Chapter 1: Cridea is haunted by her own beautiful puppet.
Notes:
Hi there~ I hope you enjoy these, if you read them!! I’m sorry for any and all mistakes I might’ve made.
Hehehe in researching Cridea, I saw she’s got the Sign of the Puppeteer… and has two rather different sides to herself, as per her wiki!
Thank you!!
Chapter Text
Cridea puppeted the other self online, at first. Created glimpses of her by altering pictures of herself — sharpening her smiles, adding unnatural sparkle to her eyes. She learned to speak in the puppet-self’s voice. First typed, then recorded, then streamed to the world.
She was designed to be real. And lovable, obviously. Your best friend you’ve never met.
Cridea expected she would stay the puppet-master forever — even when she started policing her voice and her recording studio spilled through her home.
This glitchy glitter-cute voice in her head is still only herself, right? She could stop following the script. Right?
Chapter 2: Cirava is haunted by something that adores them.
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It’s suspicious, when Cirava discovers the road of painted buildings. Like a plywood movie set, sitting all alone. Artificial bushes, flowers. Doors. Railings.
They find more and more places like that, as weeks pass. Meet fewer people; get stranger responses buying groceries. Friends respond to messages with blurred-out sigils.
When Cirava takes an ax to pry one of those painted doors open — to see what might be hiding beneath — it squelches apart into gooey honeycomb. Thrumming digital-bright bees swarm.
You are beloved of the mind-hive.
That’s the answer, when it comes. They are here, a specimen. They are here, treasured.
Chapter 3: Bronya is haunted by monsters out to claim their due.
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Bronya tends these graves in secret. Abandoned children’s ghosts hang off her skirts, swing from her arms, braid withered flowers into her hair. A little one, Karako, died with the circus when it passed through this cavernous echoey mountain. He wasn’t buried quickly, and so he’s here. He was left out under the sky long enough that many would say he should’ve been eaten as tribute. Given to the skeletal clattering things: their rightful due.
So far, Bronya’s spells around the makeshift graveyard edges are working. If the ghosts don’t remember their names, she plants new ones like fresh flowers.
Chapter 4: Mallek is haunted by his work.
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As Mallek works, trying to rewire his reality, his veins wriggle away from him. Wrists sore from typing — eyes straining — jaw aching clinched. So many twitching exhausted veins become so many little snakes, tearing out of his skin. So many wires. They leave Mallek behind, going where he cannot go. Sprouting fangs to bite tyrants… plugging themselves into computers far away. He’ll do the work with all the truth of himself.
You bring Mallek some tea, too late. Planning to kiss his forehead, shoo him to bed. You find him bloodless, ripped open a thousand ways beneath his familiar hoodie.
Chapter 5: Chixie is haunted by a long-dead general.
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Chixie sings like melting propaganda statues down to metal — bubbling, reworked ideas, imagining society ready to be reshaped. Onstage, her lyrics burn. She holds molten possibility in her hands.
Off that stage, Chixie feels old horrors stalking her home. Thudding boots and fallen concert fliers; rotten histories; zealous anti-fans who spread around her street address.
General Zebruh Codakk wants her, he says, scratching dead fingers at the window-edges. Metal, rust, wind. She’s brave. He’ll find space for her inside his own propaganda statues, trapped tenderly in bronze at his side.
He won’t catch her. She’ll melt his statues down, first.
Chapter 6: Stelsa is haunted by competence.
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Stelsa is a demon’s lawyer, now. Playing devil’s advocate.
No, her latest client isn’t just a slimy, clutching man, much as she’d love to believe it. The more time she spends with him, watching reality bend, corpse-tongues answering, flowers crumbling as he greasily blooms… the more she studies his supposed crimes… the closer she gets to terrible truths. They wriggle through her mind, staining everything she knew. Rot spreading under strawberries.
How is she so sure? Her girlfriend, Tyzias, demands. But it can’t be explained, only known. Like dreams.
Stelsa’s handy to keep around, the demon says. He’ll keep her.
Chapter 7: Vikare is haunted by where he never went.
