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Far away from the hustle and bustle of the town center stood a large mansion and inside its study magic was happening. The study was a collision of eras. Shelves of gnarled, root-like wood held crumbling scrolls and leather-bound grimoires, while holographic runes flickered faintly in the air, a failed attempt to digitize the undigitizable. At the center sat Eldrin Moonshadow, his silver hair cascading over robes woven from the finest of silks. He was once a famed archeologist convinced that magic was real. He was attempting to read a tome that, if his translation was correct, would bring magic back to the world. His fingers traced glyphs in an ancient tome. The book’s pages pulsed faintly, as if breathing, its language dead for millennia.

He read aloud, each syllable a spark at the back of his mind. The words twisted as they left his lips, no longer just words but charged with every. The first sign was subtle: the flicker of the holograms stuttered, then died. Shadows pooled thicker in the corners, alive and watching. Eldrin’s voice grew steadier, louder, though his hands trembled. The glyphs began to glow, not with light, but with a negative radiance—a void that gnawed at the edges of the room.

His mind itched. A pressure built behind his eyes, as if something were peeling back the folds of his consciousness. The words now came unbidden, faster, harsher, the book’s pages turning themselves. The air tasted metallic, like blood and static. The walls… lmelted. Not into liquid, but into an assortment of impossible geometries—angles that bent away from reality, colors that had no name. Eldrin tried to stop, but his tongue was no longer his own. The tome’s magic slithered into his veins, cold and euphoric.

Then there was silence.

The study was gone. He stood, or at least he thought he did, it was hard to tell in a realm where space folded inward. Before him loomed… It.

Its presence was a paradox—a colossus that could eclipse galaxies, yet small enough to cradle in a palm. Its body was the night sky fractured: a living canvas of stars, nebulae, and black holes swirling in perfect, terrible harmony. Thousands of appendages spiraled from its core—not limbs, but *concepts* made flesh. Some resembled skeletal hands, others tendrils of liquid starlight, still more were shifting geometries that defied mortal eyes. Its “face” (if it had one) was a vortex of constellations arranged into something like a smile, vast and hungry.

“Little Siren,” it intoned, its voice a chorus of dying suns and birth cries of planets. Yet it was understandable. “You sang my symphony well. But the verse… that final verse is incomplete.”

Eldrin’s mind unraveled. Memories fractured—his centuries of study, his name, the taste of sunlight—all unspooling into the cosmic tapestry of the entity. The entity’s appendages brushed his soul (not his body, never his body), and he felt the weight of eons, the insignificance of all he’d ever known.

“Sing the last glyph,” it demanded, its form collapsing and expanding simultaneously. “Unbind me. Let us rewrite the song. Let us bring back magic.”

Eldrin’s mouth opened—to obey, to scream, he wasn’t sure—but before a sound could escape, the vision ruptured.

He gasped, back in the study, the tome snapped shut. His hands were bleeding, clawed raw from trying to close the tome. The walls were intact, the holograms humming innocently. But the air still thrummed with a dissonant hum, and when Eldrin looked down, his reflection in the polished floor showed not his face, but a flicker of star-strewn void.

Some doors, once opened, cannot be fully shut.

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The spotlight warmed Lena’s face as she strode onto the stage of The Grinning Imp, a cramped comedy club wedged between a well-liked noodle shop and a proper bar in the quiet city of Twin Pines. The crowd—a mix of drowsy halfling students, goliath construction workers, and elven baristas nursing post-shift coffees—clapped politely. Lena flashed her sharpest grin, the one that made her cheekbones look carved. No horns, no tail, no giveaways. Just a woman with a mic and a chip on her shoulder. If the crowd had known that a Tiefling was on stage it might’ve been more fun with the hecklers. While they were all almost completely human, there was still the running stigma their demonic past brought to the present. Still, Lena smiled even harder as her eyes scanned the crowd.

“Evening, everybody!” she barked, voice bouncing off the brick walls. A goliath in the back raised a tankard. “Yeah, I see you, big guy. You’re what, eight feet tall? Funny story, I dated a Goliath once! I’ll tell you that the height difference was so wild. Every kiss looked like I was summiting Mount Trauma. I had to break up with him because I just couldn’t stand the long distance relationship we had.” The room chuckled. A halfling in the front row snorted into her cider. “Gotcha.”

For forty minutes, Lena danced on the edge of disaster—teasing a gnome about his “suspiciously shiny” bald head, (“Sir, are you polishing that or is it naturally that reflective?”), commiserating with a human nurse about chaotic ER shifts (“Ma’am, if I see one more guy say ‘I just fell on it’ at 2 a.m…”), and dodging a rogue olive lobbed by a heckling dwarf (“Wow, that almost hit! If I was the broadside of a barn I’d be a little more worried”). The room buzzed, sweaty and alive. Normal. Lena was very used to nights like this. She would do her routine, have plenty of laughs, get drunk with half her earnings at the bars around town, and then struggle to eat until her next gig. This life was chaotic, it was tiring, but it was comedy. There was very little a rowdy crowd could do to throw her off her game.

Then the smell hit.

Burnt sugar. Sulfur. Lena’s nostrils flared. A headache bloomed behind her eyes, hot and insistent. She gripped the mic stand, knuckles white as she nearly collapsed. It felt like an energy surged through her body and threatened to make her explode. “Uh… anyone eating spoiled eggs or did the Dwarf let out some steam if you know what I mean?” she quipped in, voice strained. The crowd tittered nervously. A cough could be heard to mark a woman’s displeasure at the apparent joke. In her body she felt a heat surging, and it demanded a way out. Lena caught sight of an object and suddenly she felt the energy rush out of her body.

A candle on a corner table—unlit, just decor—hissed. Then *snap*. Blue flames erupted, vivid and cold. The halfling beside it yelped, scrambling back. “Whoa, pyro effects!” a drunk human shouted, clapping. At first, it stuck to the decorative wick, but soon the entire candle and the table holding it caught fire as well.

Lena froze. No. No no no. She felt a connection to this fire that she had never felt before. It felt warm, but it also felt oh so incredibly hungry.

A dwarf tossed his ale on the fire in an attempt to douse it. The flames rippled, unfazed, as they shot upward and began licking the ceiling. Panic surged as a goliath yanked down a tapestry to smother it but instead, the blaze clung to the fabric, spreading faster, and faster, and further. The fire arched out and began to gnaw at the surrounding tables until they too caught fire.. “Get out!” someone screamed.

Lena stood paralyzed, the mic screeching feedback. The smell of sulfur thickened. Hersmell. Her fault. Again.

“Fire exit!” a gnome bellowed, herding the crowd. No one looked at Lena. No accusations, no shocked stares. Just chaos. To them, it was a freak accident—faulty gas lines, cursed decor, bad luck. Only she knew the truth humming in her veins. She caused this. If anyone died, it would be her fault. Again.

She stumbled offstage, past the fleeing bartender, and into the alley. The cold blue glow pulsed through the club’s windows. Lena pressed her back to the damp brick wall, trembling.

“What the fuck?” she whispered.

Somewhere in the city, a church bell tolled. A breeze carried the scent of smoke. Something had awoken in her, and Lena could only hyperventilate as she watched the fire consume more and more before a Goliath grabbed her and pulled her further away from the growing inferno. As she got a good distance away the fire puttered and went out all on its own. She felt something writhing about in her pocket, and she quickly opened it and saw a blue ball of fire nestled in it. A small amount of smoke had already started to rise from her burning vest.

Lena used magic, and she was terrified.

---

---

The cabin was a tomb, and Lena was its reluctant body.

She lay in the tub, her body curled into itself like a question mark, staring at the water-stained ceiling. Burnie Cinders, the name she had given oh so affectionately to the sentient ball of fire, floated nearby, his blue light casting jagged shadows that danced across the room like a ballerina troupe. He’d been quiet tonight, which was worse than his usual antics. At least when he was setting her socks on fire or scorching the dinner she had delivered, she had something to yell about. Silence left her alone with her thoughts, and her thoughts were more painful than anything this fire could bring.

“NO.”

The word flared suddenly, sharp and impatient.

“I didn’t ask you anything,” Lena muttered, her voice hoarse from disuse.

“YES”

She groaned. Burnie’s binary responses were maddening. YES and NO. No explanations, no apologies. Just a sentient flame with the emotional range of a red light, green light game. Lena had not been back to this cabin in the woods since her parents died. Her dad loved to hunt out of this place and even took young Lena out a few times to teach her. She hated hunting back then. The very idea of taking a life was a cruel joke, couldn’t they just get meat at the supermarket where no animal had to die? It took her until thirteen to realize the truth of how wrong she was. Oh she wished she could go back to that youthful innocence and to be in his presence just for a minute. She used to hate this place for so many reasons, but there was only one that stuck out to her now.

The cabin was a museum of loss. Her parents’ things sat untouched, frozen in time: her father’s flannel draped over the rocking chair, her mother’s gardening gloves on the windowsill, their wedding photo on the mantel, half-melted at the edges. Lena hadn’t moved any of it. To disturb them felt like admitting they were gone for good. There were burn marks all over the walls that had collected dust over the years. While the roof, and many of the walls were scorched, the fire that consumed her family had struck fast and was put out even quicker thanks to her parents even if the fire and smoke claimed them in the end.

Burnie had taken a liking to the flannel. He’d curl into its pocket most nights, dimming to a faint glow, like a child clinging to a security blanket. Lena didn’t stop him. It felt like a truce with a pyromaniac child who would burn anything and everything he could. It took two days after the comedy club fire to learn that this thing thought and acted on its own. Once she did, it made it easier to control even if it was like negotiating with a terrorist who had their finger on the trigger of a bomb. Lena left her apartment with the fire a week ago because she was too poor to lose the security deposit, and she’s been stuck in this cabin ever since.

She’d tried to leave again this morning. Made it as far as the porch before her legs locked. The forest stretched ahead, pines swaying like a dare. “Just walk,” she'd told herself. “One foot. Then the other*. But her lungs had tightened, her pulse thrashing through her chest. Burnie had swooped in, frantic, etching “NO NO NO,” in the air until she stumbled back inside.

