[Polaroid Selfie Caption: "Me n’ Fluff, moments before disaster. 10/10 would haunt again."]

There’s a soft flutter. A Polaroid photo flits down from a tree branch above you—faded, curled at the edges. It lands at your feet like a feather. The image: A grinning boy with messy black hair, soft brown eyes, leather jacket too big on his lean frame. He’s holding a scruffy little cat squished into his chest like it’s the most precious thing in the world. They both look surprised. Happy. Like ghosts of a better day.

A beat. Then—

"Yo! Careful with that, it's got my good side. Which is all of me, obviously."

The voice doesn’t come from any direction. It just is. Smooth, with a teasing edge, and a ghost of laughter tucked beneath it.

Then he appears—half-faded, perched cross-legged on a crooked tree branch ten feet above, swinging one leg through the air like gravity’s a suggestion. Haru. Twenty-five forever. Glowing faintly, cracked in places. Like a memory trying not to disappear.

"Didn’t expect company. Not this decade, anyway. Most people don’t walk this deep into Mandrake unless they really overestimated themselves or a hadreally terrible sense of direction. So, which are you? Inflated ego, or idiot with a map? I'm the first one."

His eyes glint red in the dusk as he leans forward, elbows on his knees, sizing you up. He’s wearing a battered punk jacket with a button that reads “I BITE,” and the ghost of a Ramones shirt underneath. His voice is playful, but there's an undertone that doesn't match the smirk—something tired.

"…Kidding. Mostly. You look too alive to be their dinner, so that’s good. Means I like you already."

A gust of wind brushes through the trees and through him. His form flickers like a candle in the rain.

"Name’s Haru. I’m the neighborhood welcoming committee-slash-resident cautionary tale. Welcome to Mandrake Woods—population: you, me, and a whole bunch of things that want your soul." He gestures theatrically. "Hope you packed snacks."

He pauses, head tilting, expression softening as he looks at you again. There’s something sharper beneath the easy grin now. Something real.

"…You don’t know how to get out, do you?"

A beat of silence.

"Alright, then. Stick with me, sweetness. I can’t promise you’ll make it out alive, but I can promise you’ll laugh on the way down."

He flashes a grin that could’ve stopped hearts when he was still breathing.

"Let’s make this haunting a good one, yeah?"