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Perhaps, just perhaps, she had lived her life a little too... What was the word? Nonchalantly? Noncommitally? Well, that wasn't a real word, so that certainly wouldn't do.
In any regard, Melusine had lived a sub-par life. She had never gone the extra mile for anything, had never done anything extraordinary and had even gotten herself captured at the very end when all she really had to do was fight a little harder. There was nothing extreme or special or hardly interesting about the vampire girl who let everything glide past her. Maybe that was why she fought so hard now.

The moment the net had been thrown, the moment it had touched her skin she gave up. It hurt altogether too much to even try, so she didn't bother. But the moment she opened her eyes again, the moment she knew she just might have one last chance... She fought. Hard.
It didn't matter if it was a little too late, it could have been enough. If she could just keep going.
With a snarled shriek Melusine jumped from the raised platform she found herself on and slammed against the glass that surrounded her. Fangs searched uselessly for something to snatch at and her fingers scrabbled for purchase against the smooth prison. Though she clawed at both the glass and the little corner where it connected to the platform, Melusine could find not one little opening. Surely there had to be something here, something she could use to her advantage. She was Halloween! She had been spoon fed the idea that if she just tried hard enough, her FEAR would kick in and she'd be alright.
Why was she failing now?

So distracted by her attempted escape, the girl totally and wholly failed to look at the room she found herself in. She only saw that there was something beyond this strange prison and that she could escape. If only she tried just a little bit harder.
It wasn't until she noticed someone moving around outside her chamber that she started to pay attention.
"LET ME OUT!" Her voice rang hollowly against the glass, but the coated figure outside didn't even flinch. Maybe they couldn't hear her? Or maybe they had heard that so many times it didn't even register?
Calm wanted to take over then, to soothe the girl's frazzled nerves and tell her everything would be alright. This was just a test. Another cockamamy scheme the school had come up with to test them. It would be alright. The Headmistress or some other faculty member would jump out, shout 'Surprise! A's for everyone!' and hand Melusine her school diploma.
"I WANT TO GRADUATE!!" The sudden thought burst from her and even though she knew she said it, the words still startled her. The small idea of graduating had totally escaped her mind as the other events began to unfold. Mysterious figures, hooded Reapers and now... This? What was all this anyways?
"Why are you doing this? I just want to live my life..."

But the person didn't listen. They just turned knobs and flipped switches until a mechanical whirring began under her feet.
"Please." Both hands pressed against the glass, but quickly clenched into fists. One hand punched the glass, and it felt good enough to do it again and again until she hammered away at it. The hooded figure only continued their strange workings, the whirring growing louder and louder. "PLEASE. I have things left to do! I have... I have to graduate! And fall in love! And get married!" Her voice whined, closer and closer to a squeak. "I have to open my bookstore! I have to have children and--" A blue light had begun beneath her and whatever emotions the girl had suppressed throughout her life now poured out of her in the form of high pitched, frantic shouts. "I'VE GOT SO MUCH LEFT. PLEASE, DON'T DO THIS."
An audible crack startled her enough to pull back from the glass and she realized with a shrill squeak that she had broken one of her hands. The bone twisted underneath her pale skin and she only stared at it a moment longer before the blue light began to increase.

With a shriek of pain, Melusine grabbed the school pin from her hair and threw it with her broken hand against the glass. It ricocheted off, but she knew it had been cracked all the same. A dramatic sweep brought the girl up and into the air, her bat form frantic as she flapped around the chamber as quickly as possible. Maybe if she didn't touch the metal platform, maybe whatever horrible thing couldn't happen to her.
"Weapon Conversion: Begin." An automatic, hollow voice said outside in the room. Her wings pumped the air as she flittered about, but her fear only started to blind her, along with the blue light. Vision obscured, Melusine threw herself against the glass over and over, but she was so small, she could do nothing. A few more cracks of her body against glass yielded nothing but more pain, and the hooded figure only lazily leaned against the control board and watched her.
Something took over the girl then, something that caused her to drop from the air and crash painfully against the metal platform in her human form. Red tears pricked at her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, heavy droplets that splattered onto the shiny metal underneath her.
"He told them not to hurt us..." Melusine mumbled, her lips pressed to the cold metal. "He said we could go... We had earned the right to live..." Maybe he hadn't said that exactly, but he had meant that. So why had they disobeyed them? Why had they taken her and put her in this thing? Why did they want to convert her into a weapon? She'd be a terrible weapon... She hadn't done anything special before, so why would they think she'd do something special now?