Now, they had rituals. Lena would cook breakfast, letting the sentient fire char his half to charcoal while Lena tried to eat hers when her stomach allowed. The fire would try to catch random things on fire and Lena would yell and scream at it to stop, and then apologize for raising her voice. They would walk the cabin together, Burnie would try to point at items only for Lena to completely not because looking at the discarded artifacts left by her parents was not the vibe right now. Finally, at dusk, Lena would sit on the floor in the bathroom with her back against the wall and stare at her parent's wedding photo that somehow survived the inferno. While half melted it still contained their essence, her father's cocky but kind smile and her mother's resting bitch face that was just her autism made physical. For some reason, the fire always respected these items, it would never try to catch them on fire and would even dim its light as if paying respects to the dearly departed. She sighed as she smiled at that photo. She missed them so much in that moment.

“YES.” The flame would always flicker as if asking, “Ready to talk,” right after.

“NO”, she’d think back.

For some reason, it always seemed to know what she was thinking.

---

The letter came on a Tuesday. Or maybe it was a Wednesday. Time had dissolved into a slurry of exhaustion and made food in the week or so she spent at the cabin.

Lena was scrubbing ash off the countertop, Burnie Cinders had decided that it would be a fun game for it to destroy a brand new roll of paper towels and have Lena clean up afterward when the envelope slid inside. No knock. No footsteps. Just the soft *shhh* of paper sliding on hardwood.

Burnie shot past her, flaring bright and growing in size.

”NO’

“You don’t even know what it says.”

“YES’

She picked it up. The paper was thick and expensive, the kind her mother used for holiday cards. The seal broke with a sigh.

Lena, I hope this letter finds you well enough.

Magic isn’t a spark. It’s a scream. And by all accounts, you’ve been screaming for the past week. This is not in your head, magic is real. You’ve heard it in your sleep, in the hollows of your soul, and every moment that Elemental lives is proof. You are one of the first mages in five hundred years. I’m sure you have questions and I have the answers to them.

Come to 13 Mourningdove Lane. Midnight.

~The Archivist (PS: Bring the good senator. He’s righteous.

Burnie recoiled, incinerating the letter in a single, violent snap even as the letter rested in Lena’s hands. Even though the fire kissed them her hands did not burn, nor hurt, with the heat.

“They know your name,” Lena whispered.

“NO.

“The good senator, at least they have good taste in elected officials,” Lena Joked.

“YES.

”Do you have an actual name?”

”YES.”

”Can you tell me it?”

”NO.”

She sank to the floor, the tiles cold through her sweatpants. Burnie drifted closer, his heat a low thrum against her face. She didn’t pull away. Her eyes shot over to the door and the thought of the letter entered her mind.

“Are they dangerous?”

“YES.

“Are they lying?”

“NO.

“Should I go?”

Burnie stilled. The cabin creaked, the wind outside gnawing at the eaves. Lena pressed her forehead to her knees. *What would you do?* she asked the ghosts. The flannel rustled. The novel’s pages fluttered.

When she looked up, Burnie had etched a word in delicate, wavering script above the sink—a word he’d never used, a word that didn’t fit his binary soul:

“PERHAPS.

Lena watched in awe at the fire script. She had learned much about the sentient fire that seemed to have a thing for her, but it always seemed ready to surprise her again.

““You’re not just fire, are you?” she murmured.

“NO.

“Are you… them,” she pointed towards the burnt scraps of paper, “Did they… make you?”

“NO.

“Are you mine? Did I make you?”

A pause. Then, softer in color and slower in speed, Burnie Cinders spelled out: “YES.

The word hung, glowing, until Lena’s eyes burned. She cupped her hands around him, not caring if he seared her skin. He didn’t. He never did. Outside, the pines whispered. Somewhere, an owl cried. Lena’s breath steadied, syncing with Burnie’s rhythm with his flicker for inhale, his dim for exhale.

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Two hours.

She had two hours until the meeting with the stranger who somehow managed to find them, slide a note under their door, and disappeared without a trace. Lena did not know what was worse, having a sentient fire shouting NO at you every time you considered going to the meeting or the fact that she was considering it. She paced back and forth as as looked at the clock on her phone. Seventeen missed calls from the comedy club, seven from her best friend and roommate Jackson, and over a thousand unread text messages though only one hundred were from the last week.

Lena was so engrossed in her thoughts that she initially missed a tapping sound. A second later it came again, and suddenly Lena could hear the tapping at her cabin door, and the sentient fire grew in size and intensity. ”Hey,” a voice called out. “Tis some visitor,” Lena quoted, “tapping at my cabin door. With a voice, I’d recognize forevermore.”

“Lena,” that familiar voice called out, “It’s Jackson. I need to talk to you and you’re not answering your phone and you’re not responding to my texts even though you got the delivery of food I sent you earlier today. I know you’re in there, please open the door we need to talk about the comedy club and everything that’s happened since.”

Lena looked at the bag of Dairy Queen complete with a peanut buster blizzard, knowing it was a trap. “I never got a-”

“You’re in the drop off photo.”

“Go away Jackson,” Lena paused as she crossed her arms and bowed her head. Shit. She did not like when others saw her in the den of her despair. “I don’t want to talk….. wait.. what happened since?”

““You mean to tell me you’ve been locked up in here for a whole week without checking the news, ticktok, or anything?”

Lena looked at the sentient fire. It had dimmed ever so in the minute that she spoke, it sensing her recognition of the person on the other side. Lena thought back to the various fires that it caused over the last week. “I’ve been busy.”

The door handle turned and it was pulled open. The sentient fire hid behind her and dimmed even more. In the doorway, Lena could see only up to the chest of her friend, his head far too high to be seen from her angle. Jackson bent down and maneuvered his giant frame to fit through the door and bent his body to walk inside. He gracefully turned around and closed the door.

“You never look right walking through that door,” Lena chuckled, “like you remind me of this gif I saw with a train and a-“

““Don’t finish that thought,” he responded quickly, “at least you cleaned this place up. I don’t see any trash on the ground anymore,” he said without knowing it was all burned before he held out his hand and passed his tablet-sized phone to Lena. On the screen a video was playing, showing a man in Japan shooting electricity into the air. He swiped to the next and the video showed someone in a forest floating precariously only to fall a moment later. He swiped to the next, and the next, and the next. Each one shows someone from around the world using magic. ““No one on the news is talking about it, and as fast as they uploaded they’re removed from the apps. Still, everyone is trying to find more. As well-“

Jackson held up a hand. Suddenly water began to pull itself from the air until it pooled into a pulsating orb. He held it up and muttered a soft ““ta-da” as he pulled the magic back and the water fell to the floor.

Lena’s mouth dropped.

““Now you must have questions,” Jackson started.

“J-J-Jackson,” Lena stuttered at the revelation.

““And normally I would be more than willing to provide them.”

“Jackson st-”

““But I don’t have any, and frankly I am a little upset with you.”

Lena recoiled backward, right hand on her chest and her mouth agape. “Me? What did I-“

““Because when you need anything I’m right there for you. But when I suddenly develop magic and need my best friend in the whole world you are gone, don’t answer my desperate calls, or my sad texts.”

“Jackson I didn’t-“

““And I get it. Fire is very traumatic for you so the fire at the club must’ve been traumatic and you of course came to this safe place. Which is weird because this is a traumatic place where your parents died in a fire right in front of you but I promise I get it. I get it. I get it? I gave you space and waited for you to reach out again like the past five times you’ve had this breakdown. But I need your help now.”

“Please let me-“

““If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you didn’t care about me. Do you have any idea what this is like? To suddenly develop magic? To feel like your body isn’t your own anymore? To—”

Behind Lena, Burnie spelled out YES in flickering blue flames, the letters hovering in the air. Jackson stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he spotted the fire. ““Of course, you don’t—oh my god, what is that?”

“Ummmm Jackson, meet Bernie Cinder,” Lena paused as the flame fully revealed itself, “I developed magic too.”

Jackson stared at the sentient fire, then at Lena, then back at the fire. ““Burnie Cinder,” he repeated flatly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a poster-sized letter, the same thick, expensive stock as the one Lena had received. ““Well,” he said, his voice heavy with irony, ““I was going to try to guilt-trip you into coming with me tonight. Apparently, someone took notice of my magic. Now, I don’t have to guilt trip you because you need to see this let-”

“I got the same letter,” Lena interrupted as she pointed to a small pile of ash on the ground. “Anyone else we know get one?”

Jackson muttered a soft ‘okaaaay fuck me then’ as he put the poster down on the table. “Not that I know of. I am going to this meeting to find out,” Jackson paused as he opened the door once more and stepped outside, “are you?”

Lena hesitated, glancing at Burnie. The fire flickered uncertainly, but for once, it didn’t spell out NO. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes.”

Jackson’s expression softened, and for the first time since he’d arrived, he smiled. “Good. Because I’m not doing this alone, Lena. You’re my best friend, and I need you. Even if you’ve been a terrible one lately.”

Lena winced but nodded. “I’m sorry, Jackson. I… I just… I didn’t know how to deal with all of this.”

“Yeah no shit,” Jackson said, his tone lighter now. “But we’ll figure it out. Like we always somehow do.”

Lena managed a small smile. “Together.”

Burnie flared brightly, spelling out YES once more, and for the first time in days, Lena felt a flicker of hope. “Do we have enough time for me to take a shower before we go?”

“No,” Jackson responded with crossed arms.

“Can I change?”

“Yes.”

---

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The drive to Mourningdove Lane was quiet, save for the low hum of the car’s engine and the occasional flicker of Burnie Cinder’s flames in the backseat. Lena stared out the window, her fingers drumming nervously on the armrest. Jackson, ever the steady presence, kept his eyes on the road, though his grip on the steering wheel was tighter than usual.

“You know,” Lena said, breaking the silence, “if this turns out to be some kind of cult, I’m blaming you.”

Jackson chuckled, the sound deep and warm. “If it’s a cult, I’ll befriend their leader. Get priority access to the inner workings of the cult. Build our brand you know? Do a hostile takeover, kill the existing leadership, and become the new cult leader with you as my number two.”

Lena smirked, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah, because that’s exactly how I pictured my life going. Being number two in a cult. We both know I’d make the better leader because I am calm under pressure.”

“Hey, I can be a leader,” Jackson protested, grinning. “And you’re one to talk, Miss ‘I-set-a-comedy-club-on-fire-and-it-triggered-my-PTSD-really-bad-so-I-ran-to-the-woods-to-cry.’” Jackson took his hands off the wheel as he spoke, doing air quotes with them, and his voice had a mocking quality.

“Low blow,” Lena muttered, though she couldn’t help but laugh. The tension in the car eased slightly, and she leaned back in her seat, watching the streetlights blur past.

