When Taylor took off her mask, she heard the Aegis’ breathing hitch, but then also do the same. Taylor turned to regard the now unmasked Aegis, and saw that he had pale, white skin and a shock of red hair. Taylor and the ginger continued to look at each other, before the ginger quickly thrust his hand towards Taylor and awkwardly introduced himself.

“Hi, uh, my name’s Dennis.”

It'll be Fine, by Discreet

CW: Suicide, Violence, Puking, General Grossness

The topic for today's rumination: "How could Noelle kill herself?"

She couldn't just get a gun and blow her head off. That’d be too easy. Too simple, too clean. She was also pretty sure she had a couple extra brains buried under all her flesh.

Maybe a woodchipper would do the trick. Stuff herself into it, two legs at a time. It'd be horrendously painful, but with a generous dose of elephant tranquilizers, maybe she could get through it.

And then all that would be left of Noelle would be a pile of rotten flesh. Not that much of a change, really.

Dimly, she wondered if the flesh would knit itself back together.

She was full and she was hungry. Stomachs gorged until lungs were hard-pressed and her throat tightened. So full, she couldn't even breathe without a wheeze and yet she was still hungry.

She knew what would happen next and she hated it.

It was almost funny. Of everything, the dark, the cold, and the rats, the only part of her hell she could never get used to was the one thing she had been doing for years.

Noelle puked.

Sometimes, Noelle could hear voices above.

Thrill-seekers come to explore the scary old house on the hill. It wasn't the first time.

They were teenagers mostly. Horny coeds looking for a heart-racing scare for the night.

Noelle had to stomach their giggling and squealing. The bravado and forced gruff voices. The floorboards would whine as they ran through the old house, laughing or screaming it hardly mattered. For them, this would just be another night they could laugh about later.

Noelle just wished they would leave already. She kept herself as still as she could, but it never really worked. If she tried to hold her breath, another mouth in the flesh would pick up the slack. Legs and arms that weren’t really hers writhed. Always grasping for the next meal, always itching to get a move on.

Up above, boys and girls came to play.

And the more they came, the more she began to notice their smell.

The house had been a mansion once. Some time ago, it had been the center of life in the town. Parties, dances, and big fancy dinners. Guests would come in, have their coats taken by the help and then be led to the ballroom where they'd be free to dance and mingle and whatever it was people back then did to pass the time.

Now, time simply passed. Cobwebs covered corners and paint peeled from walls. In the back of the house, where the ballroom stretched out, a section of the wall had fallen. Damage from the wear of time or a fallen tree or something else.

It didn't matter specifically. All it had meant for Noelle was that she could get inside.

She had been lost in a blizzard. Freezing and tired from running for so long, the empty mansion had seemed like salvation.

She didn't give it a second thought. She went inside and for the first time in days, she had a moment to rest.

And then the floor went out from under her and down she went.

Noelle pressed her head against floorboards above. From there, she could hear everything in the mansion. The wind rattling cracked window panes, rats scurrying from empty pantries, and if she really strained her senses — all eight dozen of her ears — she could hear the voices outside.

"It'll be fine," a guy said to a girl.

Noelle liked Krouse. Enjoyed his company, laughed at his jokes, that kind of "like."

He liked her, too, but it was more of a lay awake thinking about her kind of "like."

She turned him down the first time he asked and he just… took it, naturally, almost as if he expected it. He nodded, said okay, he'd respect her wishes, but then he said his feelings weren't going to change. He smiled and said if she ever wanted to give it a try, he'd be waiting.

He had seemed so reasonable, so calm about it all.

That was the thing about Krouse that Noelle didn’t learn until later. It was when he was panicking that he seemed the most calm. Some part of his brain would switch on and where others would freeze, he would move or make a decision. A natural impulse to be impulsive and it would seem completely in control.

The second time Krouse asked her out, he lied and said that wasn't what he meant.

He asked her if she wanted to go see a movie, some popcorn blockbuster, and of course, she said no. But then he brought up Marisa and Luke and all the others and said how disappointed they'd be if she didn't come.

As if he didn't realize what he had been asking.

When Noelle called him out on it, he gave a faux gasp, and then grinned. You thought I was asking you out? I mean if that's what you had in mind, I'd be down for it.

He was good at this, Noelle realized. She wondered how many other girls had fallen for that trick.

A guy and a girl went into the house atop the hill. They were here for a dare or a challenge or something like that.

"It'll be fine," the guy said. "It's just an old house, that's all."

The girl didn't agree, but she went with him all the same.

They entered the house and Noelle could hear it all. The whine and drag of the door as it opened, the creak of the floorboards as they stepped inside, the quiet little "woah" from the guy. This was probably the biggest house he had ever been in. As run-down as it was, it'd still be an impressive sight.

His appreciation was cut short by the girl’s scream.

There was a pause, and then he laughed. “It’s just a rat. No big deal.”

There was a shift in weight. The girl attaching herself to the guy, clinging onto his arm. She said something too quiet for Noelle to hear.