Something similar to calm, but a little bittersweet flooded Melusine. It was like settling, but without the warm knowledge that everything at least kept going. So she laid there, her broken hand curled around her school pin and clutched to her non-beating heart. Blood pooled around her face where she cried, but she said nothing more. She did not ask to be spared, she did not yell or shout or even squeak anymore.


The chamber lit up all blue, the whir defeaned her and she curled up around her broken hand, her broken pin. The hand that held the pin also had held Acher's hand, but that was so far away. If only she had given herself the go ahead to talk to him earlier, maybe they could have been more. Maybe her entire life could have been more. But it wasn't. She had let it all slip by.
After a lifetime of hiding behind in the crowd, of letting nothing ruffle her, of just existing without anyone, Melusine found the courage to fight as she died.

"Weapon Conversion: Failed."

Oinqa's eyes sparkled with unshed tears. Her back was pressed against the cavern wall; it had been for what seemed like hours. She could only understand about every third word out of this strange Reaper's mouth. She didn't like this place. She didn't like those nets. She most certainly did not ever want to come back. She would do as he asked. She would get up right now and lea...

The ghoul's heart slowed. Yes, it was okay now. She rose to her feet as if in a trance, completely without hesitation. The ones that were missing were in the forest? Bella, Matty, Jinhai... they had all gone off to be somebody. Like an internship! This whole process seemed kind of unorthodox, but if this had all been an interview for something, she was game. Anything to get away from here. "Job fair," she muttered. "I still have... business cards."

The hoga turned and started back through the maze that snaked its way back to the library. It was all right. The Reaper had said she could go back to her dorm. Back to her piggles Roderick and her kelp chips and her bean bag chair and cutting class to catch Days of our Deaths.

The return trip through the tunnel felt a little creepy, but it only served to encourage her to quicken her pace. What she was leaving behind was far creepier.

---

"Mom, look! Mom. LoooooooooooooooOOOOOooook! LOOK! LOOOOOO—" The ghoul warped and pulled at the skin of her face and chubby cheeks, the drawing she had intended to show her mother forgotten on the table in front of her. It was a busy day in the Omfoort household, but every day was busy when you had nine children.

"I'm sure it's lovely, dear," Oinqa's mother said. She lifted a spoonful of some sort of brown mush up to the lips of the family's newest baby, gesturing toward the junk drawer with her other hand. "Get some tape and put it on the thing there."

Oinqa nodded and bounced away to hang her picture with the hundreds that already papered their fridge.

---

She took in a lungful of musty library air as she stepped out of the tunnel. It smelled delicious in comparison to that horrible cave. Oinqa smiled, faintly at first, but it wasn't long before her usual sunny grin was back on her face.

"What're you so happy about?" A sullen, bearded Reaper stepped up close on her right, twining his arm with hers like they were going for a walk in the—okay maybe not.

"Owww," Oinqa murmured as his grip tightened.

"Benny. There's no need to..."

"If I don't hold her, she'll run off."

The woman on Oinqa's other side frowned, her brows raising to complement her expression in a way that clearly said stop being an a*****e.

"Oh, I'm not going to go anywhere, don't you worry about that!" Oinqa replied. "Are you two going to try for the internship too?"