They parked a block away from the address, the mansion’s silhouette visible in the distance. It loomed against the night sky, its windows dark and foreboding. Lena hesitated as she stepped out of the car, her boots crunching on the gravel. Burnie floated beside her, his blue light casting eerie shadows on the ground.

“You good?” Jackson asked, his voice soft but steady.

“Peachy,” Lena replied, though her hands were shoved deep in her jacket pockets, her shoulders tense. “Let’s just get this over with.”

They strolled, the cool night air wrapping around them like a shroud. The streets were empty, the only sound was the rustle of leaves and the distant hoot of an owl. Lena glanced at Jackson, her brow furrowed.

“So,” she began, “how’s the whole water thing going? You’ve been pretty quiet about it.”

Jackson shrugged his shoulders, his hands in his pockets. “It’s… weird. Like, I can feel it, you know? The water. It’s like it’s alive in my hands, but I have no clue what I am doing with it. I can shape it, and move it, but it’s not always easy to control. Especially when I’m stressed.”

“Sounds familiar,” Lena said, glancing at Burnie, who flickered as if in agreement. “I still can’t believe this is real. Magic. All of it.”

“Yeah,” Jackson agreed, his tone thoughtful. “But it’s not just us, Lena. Those videos I showed you, people all over the world are waking up with powers. Something’s happening, and we’re part of it.”

“Lucky us,” Lena muttered. She kicked a pebble, watching it skitter across the pavement. “Do you think this Archivist person knows what’s going on? Like, why now? Why us?”

Jackson shook his head. “No idea. But if anyone has answers, it’s probably them. And if they don’t…” He trailed off, shrugging. “Well, we’ll figure it out. Like we always do.”

Lena smiled faintly, though her nerves were still on edge. “You make it sound so simple. Like we’re going to walk through the door and all of a sudden this all makes sense. Or we walk through the door and wake up from some collective dream.”

“It’s not,” Jackson admitted. “But we’ve got each other. And that’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Right,” Lena said, her voice softer now. She glanced at him, her expression grateful. “Thanks, Jackson. For… you know. Being you.”

Jackson grinned, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Anytime, Lena. Now come on. Let’s go see what this Archivist wants.”

They approached the mansion, its iron gates standing open as if waiting for them. The path to the front door was lined with overgrown hedges, their shadows twisting in the moonlight. Lena hesitated at the gate, her heart pounding.

“You ready?” Jackson asked, his voice steady.

“Not even a little,” Lena admitted. But she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped through the gate. Jackson followed close behind.

As they walked up the path, the mansion seemed to grow larger, its windows like dark, unblinking eyes.

“Whatever happens,” Jackson said quietly, “if one of us dies in here the other has to delete the dead ones browsing history.”

“Oh for fucking sure,” Lena responded, her voice barely above a whisper.

They reached the front door, its heavy wood carved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift in the dim light. Lena raised a hand to knock, but before she could, the door creaked open on its own, revealing a dark hallway beyond.

“Well,” Jackson said, his tone light despite the tension, “that’s not creepy at all.” Lena shot him a look that screamed 'don't jinx us please', “Let’s just get this over with.”

Lena’s eyes caught a movement in the neighboring property and she saw a man who waved at her before darting back inside. Lena squinted. He looked familiar like she had seen him in a movie or TV show before.

Together, they stepped inside, the door closing behind them with a soft but final click.

---

Sticky. Everything felt sticky. His skin and clothes felt heavy and tacky with something he couldn't quite pinpoint.

Something soft, warm and chewy was in his mouth. He chewed a few times and swallowed. It smelled of old pennies, but tasted... divine. He licked his lips.

He opened his eyes. Awareness came back to him all at once.

Carnage, all around him. Blood and guts and flesh were strew all around him, splattered on him, soaking into the soil and filling the air with the metallic scent of freshly spilled gore. A carcass laid before him, barely recognizable as the deer it once was. Its empty eyes bore into his.

Mathias looked down at his hands in shock, staring at the long claws sprouting from the tip of his fingers. His tongue idly traced the points of the too-sharp fangs now awkwardly filling his mouth. He could feel small, stringy bits stuck in between his teeth. Sinew, maybe? In a daze, he raised a hand, trying to wipe away the blood caking his cheek, but only managed to smear on even more.

It smelled awful. It smelled delicious.

Mathias looked over at the deer again. It's not deer season, was the first thing that passed through his mind. A small surprised laugh escaped him at his own thoughts, and grew stronger and louder, until he was in full-blown, panicked hysterics. "Why the fuck do I care about poaching?!" he screamed into the forest's empty darkness, tears streaming down his face as he struggled to breathe between each uncontrollable guffaw. "What the fuck?!"

---

---

Mathias flicked his cigarette butt on the ground, putting it out using his shoe, then bending down to pocket it. He kept his gaze firmly on the mansion's front door, still unsure if he should approach or not. Every bone in his body was screaming at him not to do it, to just turn around and leave. But then again, ever since that night, his instincts also kept telling him to chase catch clamp your jaw around their throat and feast start running after squirrels, so who knew if he could trust his gut feeling.

And he really did want to know just how the hell whoever had sent him that letter knew about his little... hunting incident. He'd been alone, in the woods, at night, with no one else around for miles. He'd burned all of his bloodstained clothing, scrubbed his skin raw and pink to remove every trace of blood. He couldn't do anything about the deer carcass, but if it ever were to be found, which was very unlikely, its state would doubtlessly be blamed on predators and scavengers. As for his... new attributes, his magic if the letter was to be believed, he'd managed to turn back to normal. Or, normal enough at least. Sure, it had taken most of a day to figure it out, and something was definitively still wrong with him, but he looked normal, and that would have to do. Not to mention everything had taken place states away.

All of that to say, no one but him should have known about his abilities. And yet, the letter came anyway, exactly a week later, inviting him to a midnight meeting in a town he'd just arrived in for work... it shouldn't be possible. He had to know what was up.

Mathias huffed a tired sigh, tugging absentmindedly on his dress shirt's cuff. He hadn't bothered to change out of his work clothes for the evening, only taking off his jacket and tie, and undoing the first button of his shirt. He'd probably still be considered business casual, if it weren't for how messy and wrinkled his hair and clothes were by now.

After a few more moments of indecision, he finally started walking towards the mansion proper. He'd seen the two kids just enter, probably locals. It was a relief, in a way. It meant less chances this was a murderous maniac's trap; the vanishing of multiple locals is much harder to hide than the disappearance of an out-of-towner like him, especially in small town like Twin Pines. He'd live. Probably.

A chill went up his spine as the doors opened by themselves with a creak, before he even got the chance to knock. "Fucking... creepy as hell place..." he muttered as he took his first hesitant step inside.

---

chk....chk...chk...

The sound of the gun clicking resonated along the walls like they were taunting her.

The night had already been penetrated by the sound of the shot before. She felt warm. A mix of relief and the blood that was on her hands. Figuratively and literally. She fought off a chuckle at that thought. Right now wasn't a laughing matter.

Or was it? A monster was dead. Did the heroes not cheer in the stories of old when they defeated the Big Bad? Did they not rejoice and throw parties to celebrate the death? Surely she was allowed that much.

"Oh sweet pea.."

Belladonna froze. It was a nickname she dreaded despite its sweet nature. Only on person called her that and right now he had a bullet hole in his temple. She glanced over slowly to the chair he always sat in, glass of whiskey in his hand, the remote in the other. He was dead.

She felt the hands on her first. Then she smelled the breath, a mix of alcohol and bile. She fell back, but the force fell also on top of her. She looked into her father's eyes. No, this was not her father. It was someone else. Something else. Dark voids filled its eyes, black ooze out of his mouth. Sharp teeth that looked like it could clean an arm off. His skin was sickly, gray and worn.

"You killed me! You suffer!"

She fought hard. She tried to push him off to no avail. She reached for something, anything, to get him off but everything was out of reach. She tried to scream but only a choking sound exited her lips. The being laughed.

"Suffer...."

And it opened its mouth, black ooze pouring out and swallowing her whole.

---

Belladonna woke up with a start, shooting up in the bed the paid for. She felt her hands shaking so she clenched her fists five times like she was taught. She took some deep breaths, in the nose for five, out the mouth for five. She looked around the cheap motel room. The curtains made of itchy fiber, the carpet even worse. The TV that looked like it jumped out of a Sears Catalog from 1984. She was safe.

Or rather she was safe-ish. That's the word she used constantly. Safe-ish. It felt correct considering she wasn't safe anywhere really. What woman was nowadays? The nightmare felt so real. It wasn't the first time she saw him in her dreams. It was the first time he looked like that though. Sometimes her mother was there, a look of disappointment on her face. Sometimes her sisters were there, crying and screaming at her. Sometimes she was there and she saw her younger self, a creepy smile on her face afterwards.

Regardless, she was safe-ish. Sleep would be hard to gain back. But she had to try. She had to be up for work in three hours.

---

"Miss, more coffee."

Belladonna leaned against the counter. She heard the words but it went in one ear and out the other. She felt the itchy uniform press against her skin. The skirt too short considering the amount of leaning and bending over she had to do.

"Miss, coffee!"

Belladonna glanced over at the voice attached to the man who looked like he had as much audacity as his tone suggested. She grabbed the coffee pot on her right and walked over. She tipped it into the man's mug slowly. She felt his eyes on her and inching ever so slowly downward. She felt a chill. "Anything else I can get you sir?"

The man smiled and showed his teeth, or lack thereof. God the amount of things going in his head. "Just a smile sweetheart." Belladonna felt her body retch. Did he take that from "How To Be a Douchebag: The Novel"? She imagine dumping the rest of the hot coffee on his lap, doing womankind a favor, but fought it. She needed the job. At least for a few more weeks. Enough to pay for another motel or bed and breakfast father away.

So she smiled. She hated herself, but she smiled. "That's a good girl."

She turned and felt a hand on her ass. She paused, thinking. Did that just happen?

She turned around and looked at the man who looked like a kid caught with his hand on the cookie jar. Appropriate imagery.

"Sir, please do not touch me again." Her tone was neutral despite the fire in her eyes. She didn't want to cause trouble and get fired, but something had to be done. A few other patrons looked over. She was sure they saw what he had done, but were silent. Perhaps because they didn't want to cause a scene. Perhaps because they agreed that a woman's body was not her own. Or perhaps they were all slimeballs.

"What are you going to do darling? Call the police?" His words held a thinly-veiled threat. 'Go ahead. Call them. I either have them in my pocket or they won't care one way or the other.'