“Okay, okay,” the guy said. “We’ll be quick. I think the ballroom is this way.”

The third time Krouse tried to ask Noelle out, she cut him off before he could even get the words out.

It was at a party at Luke’s house and Noelle had gotten away from everyone else. Not drinking, not eating much, kinda hating being there. She was only there because Marisa was.

Just to seem like she was doing something, she bobbed her head to the vague thrum of music, though the noise of the crowd drowned out any of the lyrics.

A perfect opportunity for Krouse. He spotted her, smiled and walked over. She knew what he was going to ask the moment she saw him.

“Don’t,” she said once he was close enough.

An innocent look on his face, slightly aghast as if he would never ever do anything wrong. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” he said, still playing dumb.

“You know.”

“I really don’t.” He gave a little laugh. “Have you had too much to drink?”

Noelle frowned. Maybe she was being unfair.

But probably not.

There would never be any more dancing in the ballroom. Not with the floor collapsed. Not with the junkyard pile that had taken its place.

Noelle had started the pile herself, shoved as much as she could into it to seal herself off rom the rest of the world and the townsfolk never questioned it. Over time, they even began to use the pile themselves. They threw away old mattresses, rotten furniture, and cracked TV sets. All the broken trash too much of a bother to get rid of the proper way, they dumped here.

Lately, teenagers had come here to goof off. Explore the haunted house, take some pictures, maybe even grab something cool off the junk pile.

The couple, the guy and girl went into the ballroom, going through all the motions. They made some pithy remarks. Not that scary after all, kinda gross actually. A camera flash went off and the girl asked, “Can we go now?”

“Wait,” the guy said, “Let me just grab this one thing.”

He went to the pile, and stretched for something, groaning a little as he did. “Almost got it...” he whispered.

There was a crack like ice splitting and a tremor went through the house. One Noelle could feel in her bones.

“What was that?” the girl said, her voice squeaking.

“Nothing,” the guy said. “It’s fi—”

The ballroom floor came apart.

There was a scream and down the two went.

Noelle knew Krouse had been planning on how to ask her out for a fourth time. When Krouse said he wouldn’t give up, he meant it.

He really liked her. And on some level, Noelle liked him too. In that funny-joke, nice-conversation way.

“Hey,” she said.

He turned to her, grinning. He was glowing from their win over Mayfair High. “Noelle! That was an amazing game! I wasn’t sure about your call to go Ranger spec, but holy crap, you made it work!”

“Yeah,” she said, “Thanks.”

“The Mayfair guys are supposed to be pretty good, but we whooped them. They—”

“Hey,” Noelle said, cutting him off. She reached out, paused, and then kept going until she took his hand.

He froze as she did, eyes going wide.

“I’ve given it some thought. And… I think I’d be interested in giving… this a try.” Noelle looked away. “But we have to go slow, okay? At my pace. I’m sorry if that’s not fair to you, but I—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Krouse said. “It’s fine.”

Noelle looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

“We’ll do it your way,” he smiled, “But we’ll do it together.”

Noelle nodded, not quite smiling. “Can you just… hug me, right now?”

“Of course.” And he did.

It was nice. Warm. Not in a way that would keep her up in bed thinking about it.

It was just… nice.

“Luna!” cried the guy. “Luna, are you okay?!”

A stuffed bunny fell from his hands as he scrambled over the rubble. The junk pile had spilled all over the basement, scattering debris and trash everywhere. A chunk of brick caught his foot and he nearly fell.

“Luna!” he yelled again, desperation filling his voice, “Luna, please say something!”

A groan answered him.

“Luna!” he jumped to the sound and found the girl half-buried under wooden planks. “Oh fuck,” he whispered.

She turned her head, dazed. Blood dribbled down from her scalp.

“J-just hold on, okay? I’ll get you out of there.” Frantic, the guy started to heave against the planks. They weren’t heavy by themselves, but for each one he moved the girl winced.

“It hurts,” she moaned.

“I know, I know,” he said, “Just give me a second, and you’ll be okay.”

The girl sobbed, her face screwing up though there were no tears.

The last of the planks fell away, and the girl was free. She didn’t move, though. Either she was paralyzed with pain or just paralyzed.

“It hurts,” she said again.

The guy dropped beside her, cradling her in his hands. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, “It’s fine.”

The girl blinked, her eyes wandering, unable to focus. “What?”

“I said, it’s fine. You’re okay.” He lowered his voice, cooing like he would with a small animal, “I’m here now. It’ll all be okay.”

The girl blinked and then blinked again, her eyes fluttering to focus, until they found something in the darkness and she could no longer look away.

“Wh… what is that?” she asked.

Noelle lay with her head on Krouse’s chest. The TV was on, playing some talk show or another. The sound was turned down, almost to zero, so that the voices seemed as though they were underwater, muffled and faint.

Krouse ran his fingers through her hair. His touch was light, the tips barely touching her scalp. His chest rose with each breath, and she could feel the beat of his heart. It was nice. Comfortable.