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Strangers see him against this patch of sky, sometimes, rattling in an old makeshift plane. Some people swear they’ve watched him explode, bolts and charred metal, burst goggles sticky-dribbly wet and ashy. Others say he waved at them, jaunty, afraid of nothing.
In storms, in cloudless summer, in the dead of night. Strangers see him against this sky. Watch him turn a loop-de-loop! Watch his wings crack off, and he hurtles down. His parachute’s stuck. He’s gonna splatter — he —
Why does he fly here? Where is he going? If someone runs to his crash site, they’ll smell burning for days.
Chapter 8: Remele is haunted by her newest paintings.
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Remele’s a forger — like in an art heist movie, yeah. She’s been at it for years; she’ll probably never get caught; she can mimic so many styles, such subtle brush-strokes, mannerisms, color shifts. Her co-conspirators joke that it’s like she’s channeling ancient painters’ souls, sometimes.
Historically, when they say ghostly crap like that, Remele rolls her eyes, smiling indulgently. The paint under her nails is still her paint. These clever hands are only her own.
Until maybe they aren’t. Remele starts waking up with her studio full of new art she’d never paint. Places she’s never been.
A stranger’s here.
Chapter 9: Tyzias is haunted by what she should have believed.
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Tyzias’s girlfriend, Stelsa, hasn’t texted back in a while. She’s stopped updating their shared Google calendar — she hasn’t taken new clients — she’s at risk of getting fired from her swanky expensive law firm. So well-regarded, compared to Tyzias’s dingy water-stained office.
Of course Tyzias has been looking for Stelsa, but it’s like she evaporated. Blocky earrings and bright lipstick and quick words — gone, gone.
Tyzias finds her, eventually. But when she does, she’s a demon’s helpful beaming stranger. She doesn’t recognize Tyzias at all. The man Stelsa swore was a devil offers Tyzias snappy, painless death like a consolation prize.
Chapter 10: Karako is haunted by imposter big sisters.
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The little clown spins forever, slumped over the bone-yellow carousel horse. Once, it was painted sour-candy artificial-Faygo colors. His mouth used to taste like cotton candy, sticky at the edges; he used to have a teddy bear his big sister won at the beanbag toss. His clownish facepaint was special, just for today.
Today and always.
Where is Big Sister Bronya, anyway? She told him to wait for her. Ride the carousel. Be good. She had something to take care of.
The park’s been empty for years. Strangers promise they’re his sister — fear challenges, dares — and then run off shrieking.
Chapter 11: Skylla is haunted by what sharing will mean.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When Skylla’s dog Ladyy was dying, she prayed. For a cure, at whatever cost. She clutched shivering soft white fur and murmured reassurances like spells.
Barzum heard her. She is a patchwork of stolen soul-pieces, Barzum… she knows about splitting people’s lives into pieces. For fun, for vengeance. This time, for Skylla.
Barzum’s meat squirms beneath her half-mask — stolen slices of soul trying to slither away. Her expressions are always shifting, fluid as breath. She knocks on Skylla’s door. Bows.
She rips Skylla’s soul, lovingly, excruciatingly. Pours half that soul into Ladyy, so she lingers on. What are they, now?
Notes:
I’d be lying if I said elements of this weren’t inspired by the movie “Nosferatu.” :p
Thank you!!!
Chapter 12: Trizza is haunted by her loosening stitches.
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Trizza sews herself back together, again and again, but the stitches never hold long. She chooses sparkly thread — she seals wounds with kisses and gold — she feels pieces of herself dissolving all the time, deep in the sea or stuffed down garbage-disposals. Slices of flesh she couldn’t salvage.
No one’s perfect.
Trizza takes what she can, before all her meat melts away. Before she becomes more gold than bone. She does her mother’s dirty work, even knowing that tyrant’ll undo all these stitches, once she gets here.
But maybe not. Right?
Maybe Trizza’s mother could be proud of her, instead.

LookingForDroids on Chapter 1 Tue 22 Apr 2025 03:11AM UTC
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