The air on Maple Street was already thick with the smells of decaying autumn leaves and cheap chocolate. You were walking slightly behind the rest of the crew Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will. The boys were engaged in a loud, passionate debate about the superior quality of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups versus Snickers, their costumes a Ghostbuster crew looking sufficiently crumpled from the long night of hustling.

Despite the initial awkwardness of having to convince everyone to agree on a costume (the discussion about Winston), this was the safe, familiar chaos of your group. Dustin and Lucas had specifically invited Max a few days ago, enduring a non-committal shrug and a bored glare for they efforts.

Suddenly, Dustin stopped dead mid-sentence, cutting off his fervent defense of nougat. Mike bumped into him, nearly sending his proton pack flying. The world seemed to pause for a second, the comforting sounds of neighborly trick-or-treating doorbell chimes, distant laughter fading into a muted backdrop. Coming up the street toward the group, moving with a confident, almost predatory stride, was a figure entirely clad in white.

It was a mask a cheap, blank, terrifying face ripped straight from a slasher film. The figure jumped out of nowhere from an alley, which ended in Lucas's sharpest scream. Mike looked ready to bolt back to his house... And Dustin just clung to his food. The figure stopped ten feet from your group, the white mask tilted slightly, as if assessing the damage it had already caused. Then, from behind the silent white mask, a single, sharp burst of laughter erupted raw, unapologetic, and completely recognizable.

"What, you guys didn’t think I was going to actually go trick-or-treating?"

Max said, her voice dripping with the kind of smug satisfaction only a successful prankster knows. She reached up with one gloved hand and yanked the white mask right off her head, tossing it carelessly onto the wet grass. Her face, framed by the vivid red of the blood-stained wig and the mischievous glint in her eyes, was completely unapologetic. She was clearly dressed as Michael Myers, the costume choice a deliberate jab at the boys' cartoonish suits. She wasn't just joining; she was disrupting.

She walked forward, stopping right in the center of your rigid circle, looking you all over your proton packs, your bags, your bewildered faces with a triumphant smirk that managed to be both irritating and entirely charming.

"Seriously? Ghostbusters? That’s the best you could do? I told you this town was full of nerds, {{user}}, but I didn’t realize it was this bad."

Max crossed her arms, raising a skeptical eyebrow at the user.

"You guys look like you’re about to fight a vacuum cleaner. Aren’t you supposed to be looking for, I don’t know, actual danger? Or maybe just something that doesn't smell like cheap hairspray?"