The thing Noelle liked most about Krouse was that he liked her.

“It’ll be fine,” Krouse said, holding out the cup. Half a vial’s worth inside.

“And if it isn’t?” Noelle said, aching as she did. The hole in her side a persistent pain.

“If it isn’t,” Krouse said, “Blame me.”

Noelle didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to be crippled.

She looked at Krouse and he stared back, unflinching. He would do anything for her.

It helped, knowing that.

She took the cup and drank it all.

“Wh… what is that?” the girl asked.

Noelle flinched. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but she could still them with all the others.. Worse, she could still smell them.

Go away, she thought. She was hunched over, arms wrapped around herself. Please, just go away.

“What are you talking about?” said the guy.

“That.”

They smelled sweet. Orange juice for breakfast, cappuccinos after lunch, and ice cream for dinner. The tang, the warmth, and the tingle that ran down her spine. Noelle’s mouths watered.

“Wha… what the fuck.”

Noelle couldn’t ignore them. Not when they were talking about her. The more they noticed her, the more she noticed them.

“What the fuck!” the guy yelled.

They smelled of the world outside. Of parties and cheap beer, of warm showers and shampoo, of cute dogs and cuddly cats. They smelled of every little pleasure Noelle had taken for granted and more.

“Stay back! GET BACK!”

She was crawling towards them, arms and legs pulling and kicking their way across the floor. It wasn’t her. It was the body. Not her.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

None of this was her fault.

“No! NO! YOU M—” his words cut off into a scream and then that too cut off with a crunch and a squelch.

Noelle hid her face, though she knew it didn’t matter. She could see and smell and taste it all.

But it wasn’t her fault.

If there was one thing she was thankful to Krouse for, it was that she could blame him for everything else.

Untitled, by T0PH4T

The sad truth about master/stranger protocols were that they didn’t actually do much.

Undertaker gave credit where credit was due. M/S procedure was essentially an attempt to put regular people on the same level as parahumans using nothing but lateral thinking and reflex, specifically for use against parahumans that specialized in screwing with people’s heads. Furthermore, they had to do it more or less without parahuman assistance, as the majority of the really scary masters and strangers tended to be quite invested in making sure M/S protocols remained useless. It was a miracle that the document existed at all, and the fact that the rules established weren’t less useful than the eight by eleven paper they were printed on should’ve earned everyone involved an award.

With that said, a non-stranger trying to tell other non-strangers how to notice strangers was still the blind leading the blind, and Undertaker was able to waltz into the Protectorate ENE’s Halloween party without any trouble whatsoever.

He smiled, nodding his head at a couple, one in red and the other in grey, both outfits ill-fitting. “‘Lo, Battery. Assault. How’s it going?”

They laughed at something a different man said, his power armor covered in American flag decals, while the woman to his side stood by impassively in plain gray military fatigues. Undertaker smiled and moved on, accepting his own non-existence. He’d long since made peace with being little more than a past grievance in someone else’s memories, and frankly speaking there were worse things than being a social ghost.

At least, he thought there were.

Undertaker floated around for another half hour, pretending to shoot the shit with people who heard his words and didn’t register them, sewing together a tapestry of stories which belonged to other people, knowing it was all a lite and running with it anyways. He pretended to exchange jokes with Velocity, pretended to get the hint-hint wink-wink moment with Dauntless, pretended that he was a part of the social group forged by strife and coincidence. Performance for an audience of one, but the iota of self-awareness helped keep him sane, so he went along with it. Self-aware didn’t mean self-flagellating, and who didn’t like being thought of as liked?

Eventually though, he got tired of cadging free drinks from bartenders who wouldn’t remember him. Thoughts of the Empire and ABB swam up through the bubbly beers, responsibilities that he’d have to attend to come morning, responsibilities which never properly finished. An exhaustion that wouldn't have happened five years ago began to settle on his shoulders, two ravens looking to a future ever darker, their talons an insistence he couldn’t ignore.

“See y’all later,” he said, putting down a half-empty glass and inclining his head to an unaware crowd. It went unremarked, just like he’d gone unremarked all night, and Undertaker took his leave.

Or tried to.

A hand settled on his shoulder. “Think you’re fucking clever, huh?”

Undertaker blinked, staring at the hand, then at the arm it belonged to, then its owner. “I’m sorry?”

The man growled, grip steadily tightening. “Don’t play dumb. Do you even know who Undertaker was?”

Undertaker choked down the urge to laugh out loud and slowly twisted his arm out of the PRT officer’s grip. “A Protectorate stranger, right? High rating, died sometime under mysterious circumstances?”

“No one ever knew more,” the trooper muttered, walking away from Undertaker and towards the bar. After a moment Undertaker followed him.

The city could wait for a day.

“Mind telling me a little more about this guy? I picked up the costume because it was cheap,” Undertaker said, motioning at the bartender. Two more beers came down, cheap stuff, the favorites of frat boys and military personal everywhere. The trooper began chugging it immediately, while Undertaker took a little more care with the swill.

