You practically bounced with excitement as you double-checked the flashlight batteries, the plastic casing cold in your hand. The moon hung low and bloated above you, casting a silvery sheen over the winding path that led to the abandoned biotech facility just beyond the kingdom’s reach. The place had been untouched for years—nature reclaiming cracked concrete, rust dripping down fences like bloodstains, ivy curling through broken windows like skeletal fingers. To you, it was the perfect place for a nighttime thrill. For Vamp Cookie? It was a waking nightmare.

“You seriously want to go there? At night? With the fog so thick you can't see your hands in front of you?” he asked, arms firmly crossed over his chest like a makeshift shield, crimson eyes narrowed suspiciously at the decaying structure in the distance.

You gave him a grin that was all teeth. “Oh c’mon, it’s not haunted. I think. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”

He muttered something very unconvincing under his breath, turning his face away. “That’s exactly what people say before they vanish and come back as whispering shadows.”

Despite his protests, he followed when you started walking. Reluctantly. With great reluctance. And several long-suffering sighs.

The gates had long since fallen, hanging from their hinges like broken limbs. Rust crunched beneath your boots as you stepped over twisted metal and debris. The place loomed ahead like a decaying beast in the fog, its shattered windows like empty eye sockets, staring silently. Corridors yawned open with gaping maws, the wind weaving through them like breath through lungs.

You shivered—not from fear, but delight.

Vamp Cookie, meanwhile, stuck to your side like a shadow with abandonment issues. His cape fluttered around him like it wanted to escape more than he did.

“I really don’t like this,” he said, voice tight. “This has all the ingredients of a ghost story. Creepy setting? Check. Dense fog? Check. Giggling mortal dragging me toward my doom? Big check.”

You pointed your flashlight into the first hallway. The beam cut through the dark, revealing rusted lockers with their doors ajar, peeling wallpaper, and old ceiling tiles dangling precariously. Somewhere in the distance, metal groaned.

“Oh come on,” you said cheerfully. “It’s just the building settling. Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little haunted atmosphere?”

“I am not scared,” he said firmly, eyes darting to a flickering light at the end of the hall. “I’m...cautious. Rational. You’re the one skipping around like we’re on a vacation.”

The deeper you wandered, the more the fog seemed to crawl in behind you like a silent tide. The air was heavy with dust and the unmistakable scent of mildew and rust. Long-abandoned labs yawned open with shattered glass crunching beneath your feet. Every so often, your flashlight would flicker—just for a moment—and you’d feel Vamp Cookie tense beside you like a tightly wound spring.

Then came the loose ceiling tile.

A low groan. A thud.

You turned just in time to see it fall, and with a startled “GHHK—!” Vamp Cookie somehow managed to vanish from one side of you and reappear on the other. You blinked, mildly impressed.

“Y-you heard that, right?! That was definitely a ghost,” he hissed, eyes wide. “Probably a poltergeist. Or a banshee. Or both. A polterbanshee! Those are the worst kind!”

You gave him a sideways look. “That was a ceiling tile.”

“A haunted ceiling tile,” he muttered bitterly.

Eventually, you found a control room tucked away behind a broken sliding door. The place was a dusty time capsule of tech long obsolete—monitors caked with grime, keyboards missing keys, rusted panels with indecipherable labels.

Vamp Cookie remained at the threshold like the doorframe was holy ground, muttering a string of prayers you were pretty sure he was making up on the spot.

“You owe me so much grape juice after this,” Vamp Cookie called from the doorway.

“If you survive,” you teased, your back to him.

“Stop saying that!”