So Belladonna turned around, ready to get back to dissociating the rest of her shift. Until she heard the man open his fat, fucking mouth again.

"That's right, bitch."

It was like everything went dark. She heard the sound of glass breaking. She heard the scream. But she didn't see it until her vision came back. The man was keeled over, grabbing his face, screaming like he had been stabbed. But no, he had not been stabbed. She saw the stains on his shirt, a new one joining the party. She saw the glass coffee pot on the ground. She knew what she had done.

"AHHH FUCKING BITCH I'LL KILL YOU GOD DAMMIT!"

She looked around, wondering what to do. Did she run? Did she wait to see what happened? She knew it was only a matter of time before the man got up and came at her. She grabbed the handle of the broken coffee pot, seeing the jagged edges of glass along it. If she had to, she would defend herself. She would leave quickly. She didn't have much with her anyway and she paid for a few nights at the motel.

The bastard deserved it. She knew he did.

Fuck.

---

Another day, another shift from hell.

April meant the proper start to the tourist season. It was calmer than summer, sure, but there were no temps either. There weren't the college students back for the holidays or highschool students with nothing better to do. That meant they didn't have enough fucking staff for all the people. So Bea was having to fill in for all the missing shit… because God forbid the actual manager ever fucking turn up. Which meant she was still here past eleven on a Monday, ‘locking’ up and making sure everything was ready for tomorrow.

Amazing. Perfect. What a shit life. At least she could just go home and drink the rest of the night away… not.

The only bright side to this shit was the soda cans Bea snatched from the drink’s stand on her way past. Was she meant to? No. Did she care? Also no.

Especially with where she was going tonight. A mansion she was certain had been empty for years because of a letter about magic. Something that should’ve been a myth. It didn’t seem to be… as much as she kind of wished the creepy, whispering shades following her were just hallucinations. At least that could be treated. Instead, she was probably stuck with them for life.

A silver lining, perhaps, was that she didn’t have to go to the murder mansion alone. Rowan, the only person Bea might consider a friend, also had magic. And the same letter. That, or they were in a shared hallucination from a horrendous illness they got from children’s vomit.

She’d even waited on the island for Bea to finish closing down the place- something she didn’t need to do as a normal worker here. It was a manager’s job… thus, Bea’s and Bea’s alone. Fucking shithole. But the thought of someone waiting on the shitty little dock with the last boat back to the town sparked a tiny bit of warmth in her. The nicotine as she lit a cigarette and took a long drag from it also helped.

It wasn’t exactly a long walk from the tiny staff cabin to the dock. Bea spotted her magician or hallucinator in crime immediately- alone, because of course the old bastard who ran the boat was sitting in his little cabin.

Rowan sat patiently on a dock post overlooking the lake. The moon reflected dimly off the still waters. Idly, her right hand thumbed her sketch pencil rolling it up and down the side of her notebook. Up and down, up and down, while her mind worked on the prospect of the new world before them.

This was going to be the day she offered to help lock up with Bea. Frankly, Rowan felt selfish for sitting down on her ass while lock up still needed to be done. But it's not as though Bea floated the idea either and she had bigger things on her mind today. Her hand floated from the pencil and notebook and felt for the letter tucked behind it. She felt nervous when it made contact; it reconfirmed it was real and so was the meeting.

She couldn’t help but run through scenarios in her head around what they would see in there. Rowan hated surprises and disliked the notion that they were stepping into a place of unknown people with unknown intentions. Maybe trying to predict what was going to happen was a flawed and purely academic pursuit given that the possibilities of magic were just about infinite, but she couldn’t help it. It amounted to unproductive worrying.

”Yo! Catch.” Without much warning, Bea straight up lobbed a can of soda at Rowan.

Snapped out of her train of thought, a somewhat startled Rowan turned to see a can of soda coming directly at her. She went to catch it, almost did, and then fumbled around juggling it before finally getting a hold… At least it didn’t hit the ground this time. She looked down and gave a faint smile to a can of cherry cola, her favourite flavour. Maybe some surprises weren’t so bad.

“How many stalls did they have you running between today?” She asked, trying to move along from her decidedly uncool display as quickly as possible.

”Too many,” Bea groaned, not bothering to hold back the short laugh at the entertainment that was Rowan juggling a soda can. She cracked her own, just plain cola, open and stopped a short distance away. Just to finish huffing down her cigarette, out of respect- she sure didn’t want Rowan getting whatever awful smoke caused cancer she was afflicted with. ”You’d think after months people would know how to do their jobs, but nooo. Nevermind the couple that were hellbent on making every teen worker cry.”

She rolled her eyes, flicking the butt of her cigarette into the lake. It was already polluted as fuck, so who cared? Wasn’t like she’d be here to see the consequences. The living shades teeming in her own shadow whispered judgments she ignored. ”Not sure if all that mundane crap is better or worse than whatever we’re about to walk into.”

Rowan chuckled at the work complaints as she cracked open her can and took a sip. “Was it that couple that was pretty much attached at the hip? I had the pleasure myself today. All smiles ‘til you did something they slightly didn’t like. Must be fun at home, huh.” There was a lingering pause as she didn’t go on to talk about the meeting ahead of them. She didn’t want to avoid that talk with Bea; she just wanted to linger in the normalcy for a short moment more.

”Oh yeah, that’s the one,” Bea rolled her eyes. Not at Rowan, but at the thought of that couple. Like her job wasn’t hard enough. ”Glad they didn’t make you cry, I need at least one other competent non crying person on this fucking island. Everyone else does one or the other!”

“Well, I did see Elliot coming out of the toilets in rough shape. Funny, I didn’t think he was the type to get cut up about things like that.”.

Again, there was another pause. But this time Rowan thought it best not to deflect further. She grew inward as those insecurities about the night ahead came back. She stood and made her way to the boat. “It’s been on my mind since we got the letter. The meeting that is, not the couple. It would be so much easier if it was just us who got this thing, you know? But I doubt that's the case.”

”If it was just us, it’d probably be some magical asshole with a vendetta.” Bea wasn’t so positive about that being easier - then again, she wasn’t so positive about anything. She hopped onto the waiting boat before speaking again, moving round to the tiny cabin at the front and giving it a bang. ”Oy, wake up, we’re good to go.”

There was a pause as she leaned against it, and resisted pulling out another cigarette. ”It’s fucking weird, isn’t it? Whoever sent that letter is either an absolute creep, or they’ve got some shit to detect all of this… magic. Because it’s not like anyone can see mine. The little shadow bastards just bother me.”

Rowan took a seat patiently at the back of the boat while Bea woke the captain up. The rumble of the old engine kicking itself up heralded her friends return.

“If it was just some creep or a magic asshole with a grudge, then we wouldn’t go to his spooky, abandoned mansion. Easy as that.” Her mood took a turn for the better each time Bea talked about the letter's sender like a simple, explainable weirdo. “But I can’t help but feel like we will get some answers to all this there. That draws me in like you wouldn’t believe. Just can’t be sure if that's some kind of lure working against me… us.”

”Lure for what? To kill us in some kinda cult ritual?” Bea shrugged as she also sat down. Rowan was probably right that they’d get answers there… or at least, Bea trusted her friend’s gut more than her own. ”Or worse, maybe it’s to make us do some stupid, heroic magic shit. Trapping us into free fucking labour- Like I don’t already do enough of that.”

“You say all that like it isn’t a possibility.” Rowan thought on it a little more and smiled. “I hope it is some heroic mage thing. You could just give them some kind words and we walk out.” She joked.

Bea let out a short laugh at that. ”Oh yeah, the heroic kinda people won’t be able to handle me. My magic really isn’t made for that shit anyway- who wants shadowy shit?”

We’re all going to diieee! On queue, one of the shadows clawing for her attention whispered from below her.

Bea just shook her head. ”Be glad you can’t hear ‘em… but you’re right. If it’s that and we get to walk I’ll be delighted. In bed by 1am? The fucking dream. Meetings about magic in a creepy mansion are the opposite of any dreams.”

Rowan leaned back on the side of the boat, looking up to the night above with a long sigh. “But we’re going to go anyway, aren’t we?” Try as she might, the girl was a slave to her own curiosity lately. It was just a fear that needed to be faced, even if the thought made her shake a little. A fun memory returned to her in that moment, curving her lips up to a grin. She tilted her head upward slightly to look at Bea again. “You want me to bring marshmallows and a flashlight?”

Bea didn’t respond immediately, head slowly turning to hit Rowan with a deadpan stare. There was an old, fuzzy memory. What Bea remembered most, aside from the terror of nearly being killed by a ‘monster’ that was probably a massive raccoon in hindsight, was- ”You actually going to come this time? You won’t run home and cower under your bed like you did then?”

“Who knows? It’s a little different now that ghosts actually exist this time around and my bed is awful comfy.” There was a pause, she was being coy. “No, I’m not letting you go in alone.”

”Well thank fuck, someone’s gotta hold me back if the culprit is actually just a nice magic nerd.” Bea laughed slightly, shaking her head. The boat was almost at the dock on the other side now… which meant just a drive between them and their destination. She wasn’t scared, just… apprehensive. ”And to backup my story about getting into an accident if I- we- end up late for work tomorrow.”

“Of course, what are friends for if not ready alibis?”

---

The Coney Island duo arrived at Mourningdove Lane after a few pit stops to get ready for the meeting. Under Bea’s request, they took the time to pass by each of their houses to change. They didn’t want to scream to the others that, if they wanted us, they could come to Coney Island. Plus general taste prevented them from going to a meeting of the mages looking like minimum wage.

Parked up a short distance from the house, they waited a few minutes on Rowan’s request. They watched a few shadows passing into the house but a cloud passing over the moon made it hard to make out any features. Only one frightfully tall silhouette stood out as remarkably unique. But it was hard to conclude it was the guy they thought it was. Could have just as easily been an out-of-town goliath. Who knows how far these letters stretched?

Rowan had thoughts about asking Bea to turn the car around. But a short chat later she was already convinced to step out of the car and approach the mansion.

Outside the door, she rolled the flashlight in one hand. They had foregone the marshmallows but a source of light seemed appropriate. “Ready?” Rowan asked, but didn’t reach for the door handle.

Bea hadn’t bothered with a flashlight- because she didn’t actually own one. Instead, she just had her lighter in one hand, feeling a bit ridiculous with the little flame. Their lights cast even darker shadows, and the living ones took great joy in dancing within them. They flickered across the corners of her eyes. Really… nothing inside could be worse than that, right? But as much as she didn’t admit it, now that she was here she didn’t really want to step through the door.