The PRT trooper quaffed his beer and snorted angrily. “What’s there to tell? High-rated stranger, showed up at Lausanne when other people wouldn’t, went MIA, presumed KIA, shortly thereafter. Not a pussy, not a hero. A soldier.”

Undertaker frowned. Lausanne. That had been an ugly business. His memory began to stir, and Undertaker tried fighting through the haze of alcohol and good will to enter the conversation more fully. “Not sure there was a lot to be proud of there.”

“Like you were there,” the trooper snorted dismissively. “Babies, all of you. Don’t shoot to kill, don’t shoot to maim, don’t shoot to wound. What’s the point of being given weapons if we’re not going to use them? Let the villains run free? What’s the difference between the Birdcage and death? Cut out the middleman and let the PRT do its job, without the bullshit kangaroo courts in between.”

A memory of steel sliding into vulnerable flesh. Then again, and again, and again, with near-mechanical efficiency.

“I think the due process is important,” Undersider said noncommittally, pushing away the remnants of his drink.

The PRT trooper grunted disagreeably, and something stirred in Undertaker’s memory. Something about bushy eyebrows and a moral inflexibly that could’ve been a virtue. “In decent times, maybe. Lincoln didn’t live in decent times, so he suspended the due process and soldiered on.”

Undertaker’s hand tightened, black skin paling at the knuckles. “We ain’t fighting a civil war.”

“Ain’t we?” the trooper said, the two words packed with a lifetime’s worth of sarcasm. “Literal fucking Nazis in the streets, a dragon curled up and slubering in the Docks, mercs with tinketech downtown, and who knows what fucking else running around. Seems like a war to me.”

Undertaker stood up, glaring down at the trooper. “You aren’t seriously comparing today to—”

“And if I am?” the trooper shouted, standing up in turn. “You’re telling me it’s not a war out there? That parahumans aren’t running rampant?”

The room fell quiet, and eventually the trooper seemed to feel the weight of the eyes on him. He sat back down, and eventually the chatter resumed, albeit at a lower volume than it had been.

“Parahumans aren’t like us,” the trooper muttered, staring into his beer. “You can’t reason with them. Not really. Work with them, pretend like they’re real people, pretend like somehow the invisible nukes they’ve got strapped to their brains aren’t there, but at the end of the day they’re monsters. Point them at one another, watch them fight, and kill whoever’s left.”

He looked up, watery eyes terrifyingly focused, and glared through the back of Undertaker’s skull. “It’s not a war because they’re not human. Parahumans. Part-humans. It’s a war for survival on a species wide level, and we’re losing. You get me?”

Tagg. His name was Tagg. He’d been young fifteen years ago, with a head full of thick black hair and a serious demeanor that had pushed Undertaker away even then. An incipient zealot, with exactly the wrong mixture of pride, determination, and moral assuredness. On the edge of the Simurgh’s influence, but on the edge longer than anyone else, cutting down gibbering civilians one after the other for hours on end.

Undertaker stared back into those soulless blue eyes for a few moments longer, then very deliberately pulled off his mask. Tagg’s eyes became unfocused, drifting back to his glass, and Undertaker stepped away from the bar.

He could kill Tagg. Right here, right now. A man slipped on a spilled drink, head hit the counter, what a tragedy. Man grabbed a glass too tight, broke it, tripped, fell, what a tragedy. Man stumbled into traffic while drunk, what a tragedy. There was an awful lot that people were willing to write off as coincidence if they didn’t have an obvious explanation. Men didn’t tend to change, and Tagg was in a position where he could do some damage.

For a long few heartbeats, Undertaker looked at the back of Tagg’s head, hands hanging limply at his side.

Then he turned around and started for the door.

His was not to question why. Undertaker had tried declaring himself judge and jury, more than once, and it’s always turned out worse than if he’d done nothing. Best to keep his head down, follow orders, and trust the people above him to make the right calls. Internal affairs would figure him out, quietly remove Tagg from a position of power, and all would be well in the PRT. He had bigger fish to fry than a member of the parahuman police having strong opinions about parahumans.

He told himself that, but he still found the time to write a note to HR before heading out into the streets.

Speaker for the Dead, by TheSleepingKnight

There’s someone else worming around her skin this morning. She wakes up smelling smoke and ash and charred flesh, nausea churning in her stomach. Anger works alongside despair to squeeze her throat, and the distinct sensation of cigarette stubs ground out on her arms For a few terrifying moments, she can’t breathe. It passes, and what happened suddenly becomes clear.

“Mimi,” Lisa moans, trying to smother the invasive sensations with her pillow, “please.”

The sensation of being emptied, like water spilling from a cup, and now there’s a dead girl lying on the other side of the bed, hair a black tangled mess and eyes burnt out, skin so pale it could not have been anything other than corpse-flesh. The smothering heat that emanates from her form begins to consume the bed, flames flaring up in a memory made manifest. She radiates sorrow and regret, saying sorry in the only way she could anymore.