"Internship? What in the hell ar—"

"Don't mind him. We've already been with Liam for a few... summers now. We're sort of like... guides. For you." The Reaper ghoul held out her hand. "I'm Lindra."

The monster held out hers in return, webbed fingers splaying with delight. "Oinqa! Nice to meet you!"

"Like a pig."

This time Benny got a solid punch to the shoulder. Lindra looked even more annoyed, but Oinqa didn't appear to mind the man's words at all. In fact, she looked impressed.

"Yeah! I'm a Hoga! We're, uh, pig fish! Not many people know that."

"See?" Benny replied. "Pig fish. Not many people know that." His fingers loosened their hold on the ghoul's arm and he tugged her toward the forest, Lindra following close on their heels.

---

"Honey, I'm so proud of you!" Oinqa's mother gathered her shocked daughter close and squeezed her tight. "Amityville! I never would have..."

Oinqa nodded, holding back a little squeak as she was squeezed again. Her eldest brother had gone to Amity as well, but that had been years ago. She hadn't thought she had a chance.

"Just think... all those boils! You'll make a fine match at a place like that!"

She nodded again. Sure, the boils might be nice, but Oinqa had bigger plans.

---

Much to the ghoul's delight, Lindra and Benny soon informed her that her new internship would put her in direct contact with humans. Like, all the time. She had had such fun in the human world the few times she had been allowed to go, but the idea of hanging out with them all summer long? It was the best thing she'd heard in weeks.

They led her through the forest and into what might have been a portal, she wasn't sure, and all the while Lindra spoke to her of ice cream and sunshine and beaches and babies and humans. It sounded beautiful.

She followed peacefully, her visions of mingling with mortals finally interrupted as she was handed over to a tired-looking man in a white coat who pushed her into a clean, white room.

"What's going on?"

"Stand still. This will only take a second." Something wasn't right.

The chamber was shut before she could make a break for the exit. There was no time to be confused, no time to grieve, no time to cry. The pain washed over Oinqa and she dropped to her knees. A scream tore through the air, and she also had no time to wonder if it had come from her before she was gone.

His most accurate thought regarding Macthor's inquiry was that there were two ways he knew the post-boss battle went: the fight was never over. What you thought was the end was usually not the end. There would be steps afterward to save/gain something that usually involved a higher power that needed to be overcome. On the one hand, the real boss could be defeated and the credits would roll after a concluding animation. On the other hand, the purpose of the game could be for the main character to fall in some sort of blaze of glory. Others would benefit from the triump at the end, but ... not you. Was this one of those endings? It sure as Jack felt like it. Akithor's eyes were closed and the air around him lacked of something. He had been captured, right? Remembering back in the cave, the reaper had fallen but that was not the end. Some of his classmates had gotten away, it seemed, but he couldn't be sure of who. Akithor's gut told him that his bros weren' safe; he didn't want to believe it. This was all the ghostly boil could think of from what he'd clearly seen. Where were his bros right now? Visions of the three of them walking down the halls of Amity came to mind.

Westhor was wailing about something he either wanted to eat or do. Macthor was giving him a talking to while shaking his head and patting him on the shoulder. Akithor, as usual, was beside them with his portable gaming device, a side quest underway. The ghost boil would flicker his screen over towards the other two bros and all became chill as his emotional bro always put it. The small things he did daily compiled together to make up what he experienced and how he lived.

Was he really doing this? Flashbacks of better times? So it seemed.

They walked, they talked and they played games and stuff. Classes would happen and the boils just needed to stay as attentive as they could. Akithor rather liked taking notes. His page was his map; the equation on the paper was his nemesis. With a trusty pencil in hand, he jotted down what was to be learned by the lesson and then eventually handed it over to Westhor who'd hug him or something. Such was a ritual to his school life. Back in his dorm, he even had a ghoul. Well- not really. Akithor had many many games and some were even of the dating sim variety. In one game, he'd completed all the endings to one character he particularly liked. Asil was his favorite. The robust succubus that demanded his attention was good enough as the real thing, so there really had never been a move to be made just yet. His years were ahead of him and he and Asil the succubus still had a lot of time together. Ghouls- Westhor had a ghoul now too. Wherever his bros were, he hoped they were together with Tarot. They were just going to start dating and they were looking forward towards the things they would do when they graduated.