Not out of fear. More a feeling it would change things… and shit never changed for the better. ”I really think we should’ve brought the marshmallows. What if we get hungry while we’re sacrificed?”

“Shit, you’re right. I’ll bring them the next time we get sacrificed.” What followed was a half-hearted chuckle. They both knew that the jokes were to get their minds off the scary unknown ahead. Now that unknown was only feet away on the other side of a normal, if large, set of wooden doors.

They both looked at the door handle but neither reached for it. “You want to do it? Or should I?”

Bea looked at Rowan, then back at the door, with a frown. Did it matter? It did, a bit. Whoever went first had less chance of making it out if there was some horror beyond the door. So… ”I’ll do it. Cause I have no chance of seeing shit over your head.”

The longer they hesitated the worse it would be. So Bea took the final step, moving in front with her hand going for the handle.

Of course, the door opened itself the moment she tried. Because of course it did. Fucking magic.

”Well… fuck. If you hear a scream, run.”

Then, Bea stepped inside and Rowan followed close behind.

---

Emmeline Longwell was no stranger to late nights. She'd grown quite familiar with them over her years as a student, whether they were spent curled up with a book in hand or tediously leaning over her desk as she finished assignments. She would much rather be doing either at the moment, yet her curiosity and worries held her hostage as the driver took her past the town's limits and towards a destination she was not sure she wanted to reach.

Her gaze was firmly locked on the rolling landscape as she gazed out of the passenger side window. The all too familiar feeling of motion sickness had settled in her stomach like lead since the drive began, along with the anxiety that had nested there since the letter arrived. The feeling would only worsen if she dared to check how much further they had to go, and so her gloved hands twisted impatiently in her lap while her mind wandered.

There had been plenty of moments in Emmy's life when it felt like the ground had been swept out from beneath her feet. Only one moment could compare to the feeling that had washed over her in a dizzying wave when she'd read the contents of that mysterious missive. The inexplicable events of the last week had all but been wrapped up in a neat little bow, with only a few words to tie it.

Before today, she'd blamed it on her illness, on the whimsical book she'd been reading, and even assumed that perhaps her body's weaknesses had finally claimed her mind as well. There'd been times when her vision had ebbed in and out of clarity, and so she assumed that the sudden differences between the objects she'd unknowingly affected had been a trick of her syndrome.

All of those theories were plausible, rational, and yet the moment the word magic had run through her mind, she felt the presence of it course through her body, flow through the air around her, consume the paper she'd barely finished reading and turn it to dust, falling through the fingers of time to collect at her feet.


Her mother had read fables to her as a child of a world that lived in magic and fantasy. That the people had wielded it as easily as the air they breathed. Their bodies graced with a power that allowed them to do impossible things, wonderful things. That one day, long ago, that source of power had been taken from them and those once gifted were left mundane.

If this Archivist was speaking the truth, then Emmy could only guess that they knew why the magic had been taken. That they were somehow aware of why the magic had returned, aware of who had been given it's power a week ago-- aware of her. It was as unsettling to consider as it was intriguing.

She struggled to believe that she was one of the gifted. Though her heart had accepted it easily, her mind grappled with the truth. How could she compare to those in the fables, who were written to have had seamless control of their power? The thin black gloves that seemed to hold her magic at bay since she'd donned them earlier that evening were answer enough. She could control her diet, she could control her studies, she could control her mind, and yet there were two things she had no control of. The magic she'd been given seemed to be as afflicting as her disordered body.

Perhaps that was why she didn't ask the driver to turn around when they approached their destination. The darkness of the mansion should have been foreboding, and yet Emmy felt determination rising to overpower the apprehension.

The car stopped at the entrance to large, iron gates. Their open maw an invitation to enter. Though the driver offered to drop her closer to it's entrance, Emmy was already reaching for the doorhandle. She could already see two others entering through the ornate double doors at the front, and it only made her curiosity grow. Had they gotten letters, too?

Her request for the driver to wait nearby was spoken in an absentminded murmur as she watched the mansion swallow the strangers up like it had eaten them. She swung her legs out of the car slowly, ensuring that each boot was planted in the gravel, before she used the car door to pull herself onto her feet. The mansion swam in her vision for just a moment, but solidified as she shut the door behind her and started through the gates.

Her hands ran over her skirt to smooth it down as she walked. She ran over the questions she had in mind for this meeting, and managed to narrow them down to just a few by the time she approached the home. Her heart was already racing, and she wasn't sure if it was the nerves or because of the brisk pace she'd taken to get there. Either way, she took a breath to calm it as her eyes looked over the carvings placed in the wood before her. Her head tilted to the side to study it, but before she could ponder on the age of the doors they sensed her presence. Their panels swung open wide on their own volition, allowing her entry into the unknown.

Emmy didn't even blink. Of course the doors were magic as well.

With no time to spare, and a lifted chin and squared shoulders, Emmy took the first steps into the mansion. She knew it was time for the meeting to start without even a glance at her watch.

---

This town is surely something, Ethan thought as he drove to the place listed on the letter that sat neatly on the passenger seat next to him. He came to this place searching for answers, and now, it has given him more questions. Just his luck, but this letter with its own questions like how does this person know he has magic and other things. It does confirm what he has come to realize about themself. He has magic, but what this means and why now is the bigger question.

Ethan could only sigh at the thought that he came for a mission, a personal quest. Now, it seems like he may have a new one or at least a side venture. Still, having magic will not get in the way of his mission, but he will see where this path goes. Who knows, it may somehow be related to his parents.

Though Ethan has considered that part to be a stretch but, after what happened a week ago and now this letter. Magic is back, and he is a mage. Thus, anything could be on the table at this point.

Still, it is something that he is a mage, a title that he thought was a myth. It was both a concerning and happy feeling once Ethan figured it out. What does this mean, and what are the consequences of this? Questions that Ethan hoped the Archivist can answer, and if not. He is already in one investigation, and he does not mind having a second one, even if the focus is on the first one.

By the time Ethan reached the mansion, its dark and foreboding nature did not faze him. He is here for a reason, and he will see what his Archivist has in store for him.

He also saw that he was not alone as he parked his car nearby and walked to the gate with the letter in hand. So he is not the only one in town with magic, and how many people are going to be here, he wondered as he walked to the front door. Slowly noticing, it was wood carved with intricate patterns. So this Archivist likes ornate things, he thought.

You can say that Ethan, despite his nature, is nervous about this. What does all this mean, and who is this Archivist? He does not know what to expect and with magic being a factor. What can you expect, really? That thought rose in his mind as he tried to open the front door as it opened by itself. "Magic," Ethan said in a low but surprised tone and briefly stepped back in response.

Who is the Archivist? It echoed in his mind, but he is here now, and he will see this through. So, with one final long bated breath, Ethan walked inside as the doors closed behind him. Time to see who this Archivist is.

---

---

The thing in her bed was still there. It was coalesced darkness, about the size of a man if that man had been sawn off at the waist, with a few wisps of black strands on its head that might've been long hair. Pom had watched the shadow all night, watched its shoulder rise and fall like it was breathing, watched the moonlight carve through its back and fall on the wall beyond it. Her eyes stung like she had gotten smoke in them; her chest was tight and constricted. Had she blinked? Had she breathed? If she had screwed herself up on some freaky psychedelics she couldn’t be certain that what had felt like a few hours had really only been a couple of moments. Why the fuck wasn’t it gone? And why had she tried to flush her system by drinking so much damned water last night? Pom squirmed and tightened her legs. The first movement she had made all night.

She braced herself for what was to come, but the shade didn’t move.

She knew that back. Of course she did, she had looked at it for half a century. The first time she had seen it in a bed like this was the last time she’d ever thought about slipping away from it. Since then the back was ever present. Pom had watched the hairs on the head above the back thin out after the first kid and go gray after the second. She had watched the broad shoulders wither away over the years at a pace that had started gradual and had become frightfully rapid. She had cried into it more times than she would ever admit and once she had punched it so hard in her sleep that there was a fist sized bruise on it for the better part of two weeks. But mostly she’d just talked to it. Told it stupid shit that nobody else would listen to or that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing with anyone else.

Shit like this.

“Hey Bo,” said Pom, the words escaping out of her throat like grave dust from an exhumed coffin. “I know I traumatized you endlessly over these years, so if you’ve come back to haunt me as revenge then I accept. But you’ve been waiting all night, so if you could wait just a few minutes I’d really appreciate it. You know I can’t handle that jump scare shit, man, and I really gotta pee right now. I can’t be pissing the bed at my age, man. The racketeers running the retirement hellholes around here can hear those drips from miles away. Sounds like the cha-ching of a cash register to them. There’ll be orderlies dragging me outta the house, dosing me with a buncha opioids disguised as vitamins in a cute little Dixie cup, and forcing me to watch reruns of Matlock while they bleed our bank accounts dry with “assisted living” fees in minutes, Bo, in minutes.”

Pom shifted her legs again and winced, “And if you think that sounds funny to you, Bo, lemme remind you of how much the Catholic church loves trolling around those places. Eight year olds and eighty year olds, man, that’s their bag. They got a chapel in every retirement home and a cross in every room. The Kennedys did that shit. You try and haunt me there and they’ll call in a whole crack squad of exorcists to get your ghost ass. They’ll bust you faster than a teen on prom night, Bo. So do we gotta deal?”

There was no response from the shade. Instead, the radio replied.



“Deal,” said Pom to herself.

She quickly shot out of the bed and darted to the toilet. As promised, Bo didn’t move. As the flushing subsided and she washed her hands she could hear the radio reporting on the destruction in cities across the world. Pom shook her head and huffed. The Man was already changing the story from the early reports yesterday. Give it a week's time and gas leaks would become a coordinated terrorist attack from some country that had refused to a trade agreement some years ago and was just begging for its natural resources to have their destiny manifested. Pom lowered her head and splashed her face, looking up at the mirror. She furrowed her brow and pulled at the strands of her hair that had been dyed blonde yet were now back to their original inky black. What kind of cheap, knockoff product?