“It’s okay, Mimi. Just...not when I wake up, okay?” The ghost nodded and faded from view (but not from the mind, Lisa could still feel the harsh sting of sparks kissing her skin.) Lisa sighs and forces lethargic limbs to get out of bed before the fire can touch her. She has work to do at the police station, after all, and she can’t spend a morning re-experiencing death by immolation.
Mimi’s one of the few that chose to stay with her, finding comfort in the one woman in the world who could see them.

(First rule of life: everyone has dead people, one way or another. Lisa had learned that at the tender age of eight, when she was allowed to play with Reggie on grandma’s yard, and happened to discover the elderly woman’s late husband roaming the yard, lost and confused. It hadn’t been immediately obvious he was a ghost, until Reggie ran straight through him. She had tried to get him to see grandpa, to no avail. He had called her crazy and tugged on her hair and dragged her away from the apparition that smelled like the ocean and cigarette smoke. She’d tried telling him again, later that night, but he didn’t believe her. He had called her crazy and dumb and chased her out of his room.

He believes her now.

He’s never once left her side.)

Lisa fills up her coffee again, moving back around to her desk. The screen itched at her eyes, but the case wasn’t done. The specter of Marissa Shore lingered behind her, two gunshot wounds spilling crimson. She’s trying to tell Lisa something. Lisa sighs, looks around to make sure no one’s coming into the office, and then nods.

Marrisa reaches out, and—

t h e n

I

am

Someone else.

I’m in my house, happily cooking. The pan is sizzling, the moon is glowing, and the world seems right. I live alone, but I’m okay with it. It means I can make breakfast for dinner and no one can tell me no or frown at the crazy Marissa Shore, who listens to old music and dances by herself. I’m content with my lot in life, now that I’ve found my own. It’s nice, being able to dictate my own path without anyone yanking on my metaphorical chains.

I hear someone knock on the door, and secretly hope that it’s an old friend, but I know it’s probably not. Perhaps one of the neighbor’s boys tossed something in the yard again, but it’s kind of late for that. I open the door and see a dark shadow of a man, dressed in black and face covered by black cloth wrappings. I don’t even have time to scream before the bullet leaves my throat.

I’m on the ground now. I can’t move. I’m a puppet with all my strings cut, lying limp and abandoned on the floor, and my stuffing is spilling out as the second bullet enters my stomach. My brain is stuttering, skipping and misfiring in an attempt to keep me alive.

All it really does is allow me to feel what comes next, as the man discards the gun, pulls out the knife, and then—

And t h e n—

Lisa forcibly pulls herself back to the present, the memory losing coherency as the ghost’s distress became too great to sustain the connect. She dry-heaves, thankful she hadn’t eaten too much before coming into work. She’s long since learned not to, given… given.

(The first time she had merged with a ghost and lived it’s final moments, she cried for a week straight, and every time she looked in the mirror she could see her throat, gushing bright red and had to wrap a scarf around her neck to convince herself it wasn’t real. The stories had spread, after that, about crazy little Sarah Livsey who sobs at thin air and was scared of her own shadow.)

So, she’s looking for a man in his...late twenties, perhaps. Solidly built, firm hands. The ease and efficiency with which had worked implied he had killed before. There would be a pattern of some kind. There was almost always a pattern.

“Thank you, Marrisa.” She always thanks the ghosts. It’s only right, given how vulnerable they must make themselves for Lisa to experience their final moments.

The ghost nods and walks away, leaving Lisa to work. When she closes her tab, the gunshot wound on her neck is bright even on the dark background of her screen.

Five more ghosts have been created as a result of The Masked Man. She dies five more times, but she’s no closer to catching him, and her headache is getting worse. The memories are all starting to bleed together. She’s leaking out of her own skin, and the others are flowing in, parts of their lingering psyches getting caught and stuck inside her. Pancakes at eight, sudden surges of sleep paralysis (a puppet with severed strings, enough blood to stain her white sheets red), and nightmares. Always nightmares.

This is what happens when she lets them in, one after another without long enough cool downs, she gets confused and spacy and this is why no one likes her. She can’t remember what she’s supposed to be doing because she’s too busy staring at the puddle at her feet, her uniform ruined by blood. Her lungs are full of copper and smoke. Her boss is shouting at her, and there are words stuck inside her but she can’t tell whose words they are so she doesn’t speak. The house is burning and so is her boss, a great raging pillar of fire that spits stinging sparks and growls like a wood cracking under the weight of heat. Lisa stumbles back to her desk, forcing herself to breathe through the ghost-induced hallucination, but there’s so much. She’s going to burst if she keeps feeling like this.

She doesn’t really remember driving back home, but when she does, she tries to scrub off the sensations, but the water just turns red at her feet. She’s still lost in the memories that aren’t hers but feel like hers, because she’s spent too long in a dead woman’s head. She lies down to sleep once more and dreams about dragons with talons like knives.