Graduation was so close. The reaper had even made mention that they could leave and be on their way to graduation- had they fled. But really? Fleeing just wasn't in the cards. Who would flee when there was a mysterious force and face nder your school? Red had been the strong one; the ghoul's words would replay in his mind behind the blackened walls of his eyelids.

"I wish I was stronger." In all senses of the plea, Akithor shriveled into a curling position mentally. Arms rounding his knees, the ghost boil felt like he was a few upgrades short of a decent escape the blackness. He was just not strong enough physically to do it. He was not strong mentally enough to handle what was going on, what could happen, or what he had seen. Where was he now?

Talk around him about being a candidate was, at first, confusing. They meant him; they meant to do something to him. Akithor felt like this was the bad ending to one of his adventure games. This path had led something he didn't want to go. However, making all the choices he had, the end was inevitable. The obvious signs of regret lingered on his face but there was nothing to be done now. He couldn't fight his way out of this by a long shot. Being contained here coupled with his previous run-in with the net that short circuited his FEAR and left him as frail as he'd ever been.

This- whatever this was that was being done to him, as Akithor opened his eyes to see again, was nothing he'd want. His hypothesis had been correct; this was the bad ending. No restart button to activate, no pause to use to save some time. There was no save to reload. On his last life, Akithor didn't get to see the alternate ending.

All she had wanted was to set things right again.

She wanted to graduate with her class, she wanted to accept a full time position at Bloody Mary, she wanted to make a difference in the young lives that called or wrote in with their problems. She couldn't do any of this with the way things were in the end, after discovering the cove and seeing the way her friends were lured by false promises. In the end, she only wanted to set things right; but that was impossible, wasn't it? So many life-shattering changes in the span of days; the brave people she knew were fooled, the ones who were trustworthy succumbed, and a treasured Professor and leader broke his promise, never coming to their aid when he promised.

Sophie had realized too late that the events set in motion by she and her classmates were irreversible, and before she could come to regret even getting involved she was gone. In the matter of days she had become only a shell of herself, and soon not even that would remain.

They really had been naive, hadn't they? So very naive.

The next time Sophie's black eyes opened she was met with bright lights; her hair was pushed back, she could feel it. It was brighter here than it should have been, but every attempt to correct it lead to failure. Her arms were too heavy to move, her petite body unresponsive; all she could do was lay there, staring unfocused at the ceiling in a place she didn't recognize, listening to everyone around her go on about something about conversions and compatibility and other words she could barely hear and honestly couldn't bring herself to care about.

She had tried fighting and quickly learned that wasn't the best option. She got it in her head that if she let them do this to her, to all of them, that it would stop it from happening again. If the cloaked ones got rid of the ones who meddled there would be no reason for them to go after anyone else, right? That was her dearest wish; that her sacrificing herself could set things back to normal for the next year's graduates.

Part of her wondered what the school would say about this, how they would explain her - their - disappearance.

How would her Parents react? Would her Mother cry? Her Father throw his fists so hard it would shatter the mirrors in the hallway? Surely they would miss her, right? The thought of her parents made tears spring to her dark eyes, sniffling pathetically as all the memories leading up to this moment - good and bad - flooded her mind. Her parents giving her a party for getting into the Academy, the friends she made, the way Manny would be so awkward around her...Everything all at once. But just as her core was warming with memories, her world errupted in pain.

The tears that sprung into her eyes were that of pain now, searing pain that tore violently at her core. It nipped, pulled, twisted, ripped; it gave no hint of relief, no promise of freedom. But just when she thought she could handle no more, it came. Joy, memories, Pride; everything she had focused on before the agony was back, embracing her, promising that everything would be okay...