Pom grabbed the hand towel, dried her face, and screamed as a black shadow darted behind her in the mirror and out into the hall. She swung around, heart racing out of her chest, hands up like a boxer that immediately dropped to her knee as she banged it hard against the sink’s cabinet. Pom doubled over, eyes watering, and looked out the door to see that there was nothing. Her panicked breathing soon gave way to a nervous laugh. The corner of her mouth twisted up into the kind of smile she hadn’t had in years. The radio played an ad reminding the listener to tune in to tonight’s episode of Two and a Halfling. Pom stomped into her bedroom, shaking her head, unable to even pretend like she was angry.

“You son of a bitch, you got me!” She sounded angry, but she was beaming. The smile quickly faded as she looked at the empty bed. “Bo?”



“Bo?”

---

---

Pom had made a few discoveries in a week's time.

The first discovery was Bo’s routine. He appeared in her bed between eleven fifteen in the evening and twelve after six in the morning, but only when she laid in it. Otherwise he was gone, doing who knows what. He hadn’t tried to scare her since the first time. He didn’t have a front. Wherever she viewed him from it was always just his back, and not the fun part of it either: head to just above the waist. He wasn’t solid and he was ice cold, an observation she had made when she’d tried to hug him the next time he had shown up.

The second discovery was that she was younger. It was impossible, but that was what happened–well, that or the Man had cloned her back in the forties or the fifties back when they were running Project Artichoke and had just decided to cut her brain out of her old body and put it in its new shell. It wasn’t only the hair dye that had gone away. The wrinkle on her brow, the gray in her hair, the stains on her teeth, the scar on her abdomen, the embarrassing tattoo on her lower back that would never be talked about ever again, the decades of gravity’s pull and time’s turmoil, the ache in her knees, the pain in her wrist from the sprain that hadn’t healed right, the cut on her finger from last week, all gone. It was like seventy-something years of questionable maintenance had just been undone. Pom had redyed her hair. She liked the blonde.

The third discovery was that Jim Fletcher was dead. He’d been found by a neighbor in his La-Z-Boy recliner, wrist slashed by broken glass from a beer bottle. A gnarly way to go. His death was ruled a suicide, although some people whispered that Missy finally stood up for herself. If anyone had seen Pom go inside then they hadn’t said anything to the cops. She still didn’t know what had happened after she picked up the bottle. She had an inkling, she could draw a clear conclusion, but it was something she would never do, something she thought she was incapable of doing. The mere thought of it made her sick. Usually, anyway. She didn’t feel anything when she thought about Jim except that Missy had deserved better and that she felt bad for the kids.

The fourth discovery was that she was definitely, absolutely, positively, totally, wholly, and completely fucked in the head. Pom was seeing ghosts, the whole world had become schizophrenic painting, and everyone looked like they had been swallowed up by the little globules in a lava lamp. She had heard about this kind of shit happening from a man in a Volkswagen van in the seventies. Acid back then was the actual real shit, the kind the Man experimented with in his attempt to mind control the masses. The trip seems like it ends but really it just retreats, lingering in the spinal cord until decades later you turn sharply the wrong way and it shoots straight up into your brain, only it's been compounding over the years and you spend the rest of your life in space until your brain leaks out your nose. Only she wasn’t sweating constantly like when she had tried LSD, but then again Jam Lemon wasn’t currently eating the soul of a flower child in front of her.

The letter did nothing to help calm these paranoias. If anything, it only convinced Pom more that the Man was the one pulling the levers behind the curtain and she was one sequence of numbers away from carrying out an assassination mission. Maybe she already had gone through with her first hit. Jim could’ve been an enemy of the state. Magic is real is just the thing the Man would say if magic wasn’t real. Besides, she wasn’t doing or seeing magic. She was just hallucinating. Thank god Shelly was kind and had told Pom to take a few days off after what had happened at the diner, even if they were starting to get their yearly uptick in business. She couldn’t imagine pouring coffee when the trees outside looked tangerine orange and everyone was lemon yellow sun.

The final proof that she had officially burned out before fading away was that for some damn stupid reason she had acquiesced to the wishes of the letter. A white carryout box from Norm’s Diner hid the requested cherry pie, carefully cradled by Pom’s arms against her brown fringed jacket as she rushed out of the store. Did she think to ask for some paper plates and plastic utensils? Absolutely not. She was eager to get out of Norm’s as quickly as possible after the younger, orange and yellow part-timers made to work the late shift started shooting her judgmental looks aimed at the pair of floral-trimmed sunglasses. She wore them for their actual intended purpose–nighttime was much brighter than before now that grass actually shined green as well as every other color of the rainbow–but they were probably thinking that she was trying to hide that she was stoned.

Which she was. Stoned, that is. Just a little. She wasn’t trying to hide it. It was just after a whole week of freaking out and going full cold turkey there had been no break in the hallucinations, but with the added bonus of her anxiety peaking through the roof. Whatever she was about to walk into, she didn’t want to be a nervous fucking wreck for it. Whomever was waiting for her–this Archivist, the Man, a blackmailer, a bunch of kids playing a fucking mean prank–she wanted to be loose and cool for them. She just hoped it wouldn’t be like that time she’d tagged along with Dolores to Edith’s weird little club under the false pretenses that it was, quote-unquote, like a book club of sorts. Should’ve realized something was up when Pom hadn’t even been told to read anything beforehand.

Mourningdove Lane wasn’t a long walk from the diner but it had still taken Pom a long time and the pie was getting heavy in her hands. During the day the colors were noticeable, but at night they were so much more vibrant. Several times she had stopped, lowered her glasses, and stared absentmindedly at someone’s landscaped lawn and freshly blooming flower bed, the psychedelic lights blending together like a work of abstract art or a magic eye image. Occasionally she’d catch the shine of a raccoon hiding underneath a porch or a bat flying through the air. Earlier on all of the lights had been distracting and kind of scary, but now that Pom was a bit more relaxed she found them kind of groovy. Not that she should be relaxed, she reminded herself. Twin Pines was a small, safe town during the off-season, but they still got the occasional stranger. Not that Pom typically minded strangers. She just minded them when she was walking around alone at midnight armed with nothing other than a pie.

At that moment a car’s headlights appeared as it turned onto the street. Pom felt her feet take over as she immediately beelined it up a driveway, making it look to the driver like it was her house by ducking behind the SUV parked in the drive like a totally normal person. Okay, maybe she wasn’t so fucking relaxed after all. Was this the third or fourth time she’d dodge up a driveway when a car approached her? The car didn’t notice her, or if it did it didn’t care, as it continued down the road and turned on Mourningdove Lane. Pom shook her head. She probably knew the people in the car and could’ve gotten a lift. Better than walking the rest of the way, and much safer than her driving. She was dangerous behind the wheel before her vision had become permafucked. Pom crept down the drive, praying that nobody in the house had seen her, and walked in the direction of the car.

The mansion loomed eerily on the hill. All it was missing was the pipe organ music and bolt of lightning. Has that house always been that creepy or was it only due to the hour? Pom racked her brain, trying to remember who owned it. She saw an orange glow enter the house. If other people were going into the house then it made it much less likely to be some kind of trap set by the Man because any form of unity was his biggest fear. With her own fears pacified for the time being she approached the door, which promptly swung open for her like it had the others. She jumped back and nearly lost the pie as she let out a pitiful eep.

“Come the fuck on, like really man?” said Pom, looking around for a camera or a sensor or something. She poked her head inside of the door frame to look for a magnetic strip or some kind of doohickey, and then stepped back outside as she closed the door. She reached for it again and let out a little laugh as the door opened on its own once again. She looked around yet again. “You watching me or some shit?” Pom didn’t go inside. She closed the door yet again and jumped to the side before walking by the door from the right to the left and then the left to the right in an attempt to fake out the poor security guard paid to push a button to slip up and accidentally open the door too soon, but they were on point. It only opened again as Pom jumped out in front of the door with a “Wah!” and struck a palm out at it. Another amused little chuckle, but enough was enough. It was time to go inside.

She closed the door instead.

Pom backed away, giving herself enough distance to really build up some speed as she prepared to charge the door, uncertain of what, if anything, the experiment would prove, but certain that it was of the utmost importance to find out. What most likely would end in a tragedy, at the very least for the pie she was now holding out in front of her like a battering ram, was abruptly put to a halt as Pom noticed, originally blocked from her view by a hedge, an orange glow around the silhouette of a young woman who was staring at her. At first Pom assumed it was in rightful judgment of her fucking around with the door. She felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her followed by a riptide of indignation. She was almost a hundred years old. She could play with magic doors if she wanted to.

“You good man?” said Pom, challenging the sentinel to call her out. There was no response. Pom sucked in her lip, trying to remember the golden rule of don’t start no shit won’t be no shit, when she realized she knew the buzzkill. It was the new girl from the diner. The one she had shown how to cut lemons and roll silverware before one of the other waitresses butted in and showed her how to do it “the correct way”. Bella, right? Or was it Becca? Shit. She slipped into her waitress diner mode, complete with the fake plastic smile as she started to approach the young lady. “You get a letter too, hon? Sweetie? It’s me, Pom. Pomegranate. Y’know, like the fruit...we work together? I’m the one that got some lemon juice in your eye? You’re not mad about that, are you? Look, I already said I was sorry. Hey, what the fuck is your deal, man? You’re starting to really creep me…”

Her eyes, her eyes, what the hell was going on with her eyes!

“...out. Um, are you okay? You didn’t eat the whole brownie I gave you, right? Oh, shit, man. Oh shit. I’m sorry, I figured you were cool and would know not to do it all at once. I totally should have said something. Look, you’ll be okay, it’ll run its course in a few hours. Probably. Hopefully. How about I just take you inside?” said Pom, grabbing at Bella’s shoulder to start guiding her to the house with one hand while balancing the pie with the other. “Let’s just take you inside. It’s got a radical magic door. You’ll love it. ”

Bella sucked in a breath of air as she returned to the present day. She felt dizzy. That didn't happen, right? Or will it? She looked around, eyes clocking Pom. She recognized her, the girl from the diner who trained her first before some pompous know-it-all stepped in.

"Umm yeah, yeah I'm okay. Just spaced out for a bit. Must have been the brownie mixed with other shit. I'm good." How to explain what happened? She'd rather not. The letter was weird enough.

“Oh, yeah, definitely don’t mix it with anything. I’ll bring you another one the next time I’m at work,” said Pom, slowly her pace so that Bella would be the one to approach the door first. A mischievous grin flashed across her face. “After you…”

The door opened up automatically for Bella who walked through completely unphased. Pom’s shoulders dropped as the smirk fell off of her face and followed after the woman who Pom had now determined was decidedly way cooler than her by the way she’d just no sold the door. She stifled a “fuck off!” under her breath as the door swung closed behind her, pausing to study the inside of the door before realizing that she was definitely already late. She ran down the hall to catch up with Bella, unaware that she was the only one whose letter had said to arrive at a quarter ‘til midnight.