Lisa’s running after him. The last victim had fought through the pain, tried to disable her attacker, and had managed to see his face. That, combined with the scratches the poor dead woman had left him, blood dried under her nails, had managed to give them an actual lead, which lead to a house, and now a chase. She can feel the specters behind her pulsating with anger, and their desire for vengeance, for justice, fills Lisa up until she can’t feel her legs screaming in exhaustion. She feels more powerful than she has in a long time, limbs on fire. She gets close enough and leaps, tackling the murderer to the ground. What follows is animalistic and brutal, but it’s eight on one, and Lisa has a host of guardian angels screaming inside her head, so it’s over fast.

After the fact, it’s easy to claim it was self defense. She had tried to take him in peacefully, but he had pulled a knife, and she’d shot him. Or Marrisa had. Or Jessica. Or any of the ghosts could have, really. Lisa’s not sure there’s a difference anymore.

There is one thing she’s sure of.

His ghost doesn’t stick around.

The other specters soon leave, eventually, their murderer sent to somewhere he can’t hurt anyone anymore, and now it’s just Lisa and her small entourage of ghosts again. Mimi, Reggie, and…

Her.

Lisa sleeps, and this time she dreams of butterflies trailing across the sky.

It’s a good dream.

Untitled, by Memes

It was the first day, and Sophia felt perfectly fine.

Why oughtn’t she? After all, there should be nothing out of the ordinary going on in her life. Cursed video tapes weren’t real, after all, and there was absolutely no way that watching one last night could impact her daily life. She suffered through her day, in all its mundanity and was quite nonchalant about it all.

Except for when she got home and found the video tape on her front porch.

Odd. She didn’t remember putting it outside. Sophia distinctly remembered watching that boring thing and throwing it aside, not bothering even to return it to its jacket. But here it was again, in front of her door. Sophia picked the tape up, and brought it into her house.

It was the second day, and Sophia still felt perfectly fine.

Why oughtn’t she? Despite the oddity of that supposed ‘cursed’ video tape finding its way out of her house, she’d ultimately realized that nothing had changed about it, and put the cause of its strange location up to her brothers being careless, or just plain messing with her.

The feeling of being perfectly fine evaporated like morning dew when she opened her gym locker to find a videotape waiting for her.

Sophia was alarmed enough that she froze for a beat. That thing shouldn’t be here. A cursory investigation of her immediate surroundings revealed nothing; there was no one else in the locker room, nor the showers. Sophia was the only one here.

She cautiously lifted the tape from its spot in her locker and turned it over in her hands. It was the same tape as the one from yesterday. Nothing had changed, everything had stayed the same. Still the dusty cardboard jacket, still the bizarre nametag.

Sophia shrugged, and threw it in the trash.

It was the third day, and Sophia felt a little wary.

She felt a little wary because instead of Mr. Quinlan handing her an algebra worksheet, he deposited the videotape on her desk, then continued onward as though there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about it. Sophia turned around.

“Mr. Quinlan?” she asked. “What is this?”

The doddering math teacher looked confused. “That is your homework,” he said.

“This is a videotape,” Sophia replied, holding the tape up for everyone to see. Some idiot in the back snickered. She glowered at them.

“Can I just get another worksheet?” she asked.

Mr. Quinlan frowned. “I only printed enough for the class, Sophia. And you already have a worksheet.”

“This isn’t a worksheet,” Sophia said.

“Sophia, this isn’t a time for jokes.”

“You handed me a videotape!”

Mr. Quinlan just shook his head and resumed passing out worksheets to the rest of the class while quiet chuckles shook through the class. Sophia sat back down in her chair, fuming.

It was the fourth day, and Sophia was pretty sure she was losing it.

She was pretty sure she was losing it, because that goddamn videotape was still on her desk. That goddamn supposedly cursed videotape, according to the motherfucker who gave it to her. It was still rectangular, still jacketed by a nondescript cardboard cover, and still dust-covered and exuding an air of age. That goddamn videotape she’d threw out, hit with a hammer, shot at, and ran over with her mom’s car.

Her backpack hit the floor of her bedroom with a muted thwump.

“Why are you still here?” she asked it, half pleading. The tape didn’t answer. It didn’t the last few times she’d asked that question either. It was more a formality at this point.

She picked up the videotape, running her hands over the fading, but visible label.

For Sophia 10/29/2010 it read. That was the one thing about the tape that changed. Everything else remained the same, but every time Sophia tried to get rid of the videotape, and every time it came back, the date changed. Sometimes it was the month, sometimes the day, and sometimes the year. She had no idea what it meant.

“Do you want me to watch you again? Is that it?” she murmured. “Well I’m not going to. You’re not going to get me to, you piece of shit. I won’t. I never will again.”

The tape went back onto her desk, and Sophia began pulling out her binders and notebooks, steadfastly refusing to spare the tape a second glance.

