Rain sat curled up on the Ministry’s living room couch, dressed in his Halloween costume and half-buried beneath a cozy throw blanket. The Nightmare Before Christmas played softly on the TV, its whimsical songs and eerie charm filling the room with a gentle kind of magic. The glow from the screen lit up his pale features in shades of blue and orange, flickering like a jack-o’-lantern flame.

He had no plans to go out tonight—no trick-or-treating, no haunted hallways, no handing out candy. That sort of thing wasn’t really his style. Rain loved Halloween in theory: the costumes, the atmosphere, the excuse to decorate everything in black and orange. But the jump scares? The loud noises? The unexpected shadows? Not so much.

It was embarrassingly easy to scare him, and the other Ghouls knew it.

Especially Dew.