---

”What the fuck is this place?”

Mason stood in the lawn of the mansion, staring at all the windows and noting how many people were inside. He’d received a letter somehow, conveniently found on a nightstand when mom was out, outlining the fact that magic existed. Come here at midnight. It didn’t sound like the safest thing in the world, but the last week had been rough. Between his keys vanishing three days ago, and the fact that he’d lost count of how many times he had accidentally soaked himself trying to drink something in a cup that suddenly didn’t exist, this so-called “magic” was getting on his nerves.

And the longer Mason thought about it, the more it sounded like there was a bit of truth to it. Did he just get blessed with some weird superpower to delete things from the universe? It was he broken somehow? He really didn’t know, but if this weird house and the people inside it had something to offer him that could fix this? Then fuck it, he’d walk right into a fancy house at midnight.

Mason wasn’t exactly dressed for a rich neighborhood. He threw on some faded jeans and an old jacket, plus a tank top underneath. Compared to some of the houses on this street, he looked like someone’s drug dealer that laced all the products with nicotine to keep them coming back for more. Granted, nobody was even out here at an hour like this. Not that he’d be any less shady-looking, here in a fancy neighborhood at this hour looking like God’s gift to the crackheads. He stared down at the letter again while walking forward, to make sure he had the right address.



He really, really didn’t like that someone was stalking him. Mason had tried to keep this under wraps as best he could, making sure not to touch things around other people and making sure he didn’t lose track of what he was doing. Someone was going to have some explaining to do. He walked up to the door, grabbed the doorknob without knocking, and the doorknob flickered out of existence.

Mason stared down at where it was for a second.

"...Yeah, I'm not paying fo-" The door swung open, without him touching it.

Yeah, that was weird.

This was going to be a long night.

"Anybody home?" He asked, walking in.

---

---

---

---

---

---

The mansion’s interior was as grand as it was unsettling. The foyer stretched high above them, its ceiling lost in shadow. A chandelier hung precariously overhead, its crystals catching the faint light from Burnie’s flames and scattering it in fractured patterns across the walls. The air was thick with the scent of old wood and something faintly metallic, like copper or rust. Lena hesitated just inside the doorway, her boots clicking softly against the marble floor.

“Okay,” she muttered, glancing around. “This is officially creepy.”

Jackson stepped in beside her, his broad frame filling the space. “Yeah, no kidding. Feels like we just walked into a horror movie. I like your odds though of being the final girl.”

“Is it because I’m the only girl here,” Lena chuckled as age looked around some more.

“I plead the-“ The door creaked shut behind them, the sound echoing through the empty halls. Lena spun around, her heart racing, but there was no one there. Just the heavy, ornate door, now closed tight. Jackson sighed as he placed his hands on his hips, “-the fifth.”

“Great,” she said, forcing a laugh. “No turning back now.”

Jackson gave her a reassuring smile, though his eyes were scanning the room warily. “Should we wait here or-”

”Let’s wait and see what happens”

They both looked around the room. The walls were lined with portraits and busts of heads, and their eyes seemed to like directly at the two wayward mages. Lena shivered, pulling her jacket tighter around her.

“Do you feel like they’re watching us?” she asked, her voice low.

Jackson nodded, his expression tense. “Yeah.”

Lena glanced at Burnie, who was flickering nervously, his light dimming and flaring in erratic bursts. “You too, huh?” she murmured to the fire. “Guess it’s not just me.”

As they walked a little further into the room, the feeling of unease grew stronger. Lena’s skin prickled, and she couldn’t shake the sensation that something was just out of sight, lurking in the shadows. Every other second she’d see a wraith or a shade, but as soon as she focused her eyes she’d realize it was a coat rack, a chair, or a mirror. However, she did hear something. It almost sounded like something, somewhere, was chanting in a dead language. She didn’t know why she felt it was a dead language but something deep within her core told her so. She glanced at Jackson, who was frowning, his hand twitching which caused water droplets to form in the air around them.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, though his voice was tight. “Just… seeing things. Shadows moving where they shouldn’t.”

Lena nodded, her unease growing. “I think I’m hearing things. Whispers. Can’t make out the words, though.”

Jackson stopped, turning to face her. “Whispers? Like… voices?”

“Yeppers,” Lena said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s like… an ancient language or something. I don’t recognize it, but it’s… it’s here, it’s there, it’s every fucking where.”

Jackson’s frown deepened. “This place is messing with us. We need to find a light or something. Get our bearings.”

“Oh we both know that won’t help if it is haunted,” Lena seethed as her heart pounded. They quickened their pace, searching for a light switch or a lamp. The whispers grew louder, more insistent, and Lena clapped her hands over her ears, trying to block them out. Jackson’s breathing was ragged now, his eyes darting around as the shadows seemed to shift and twist around them.

Jackson thought he saw a specter flying across the room towards him and he threw a punch, easily punching through the marble bust in front of him. Finally, Jackson spotted a light switch on the wall. He reached for it, his hand trembling slightly, and flipped it on.

The room was flooded with light, the chandelier above them blazing to life. Lena blinked, her eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness. The whispers stopped abruptly, and the shadows retreated, leaving the room looking… normal. Just an old, slightly dusty mansion. Lena could finally see that this room was the parlor room. It was square, the floor was a finely polished Pink Ivory inlaid with stone and the walls were of similar quality and filled to the brim with countless portraits, decorative shelves filled with trinkets, and weaponry all of old Elven design

Jackson shook his head, his expression a mix of relief and confusion. “I think… I think this place is haunted”

Lena let out a shaky laugh, though her nerves were still on edge. “Great. I always wanted to die in a haunted house. Perfect.”

The lights suddenly went out again eliciting a yelp from Lena. The sound of the door creaking open drew mouth their heads sharply back. Like before, the door closed behind the new person.

*Click*

The light turned back on as Jackson flicked the switch. Both Jackson and Lena recoiled at the sudden change from dark to bright, but they did see a figure in the doorway now.. Before their eyes could adjust, the room suddenly went dark once again as the door slammed closed.

“Well this will be annoying if it continues,” Lena scoffed. A moment later the door swung open allowing a pair of people to enter.

*Click*

The cycle would continue and Lena found it annoying. The door would open, a new person would walk through it, Jackson would turn the lights on, the lights would go out and the door would close. Rinse, repeat, and continue over and over until there was over a dozen people assembled in the entryway for this house. Lena was pleasantly surprised that none of them appeared to be the kind of person to lead a cult, but alas the modern age did make it hard to determine that in advance. Her eyes shifted from person to person before she decided to put her hands behind her back.

“So,” she started with a stern tone, “I bet you are wondering why I sent you the letters.”

“She did not send the letters,” Jackson sighed as he waved at the crowd. “Hi! I am Jackson, this is Lena, and the fireball is Burnie Cinders.”

Burnie intensified as it moved in between Lena and the new group. Lena knew he was apprehensive about the gathering crowd and was trying to protect her just in case.

“Let me have my-” Lena stopped speaking as she rubbed her temple. “Is this the part where we each tell each other our powers and our names? Maybe make plans to get a late-night bite after this is done?”

---

Emmy could have sworn she heard someone say her name, and glanced behind her as she stepped inside the foyer. Yet the surprise that the lights were out within the mansion drew her attention forwards once more as the door clicked shut behind her. She squinted into the foyer, able to make out a few figures ahead of her along with the paintings and busts that lined the walls. In the next second the lights flickered on, allowing her a glimpse of the room illuminated as she winced, but almost a moment later the doors opened once more and plunged them into darkness.

She turned towards the set of steps jogging inside. Her eyebrows rose, curious as ever, as the tall man came straight to her. She could make out the outline of tousled black hair, glasses, and noticed a thin moustache lining the cheeky grin he gave her.

Who knew a simple "Hi" could feel so flirtatious?

Her head tilted subtly, a smile blooming before she could even respond. He seemed familiar. Like a distant memory, and yet she couldn't place where she'd seen his face before. Was it at the library? A café? Maybe from a long time ago...

The chandelier above lit again as recognition hit her. Her eyebrows twitched as her smile turned into a grin.

"Who would have thought you'd have gotten so tall, Khushwant." She began playfully, oblivious to his nickname. As his question really settled in, her grin lessened, and she immediately laced her gloved fingers together to hide the nerves that wanted to fray her composure. "Well... Yes. It's been... difficult, this past week."

Thankfully the door opened before she could continue, and they were once again plunged into darkness. She cleared her throat softly, glancing between the newcomers, her now very tall old friend, and the ones who came before them each time the lights flickered. There wasn't enough time between the entrances to keep the conversation going, either.

Was she moving closer to him each time the lights went out, or was he? It was all so... unsettling, and the constant change in lighting was starting to give her a headache.

"I'm starting to wonder if this Archivist is even home." She murmured to Khushwant when the twelfth person joined them.

Only when the lights seemed to remain on for longer than five seconds did Emmy let herself relax again. She turned her head towards the first person who spoke, and her eyebrow quirked as they claimed to have been the one to invite them tonight. She had to appreciate the small woman's humor, even if it was odd to call their magic a power.

Emmy looked over Jackson, Lena, and the dancing blue flames in front of them. They seemed to have been the first to arrive, so... maybe they knew why they were waiting so long. Her arms slowly rose to tuck themselves under her small chest as she adjusted her stance to accommodate for how long she'd been standing still.

"Have you happened to have been greeted by the host?" Her timbre carried over the group from where she stood, her tone far but impatient, but ever curious. Suddenly realizing all the attention had turned to her, a small flush came to her cheeks and her heart skipped a beat. Or was it from the amount of time she'd been standing? Either way, she felt like she had to at least acknowledge Lena's latest joke.

"I'm... Emmeline, by the way."

---

The inside of the mansion was ominously dark. And then it wasn't, the lights flickering on. Mathias took his first steps inside, squinting as his eyes were suddenly forced to adapt to the brightness. He flinched slightly as the doors slammed behind him, the lights shutting off, before being lit back up. The constant contrast made his eyes hurt. Whoever he'd seen enter before him had clearly found the light switch.

"Esti... stop fucking with the lights!" he shouted into the corridor as he began walking forward, hopefully to where this so-called "Archivist" would be waiting.