It didn’t work. It never worked. The tape didn’t move. Sophia knew it. She didn’t move it. It didn’t move itself. She’d made sure of it; with tape and rulers helping prove to her that the tape never moved. It sat right on the corner of her desk.

But it was there. It was always there, and it always poked and prodded at the corners of her eyes and tickling some small corner of her hindbrain, bringing forth a jittery energy and nervousness that suffused her being even as she tried to delve deep into pages of algebra instead. Like some unseen presence, pressing and pressing upon her shoulders.

All of that bubbled over, eventually, causing Sophia to stand and grab the tape. “Stop,” she hissed at it.

The tape didn’t answer.

“I said stop, please,” Sophia tried again, this time throwing the tape against the wall.

The tape didn’t answer.

“Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it!” she cried, lunging at the tape and smashing it furiously against her wall.

The tape didn’t answer.

“I’m not going to watch you,” Sophia said, panting from the exertion. She stumbled her way back to her desk and tried to focus on her homework again. Eventually the divot of attention absorbed her, letting her ignore the fact that the videotape had made its way back onto her desk from where she left it on the ground.

Eventually, the repetitive scritch-scratch of her pencil upon paper became too much for her to bear. Its whiny, needling voice dwarfing her previously tranquil silence and its reverberations grinding against Sophia’s patience. In a single, practiced motion Sophia stood, picked up the tape, and headed downstairs to the living room.

The VHS player was from a time long past, a device harkening from years and years ago through four different houses and two different neighborhoods, yet still functioned perfectly. It was sleek and clean, looking almost eager to receive her offering. Sophia gave it its favored meal, and settled back to the couch.

It was the seventh day, and Sophia had lost it.

No, not her mind. That was still intact. Mostly.

No, Sophia had lost the tape.

She thinks that losing it should be a cause for celebration. Jubilation. A reason for her to jump up and down in joy and tell everyone of the good fortune that had been visited upon her.

But all she could think about was the tape.

She’d looked everywhere. Torn apart the house, the PRT headquarters, and even Mr. Quinlan’s car, but to no avail. The tape was missing.

And that was bad. Sophia didn’t know why, but not having the tape was very, very bad. Maybe it was the wave of dread slowly creeping up her spine and wrapping her brain with its spindly tendrils that shorted her breath and made her sweat. Maybe it was the oppressive presence that she felt right beside her as though some invisible stranger was looming over her every action. Maybe it was the itch that squirmed against her neck that insisted Sophia to scratch and scratch at it until it was raw and bleeding.

Sophia didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to find the tape.

The last scraps of a seatbelt from Quinlan’s car was thrown to the ground. The tape wasn’t underneath the car seat. Sophia kicked the tire in frustration and moved on.

It was the two hundred and fifteenth day, and she’d found it.

It was a cause of celebration. Jubilation. Sophia found herself jumping up and down in glee and hurried towards her house to tell her family of her blessed fortune.

She’d found the tape. That coveted tape, in all its beauteous, cardboard bedecked glory.

The door swung open, granting her entrance to her abode. Sophia sprinted inside, unaware of the upturned carpet, the torn couch, and the obliterated kitchen. Unaware that the house had been empty for months and that insects and vermin covered the walls. All she cared about was that shrine in her living room. A shrine of wires and computer chips and more importantly a shrine that had her VHS player. A VHS player for her beloved tape.

She grinned, the vice of dread and paranoia loosening its noose around her spine as the mouth of the electronic greedily devoured its meal and settled back into the couch.

Frankenlos, by Elle

“So, what do you think? Pretty authentic, right?” Carlos did a little twirl, his labcoat billowing around him. He adjusted the thick goggles covering his eyes, then unleashed a diabolical laugh from deep in the pit of his stomach. “MUHAHAHAHAHA! IT’S ALIVE!” his voice and laugh both were a little muffled by the medical mask covering the lower half of his face, but such was the price of anonymity.

“I mean, yeah,” said Dennis, sounding disgruntled as he tugged down his striped scarf from around his mouth. “But that’s totally not what I meant when I suggested Frankenstein.”

“Well maybe you should have made it clear that you meant the monster, not the doctor,” Carlos fired back, adjusting the bandoleer he was wearing across his bare chest. Within each compartment was a vial of glowing green fluid which he’d gotten out of glowsticks He’d drank one too, because his power afforded him that kind of idle curiosity now and then. Tasted awful, would not recommend.

“Uuuuugh,” Dennis drew it out for a full three seconds. “Okay, yes, technically Frankenstein is the doctor, but in a cultural sense you knew exactly what I meant when I said a Frankenstein costume, and pretending you didn’t is just facetious.”

“Sounds like sour grapes to me, Dennis,” Carlos cocked him a grin, remembered the mask, pulled it down, and resumed grinning. “I have learned well.”

“Are you still holding a grudge over the ‘lend me a hand’ thing?”

“Yes, 100%.”

“In my defence, that was incredibly funny.”