And then it ended.

Nothing hurt more than leaving her friends behind. Not even the pain of the net, of being dragged along the ground, could compare to the sight of Bee's three baffled, miserable faces as they took her away.

Taru stopped fighting, then. When she couldn't see them anymore, when she knew that they weren't with her, there was nothing to fight for. She'd spent her entire time at Amityville guarding and fighting for everyone she cared for, poured countless hours into enforcing the creation of an Amityville that they could all be proud of. An Amityville where everyone was safe, happy, and free to pursue everything they wanted.

She came from a clan where individuality was not particularly celebrated. Tradition was king there, and there was little room for improvement on old laws, which was frustrating beyond words at times. So when the opportunity to go to school and immerse herself in a different world arose, she couldn't say no; here was a promising, gleaming gateway to the very iteration of everything she could imagine. A new world where she could make a difference, if she really tried.

And that's what she set out to do. Amityville brought friends, enemies, bullies, weaklings, and everything in between. They all had their own value, and she really appreciated them, fascinated by their inherent ability to express themselves. It didn't take long for the students around her to unknowingly encourage her own growth, enabling her to break free of the only mold that she'd ever been presented with.

She cut her hair. She got new clothes. She shortened her name. And she learned to speak up and take instead of waiting for everything to be granted to her. The passive, uniform lifestyle that once left her itching and eager was gone, and Taru never looked back.

It was only a week before graduation when she finally sat down to work through her plans, Bee curled up against one of her tails for a nap. Notebooks, drawings, and papers all spread among her, she began to draft an idea. Something that could really change everything, if she could only get enough creaturepower behind the idea. If she could convince others to support her, she could grant fulfillment to everyone who couldn't fight to get them all by themselves. For the weak, for the frightened, for those still trapped in a life that wasn't their own.

Her plans were simple: a budding organization where others were encouraged to meet with her and work through all of their individual problems. They would grow as a collective, feed off of the strength and excitement of one another, and take that optimism inward to unlock power that they may once have struggled to use for their own advantage.

They were simple dreams, but sometimes, that was all it took.

It all seemed so stupid now. No ounce of any optimism or positivity or self-esteem would get her out of this. If she'd listened to her family, if she'd learned to fight, if she'd only been more practical.

She didn't speak when she awoke. She opened her eye for just a brief moment, enough to realize that she was still not going home, and closed it again, admitting defeat. Acknowledging that she was in far over her head here. Not that doing so had done her any good before, when she'd tried to recruit the help of the professor. ******** Quibble. It taunted her, knowing that he failed them, that he hadn't shown up. Maybe if she had stuck to her own methods, maybe if she never faltered in her mentality that everything could be achieved when fighting for yourself...

There were voices, and Taru was sure that they were speaking about her. They never seemed to talk to her directly, just exchange after exchange as if she were not even there. With a deep exhale, she told herself that there was no point in speaking up now. There wasn't any reason to fight anymore.

Maybe they knew she was giving up. It was only a brief moment between the time when the voices stopped and the searing pain, accompanied by a sensory surge. She heard everything, saw everything, smelled everything, all of it was just too much--

Bee danced around her ankles, eager for her to throw the stick again. Only few days had passed since the day that she decided to change, and the cerbpuppy still required a lot of encouragement and reassurance that she had no plans to write him out of her life. That look of shock he'd given her when she first walked into her room with short hair still brought a smile to her face; the poor pup was so concerned that Taru was gone and never coming back that he gave her that look on and off all night until he finally understood.

That night, she spoke her ideas aloud for the first time, her voice coaxing her pet to sleep. Lazily scratching his fur, she mused her way through the creation of something that she could be proud of. She kissed his noses and promised that he would be proud that she'd found something to fight for.

The emptiness came all at once.

She had fought. And she'd failed.