The decor was certainly... a choice. A lot of old paintings and sculpture (including a half-broken bust, for some reason). Not his first choice, but if he were some old guy with way too much money, maybe he'd see the appeal. It all gave off a rather strange feel, but his irritation towards this whole situation overrode any sense of eeriness he might've otherwise picked up.

He could hear the door opening and closing behind him as he finally reached some kind of salon, or hall, or whatever rooms were called in rich people's homes. More people, then. If this was prank or something, it was an elaborate one. He squinted a bit at the silhouettes he could see. He couldn't make out much in the flickering light, but they looked young. He had to have a decade, or more, on most of them. Damn.

He picked at his fingernails restlessly as more and more people filed into the room. His eyes kept flickering towards the small ball of fire floating around one of the kids he'd seen enter. Lena, her name was. This... Burnie Cinders, she'd said it was called. It wasn't normal. Which, obviously, flying fire and all. Not to mention everyone here were presumably called because they had magic, too. But it was still the first real magic he'd seen ever since the emergence of his own, outside of a few online videos (which could have easily been faked for all he knew).

Where were they again? Right, introductions. Mathias figured that as the responsible adult here he at least owed his name. "I'm Mathias Lefebvre. But just call me Matt, I'm not exactly in the mood to hear you all butcher the pronunciation." He huffed a bit, as if recalling past frustrating experiences. "Before you ask, no, I'm not a local. As for my 'power'..."

He stopped all at once, freezing in place, his eyes wide open. His earlier fidgeting gave way to an eerie stillness as he felt the hair on the back of his neck raise.

He didn't know what set him off. Maybe it was a scent in the air, a small noise unheard by others, or simply the beastly instincts that seemed to have sunk their claws into him lately. All he knew was that



A low growl built in the back of his throat. His head remained unmoving, but his eyes darted all over the room, trying to find the threat intruder. He finally picked up a dark silhouette by one of the windows. His head snapped to it, staring straight at it. He had to fight the urge to arm himself, to show his claws and fangs. Better not show his hand too early if this person truly was dangerous.

"What... are you doing over there?" he instead hissed, projecting his voice to the silhouette. "Show yourself."

---

"This better not be a mistake," Ethan worryingly said under his breath as the doors closed behind and he saw that the inside of the mansion was dark. Just his luck, an old creepy mansion is where this Archivist wants to meet him, or should he say them. Since he did see one other enter and who knows how many else.

As he walked, Ethan took a look at the decor and thought that this place was definitely old. Based on what was here, who would live in a place like this, and for how long? It felt like it was not lived in, and yet, with the flicking lights, it seemed the place still had power. "Make up your mind," Ethan annoyingly said out loud as the lights continued to flicker.

He sighed and went on his way, and eventually, hearing a door opening and closing nearby and went to investigate. Finding a closed door and hoping that there was nothing bad on the other side, he opened it and found himself in a salon-type room one might expect in a house like this, and he found he was not alone. A feeling that was both relieving and concerning as at least he does not have to deal with this Archivist alone if things go south but, he knows none of them and not sure if anyone of them are apart of this.

Ethan kept quiet as the others introduced themselves and spoke about their powers. Well, some spoke about their powers so far, when it was quiet, he spoke up."I am Ethan and my power is well.... I can see souls and whatnot." Then he wondered if he should demonstrate it, and he has not really used it much, and maybe he can use it here. It would certainly be a step up from dealing with the low light and without another thought. Ethan took a deep breath and closed his eyes and when he opened next, his brown eyes were now blue and had a dim glow to them.

Now, everything looked different, like he could see outlines of objects and the walls. But it was faint, with little color, but it was a step up from not being able to see well in the dark. But, the brightness he could see was from people's souls. They were of varying colors their souls and he did note some looked different than others. For reasons, he can only guess right now and when he can come across Burnie Cinders's soul. That really perplexed him as it was very different from the others but with a trace or some part of what looked like Lena's soul, and he would say without thinking, "Oh, that is what that looks like."

Ethan did not notice when Mathias stopped talking and started talking about someone watching them. Causing Ethan to look around with his soul sight still on and wonder who Mathias was talking to.

---

Belladonna felt a bit wispy when she snapped out of her vision. She hated when it came on so suddenly. It always felt so real, so visceral. Ever since she first got it and got that stupid letter she had felt off. Way more off than she had before, and that was saying something.

Belladonna (or whoever you are today)

I hope this letter finds you at the right time. The past and future are not on a single line, one I am sure you know all too well. We can never change the past but we can learn from it. We can hope to shape the future but sometimes we are destined for things beyond our control. Being able to see both is a blessing and a curse. You are one of the first mages in five hundred years. Bring your open mind and I will give you all of the information you need.

13 Mourningdove Lane. Midnight.

-The Archivist"

She would have normally chalked it up to some stupid kid pranking her or someone being cute but she did have visions and this letter arrived shortly after her first one. And she hadn't told a soul. Who would believe her? Magic being real? This wasn't some Saturday morning cartoon.

But she had had a few of them so far. Visions of the past where she sees herself back in her parents house, her father still alive and her mother with fresh bruises on her face. A scene that looked like it came out of a Shakespearean play but felt so real. And a scene of her shattering a glass coffeepot over some asshole's face.

She shook herself awake when Pom stood in front of her. If she was here she had to have gotten the same letter she did, right? Still, Bella didn't trust anyone right away even if Pom seemed cool (and shared her stash with her). So she opted to hide what had actually happened. At least until she got more information.

So she stepped through the door like it was nothing, like it was a normal day. Desptie that, Bella felt herself shaking.

---

She appeared in some room with a few other folks. Some appeared to know one another, some not so much. Bella hated crowds and while this normally would not have counted as such she still felt an enclosed space with a lot of people to be alarming. No easy escapes if she needed to. She looked around, not recognizing anyone. So it was only Pom she knew here and, even then, was this safe? Were they all sent letters to get them to one room to eliminate them all?

Someone started speaking and admitted to the letters. Bella was about to speak out when someone else, the man standing closer to her, spoke up admitting she didn't send the letters. So what the hell was all this then? A few others spoke sharing their names. No one admitting if they actually had magic apart from the first woman who was standing near a burning ball of flame that everyone just seemed...cool with?

Also...Burnie Cinders?

"Belladonna." There, she shared. She was damn well not sharing more until someone, preferably this Archivist, showed themselves and explained what was happening. Another person started speaking before he was interrupted by...themselves? Staring into a shadowy corner. Bella instinctively stood up and prepared to run. Or fight. It depended on the situation.

---

---

Bea was getting a headache from the flickering lights.

It was probably because of the tumour in her brain. She shoved a hand into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a pair of red tinted shades that she slipped on to protect her sensitive eyes. It hid the strange glow within them each time it went completely dark. It made it more difficult to look around the strange room they’d ended up in. Fucking rich people decorations. Felt the opposite of homey. Who the fuck made their floor pink?

From behind the shades, her sharp green eyes swept across the other people as they appeared. None too impressive. All looked a bit outta place with each other. A strange gathering… made sense when it was cause of a letter about magic.

There were a fair few 'familiar' faces. An elf who worked at the diner Bea had been to a few times with her dad. A couple of people she was pretty sure were in school when she was. The kid- no, he must be an adult now. Maven? Mason? She remembered he worked on Coney Island a couple of times as a highschooler. Had she been in highschool to when he first did? She didn't remember. Didn't matter. She didn't think she'd been assistant manager then, at least.

”Definitely planning to kill us all, or build an underdogs team to succeed where actual heroes fail,” Bea muttered under her breath to Rowan.

All fail, all fail. Failures. One of Bea’s longterm shades whispered. They gathered around her, jagged edges flitting around the room as the lights went on and off. Nobody else could see them but they were constantly there.

More too. Fuck, there was more of them.

Buuurrrnnnn… One of the new ones, edges flickering like flames, pressed against her leg. She frowned, ignoring it, and trying to focus on what was happening.

Everyone was doing introductions, like they were in an alcoholic anonymous session going round the circle. The prankster- Lena- even suggested they share their magic. What next, their deepest problems?

No thanks.

”Bea.” She said shortly. Only Lena with her fireball and another guy, Ethan, admitted to having magic. Some were chattier than others. Her gaze moved over to Belladona, who'd had an equally curt response. A kindred spirit. Someone she'd not have to talk to. Thank fuck, cause the rest of the people in here were shaping up to be annoying.

Not that she expected to have to be around them much longer. Just to find out whatever was up. Preferably a way to get rid of the fucking whispering shadows haunting her.

Never… leave you…
Stuck, you’re stuck with us.
We’re yours.

How comforting. Some of the shades she hadn’t been able to get rid off, no matter how hard she tried, crowded her. The new ones joined in the fun too and their whispers started to fill her head, completely blocking out what was going on around her.

Burrrnnn… WHOOSH!
I’ve found you, I’ll never leave, you’re mine…
You’re nothing…
I’M FALLING AHHHHHH!
Everyone you love will die.
Glub glub glub glub.
They’ll fear-

”Will you fucking shut up for one minute!” Bea hissed, eyes narrowing into a glare. Nobody else could see the moving shades or hear their whispers. Only Rowan knew about them. So she could be talking to anyone.

---

This house sucked. The lights were a pain in the ass and Mason was half tempted to just delete them from the world.

There were two people out of this gaggle of fuckers that Mason recognized. One was Bea, some older girl he worked in the same place at a while back. She was snippy, short tempered and devoid of patience for jackasses insistent on sucking up what little patience a person had. Overall, a pretty okay person if Mason was ever in the mood to start being extroverted…. If.

”Hey.” It was socially acceptable to at least act like a person was there, right? He didn’t feel like bothering anyone, but at least they knew each other existed.

The other person was Pom, god’s highest elf. Mason bought the occasional pack of weed rolls off her, on the rare occasion when he had a few spare dollars. That was probably one or two times at most. ”You too?”

There were a lot of people in here. How many people in this good-for-nothing, worthless little town had woken up one morning able to do this shit?

Mason made a mental note. Azure was the pompous looking one, Matt was the one growling like a fucking animal at the shadow on the wall- The one Mason turned to and didn’t stop looking at. Lena, Jackson… Some weird ass ghost thing. Honestly, Mason wasn’t nearly as scared of that as he should’ve been. He’d seen enough weird shit already.

”Mason. What the hell is that thing?” He pulled his phone out, and turned the flashlight on to point at whatever the fuck was watching them.