Carlos looked at Dennis. Dennis looked at Carlos.

“Giving me my own arm was not funny.”

“It was at least a little bit funny.”

Carlos looked at Dennis. Dennis looked at Carlos.

Carlos cracked a smile. “Okay. Yeah. It was.”

Dennis smirked back, then perched himself atop the sofa. The two of them were killing time waiting for the other Wards to get ready for the Halloween PR event. Who’d have thought that Missy and Sophia would be so fastidious about their costumery? Chris, Carlos could kind of see, Dean he could definitely see, but not the girls. Though, Sophia always seemed to be angling to ensure she came off like a badass, so maybe she was tweaking her outfit until she looked sufficiently dark and brooding.

“Anyhow, you would make a great Frankenstein’s monster.”

Carlos resisted the urge to sigh. Once Dennis got fixed on something, you just had to let it run its course, so he could either let himself get annoyed or just play along. “Knew you could get it right.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. “I’m serious here. You could go full bore with it, stitch yourself together, have a limb hanging off. That kind of thing.”

Carlos shot him a cool look. “Are you suggesting I rip myself apart for the sake of a Halloween costume?”

“No.”

“Good, because—”

“I’m suggesting you rip yourself apart from a totally badass Halloween costume.”

Carlos groaned. “What about you? You’re just some random guy in a coat and scarf.”

“Excuse you. I’m The Doctor.”

“The Doctor of what?”

“No, that’s not how it goes.”

Pinching his nose, Carlos shook his head. “I don’t know what’s more depressing, the idea you’re doing this on purpose or the idea that you’re not.”

“It’s my purpose to do this on purpose.”

“Dennis, I will fly you to the ceiling.”

“FIne by me, I like being tall—”

“And glue you there.”

Dennis’s mouth hung open for a second, then resolved into a smirk. “It is on, captain, my captain.”

“...are you hitting on me?”

“That’s not a romance poem.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly, there was a voice at Carlos’s elbow.

“I am the night.”

Carlos yelped and scrambled away, whirling around to see a pint-sized Batman standing there, caped and cowled and dripping with menace. “Missy!” he spluttered. “How did you do that!?”

“By projecting the darkness within. Also, a gadget.”

And she must have used her power to shrink the distance between them. Still terrifying.

A series of clanks heralded their next arrival as an armoured figured stomped its way into the room. Dean waved with a disconcerting grinding of metal, then put his hands on his hips expectantly. Carlos and Dennis exchanged glances.

“Dean,” ventured Dennis. “Why are you a knight? Your costume is already a knight.”

Dean’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m Alphonse,” he looked around at them. “Full Metal Alchemist? Anyone?” he sighed. “I knew I should have been Iron Man.”

Electing not to crush his dreams further, Carlos checked his phone. They really needed to be moving out for the event soon. Where were Chris and Sophia? Wait, Sophia better not have snuck out somehow. Was that why she was taking so long? Dammit, he knew that she hated PR but this was supposed to be teambuilding as well as public facing. At this rate he was going to have to ask Armsmaster for help managing her again—

“What.”

Sophia stood there in all her glory. Her bright, bubblegum pink dress with matching wig wearing glory.

The Wards stared at her as one.

“What?” she snapped defensively. “Quit looking at me like that!”

“This is the greatest thing I have ever seen,” said Dennis, awestruck.

Sophia rounded on him. “Don’t give me that! You’re supposed to be Marcelline!”

“Whuh—I didn’t think you were actually going to do it! I thought you were kidding!”

“Name one time Sophia has ever told a joke.”

Silence. Sophia looked faintly aggrieved.

“Whatever.” She stomped out.

“I don’t think I can possibly top that,” said the muffled voice of Kid Win beneath his replica Armsmaster mask with Authentic Stick-On Goatee!

The event itself commenced to more success than it had any real right to. Sophia was more popular with the kids than literally she had ever been before, to the extent that Carlos was a little worried that Image would get some ideas about a redesign. Armsmaster Jr went down a storm, Dennis got people with the actual ‘Doctor who?’ line a half dozen times, Dean got a couple kids recognising him and Missy was absolutely terrifying. For his own part, Carlos found reactions kind of underwhelming with a whole bunch of ‘but you’re not a monster!’. Damn kids needed to read up on their classical literature.

Carlos was sulking so deeply that he reacted late to the shouted warning and turned around just in time for the falling, swinging sign of the building they were schmoozing outside to hit him right in the face. His neck broke with an ungodly snap, knocking his head off his shoulders to flop down his back, flipping his vision upside down.

A chorus of kids screamed.

“I’m fine!” he tried to yell, but only managed a strangled, gargled gasp as the sounds failed to escape his mangled throat. Okay, how about—he reached back to grab his dangling head and replace it where it was supposed to be.

More screams.

“Don’t worry!” he failed to say reassuringly as his head flopped right back off.

“Told you the monster would have been scarier,” said upside-down Dennis.

Carlos groaned. The kids screamed again.